This past Monday found me at our local nursing home, Maple Lawn, helping serve a salad luncheon to the staff who work there. The Pink Ladies, an organization that began over fifty years ago, organize this event every December to say thank you to the hard-working employees. About forty women belong to this volunteer group, and they assist with monthly events that give joy and companionship to the residents of the Maple Lawn facility.
The Pink Ladies were formed to promote the nursing home at the time of its beginning, and the tradition of caring and giving has just kept going on. There are twenty-two honorary members now, and many of the original founding members are now themselves residents of Maple Lawn. It is truly a volunteer opportunity right here in our community for a worthy cause. Do you like to spend time encouraging and joyfully serving older citizens of our local area? Then the Pink Ladies would welcome you to join the ranks of the active members!
This group meets monthly throughout the year, with members taking turns serving in various ways at Maple Lawn. Monthly birthday parties, Bingo nights, and visitation afternoons are some of the regular activities. The salad luncheon and serving lunch to the annual board meeting happen once a year. Some of the ladies who enjoy gardening work outside to beautify the grounds. Members do have dues of ten dollars yearly, plus pay five dollars for the activity schedule booklet. The monies collected are used for service projects at Maple Lawn also.
A couple of the salad recipes served on Monday were requested several times. One of them was published here about a year ago, but they asked if I would repeat it one more time. Both of these are pretty easy to put together, and both can be partially made ahead of the time of serving. Maybe you can use one or both for some of your holiday needs. Enjoy!!
Strawberry Pretzel Salad
2 cups crushed pretzels
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
Mix together. Put into a 9×13 pan. Bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Cool, crumble into pieces, and set aside.
Cream together:
8 oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
Add two containers of Cool Whip and 4 cups of fresh strawberries. Chill until time to serve.
** Mix the pretzels into the strawberry mixture just before serving.
Popcorn Salad
2 cans water chestnuts
1/2 cup onion, diced
2 cups Miracle Whip salad dressing
2/3 cups sugar
2 cups celery, chopped
2 cups cheddar cheese, grated
12 cups popcorn, popped ( You can use one, 6 ounce bag of Old Dutch popped corn)
1 pound bacon, cooked and broken into pieces
Combine everything EXCEPT popcorn and bacon. The mixture can be made ahead of time, even overnight. Chill. I used a large, tupperware bowl. Right before serving, add the popcorn and bacon pieces. (It is pretty if served in a glass bowl.)
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