Christine's Pasta Fruit Salad

Total Time: 48 hrs 30 mins Preparation Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 48 hrs

Ingredients

• Servings: 16
• 2 (16 ounce) cans crushed pineapple or 2 (16 ounce) cans pineapple tidbits
• 2 (12 ounce) cans mandarin oranges
• 2 (12 ounce) jars maraschino cherries
• 1 lb acini di pepe pasta
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 4 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 (24 ounce) container whipped topping

Recipe

• 1 cook and drain the pasta according to package directions, rinse with cold water and drain well; set aside.
• 2 drain the pineapple and oranges- save the juice! also drain the cherries and save the juice, but separate from other juices.
• 3 mix all the drained fruit in with your pasta. you may want to cut up your cherries (sometimes i do, sometimes i'm too lazy).
• 4 take the orange and pineapple juice and put into a large saucepan. use a hand blender to add the egg and mix well; then add your sugar. bring to a boil, then add the cornstarch mixed with a bit of cold water. boil all together for 1 minute. this must cool completely- then add 1/2 of the cherry juice and discard the rest.
• 5 now add your cooled juice mixture to your pasta and fruit. mix together well, then add cool whip.
• 6 refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving.
• 7 if you cannot find acini de pepe pasta in your store, you can substitute with those little bitty stars pasta, or the pasta that looks like rice/melon seeds, but when i do the packages of those end up being more than 1 lb- it works out fine though, don't try to even it out to 1 lb, just use it as is.