I've had an idea: pasta fruit salad.

[Morbius]

It turns out people have been mixing fruit with pasta for years, I discovered as I started researching.

I wouldn't use mayonnaise.

Here's what I'm thinking right now:

1 lb strawberries, cut up into bite size pieces
2 lb clementines (aka "Cuties" ) peeled and sectioned
2 cans fruit cocktail, juice reserved
12 oz rotini, cooked, drained and rinsed with cold water
1 pkg cool whip

Mix the cool whip with the fruit cocktail juice; combine pasta with fruit, mix in whipped topping/juice mixture. Chill overnight. This is where I am right now; fresh melons are too hard to eat at the moment. Fresh pineapple is tempting but often too hard for the wife to eat (and typically ridiculous in cost). Maybe one can fruit cocktail and one can pineapple. Hmm. Hmm. Canned peaches?

Ideas? Am I crazy?

[Croney]

1. All that fruit and Cool Whip sound good, but

for me, pasta needs butter or sauce, and a little salt, and I can't picture it going well with fruit; it would just be bland. But I like your adventurous spirit!

[Warpy]

8. Not something I'd do, either

For one thing, wheat pasta, especially rotini, would tend to suck all the moisture out of it, rendering that Cool Whip weird, to say the least.

I might be tempted to mix this fruit and Cool Whip into a rice pudding to make a very fancy dessert for a crowd. Otherwise, I'd bake a sponge cake and pop that on top of the mixture. confectioner's sugar sprinkled over it, if I really needed to extend that fruit with a grain.

I'll pass on this one, thanks.

(Plus, I've only had Cool Whip once and thought it tasted like latex paint)

[LoisB]

2. Sounds refreshing. I think I would add the pineapple and eliminate the Cool Whip.

[Morbius]

4. Interesting.

I need some kind of sauce or dressing. I don't want it to be dry. The other idea I'm toying with is yogurt. I can buy a couple or three fruit yogurt and mix that with juice from the canned fruit.

[LoisB]

7. Yes, yes, yes to the yogurt. Wouldn't the juices from the fruit cocktail and the cuties keep it

from being "dry"? The yogurt is a great idea.

[leftieNanner]

3. Maybe add some fresh basil

But I would not use canned fruit cocktail.

[LauraInLA]

6. Or mint?

[Easterncedar]

5. Sounds like a Philippine recipe

[Morbius]

9. I made this.

1 lb strawberries
1 lb clementines
1 lb red grapes
12 tricolor rotini
2 strawberry Yoplait yogurt
2 strawberry/banana Yoplait yogurt
1/4 cup heavy cream

I decided to go with all fresh fruit, and I'm glad I did. I mixed the yogurt and cream in a separate bowl and then poured it over the salad. I don't have ready access to fresh herbs; I could buy them but I am reluctant to spend the money if I'm only going to use it on one dish. It was okay but it needed something. Boring, kinda. Points to the person above who recommended skipping the pasta entirely; my wife opined the dish would be better without pasta. Points also to the strong recommendation of using yogurt; it was absolutely the right call. I have a lot of this salad left, however.

I've decided to apply a rule I've determined over my half century of cooking: almost anything can be improved, or at least made more interesting, by adding one of three things: garlic, chocolate, or cheese (I call it the GCC rule). Chocolate chips would probably be great but I don't have them on hand and my daughter doesn't like chocolate chips anyway (I know, I'm a failure as a parent). I've decided to add some cheese. On hand, I have pepper jack, Monterey jack and sharp white cheddar. My wife doesn't care for spicy things, which rules out pepper jack. I'm trying to decide between the jack and the cheddar. Which one will pair with the sweet fruits. Flavor-wise, cream cheese would taste great but it's not firm enough. And I don't have it on hand anyway.

Thoughts?