Cookbook Countdown #73 -- Jello for Company (Seriously!!) and FF appendix #5

Cookbook Countdown #73

 --  In my own personal Cookbook Countdown!

A very slow countdown it is -- and

 FF Appendix #5 (those recipes which should have been in the Friday Friend Cookbook, but weren't)

If you want to see All of my 73 cookbooks, just click on this link.

And I know -- I KNOW, I should be ashamed to be sharing Jello with you.  

But--- I'm not.

I think it's too funny to pass up.

An old mid-western, church cookbook, given to me by a friend, that includes Jell-O recipes.

How to make Jell-O.

This makes me  'fall off my chair laughing' -- directions on how to make the 

Jell-O.

In a cookbook.

This is good for Sunday night supper when company drops in?

Who the heck drops in anymore, without calling first?

And --  Jello?  Is great for company?

I'm not saying that I'm opposed to Jello, it's just.... funny to me.

This is plain jell-o.  Not even pretzel jell-o salad or something.

Here is my copy of Lutheran Church Basement Women.

My friend Debbie E, gave it to me, after she took a train trip to the mid-west.

Why, you might be wondering as to why  I want to include this in the FF Appendix?

Well, because it includes the stories of two of my Friday Friends!

I KNOW that Jell-O is not 'their' recipe, although they could have very well written down those directions and added them to any cookbook too.

I figure since my goal as a part-time food blogger is only to

1) make one recipe out of every cookbook I own and to blog about it

2) make every, SINGLE, recipe in a cookbook my friends and I put together, called The Friday Friend Cookbook,  I can do whatever I want and I want to include them in this post, and include this story in the FF Appendix.

(which really doesn't exist except in tags on this blog.  I just want to make my FF editor Barbara Brown a bit nervous, thinking she has to type a whole new cookbook)

In a nutshell--

It's more about friendship than authentic, original recipes!

So let me tell you how this began--

My favorite Minnesotan Friday Friend, Mitzi,  sent me a text a couple of weeks ago.

She said:  Look what I found in my grandma Edna's kitchen:

I said/texted:

Too funny!  I have one also!

I then asked if her's had  the coffee with an egg in it?

Sure enough!

Mine had fruit soup/sweet soup -- and on the same page Mitzi said it would be.

She wrote back:

Yep!  Prunes and raisins for craps sakes, doncha know!

(she really said that; doncha know, you betcha.  Cuz she's from Minnesota*)

(okay, she didn't really, but -- she might as well have-- she's from Minnesota*)

Minnesotans, at least Mitzi and Larry, do love it when friends 'drop in'.

She was even so gracious one time, when our friend April dropped in a day early for a dinner party.

Mitzi made them stay for the chili she was fixing.  At least April arrived with dessert in hand.

That is the ultimate in 'dropping by'.

And Mitzi never (okay, rarely ) says 'doncha know'. I just like writing that.

I have no intention of making the sweet soup any time soon, nor the coffee with egg in it.  

Jell-o is good enough for now.  It's good enough for company for craps sakes, doncha know!

I actually think the cookbook is funny and unique.  There are all kinds of poems and tips and there is even a 'ode' to jell-o.

You know you're a "mid-western" Lutheran Church Basement Woman if:

you have more than five flavors of Jell-O in your pantry.

your church library has three Jell-O cookbooks.

you think the four food groups are coffee, lefse, lutefisk, and Jell-O.

you think lime Jell-O with cottage cheese and pineapple is a gourmet salad.

you think the term "Jell-O salad" is redundant.

and so on...

So...

now I introduce you to Mitzi.

Mitzi and her husband hail from Minnesota, but lived in Nevada for over 20 years, before he retired and they moved back to Minnesota just last summer.

We are all still trying to recover from the rejection of her leaving us.

(sigh) We'll make it thru -- eventually.  I'm sure we will.

Mitzi is an outdoor girl!

Every summer for the  past 15 years or so, she and her husband would spend the summers in Minnesota fishing   (they are school teachers, doncha  know)

then they would return to Nevada and have a big fish fry for all of us.

I have blogged about this.

right here...there... right,  there...click there below!

Fish Fry!  Click here.

We loved the fish fry!  

Now who will fry fish for us?

We are going to be reduced to eating frozen tilapia.

And Debbie E, who started the whole thing by giving me the cookbook in the first place.

Seen here with her twin daughters, Katie and Kelsey.

We lived next door to each other for years.

The girls were 3 back then.

Where does 26 years go? 

Gone in a blink of an eye!

These little girls are going to be mother's soon.

One in March one in May.

Maybe Debbie and I will make Jell-O for our grandkids!

Now, there's an audience who will appreciate some Jell-O!

for all the recipes of 

Mitzi (click here)

and 

Debbie E (click here)

And thank you for hanging around for my 'ode' to friends.

I am including this in Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads.

As you know, It's Monday and I don't like to do that, BUT my computer was giving me trouble on the weekend.