Friday Friend Recipes #199 and #200 -- Hash Brown Casserole and Aunt Barbara's Fruit Salad

Come with me as I continue to countdown my Friday Friend Cookbook!

What is it, you may ask?

In a nutshell...
About 19 years ago, 50 of my closest friends and family, who had been on an e-mail forum with me, sent in recipes in different categories and we compiled a cookbook.
I decided to count those down!
Why?

Because  one night I was looking thru the cookbook and I said, "I should make every recipe in here for my blog"
The Handyman--who thinks he knows me better than I know myself, said,  "you'll never EVER do that."
Well,  maybe I will!  Maybe I'll show him!

Which brings me to recipes #199 and #200

Barb's Hash Brown Casserole and Aunt Barbara's Fruit Salad

You might notice that the hash browns are right beside my raspberry Jell-O from the previous blog post.  

When I go on a cooking bender--I do Friday Friend Countdown recipes!

I may not always cook, but when I do, I cook Friday Friend Food!

This is cheesy and delicious! With a little teeny crunch on top

 (this happens when it stays in the oven a bit longer than it should to accommodate other dishes that need to be baked)

Hash Brown Casserole

Barbara Brown

1 1/2 cup chopped onion

3 T. flour

1/2 t. dry mustard

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar

3/4 cup shredded swiss

1/2 t. pepper

1 cup sour cream

1 32oz pkg frozen hash browns (thawed)

paprika

Heat oven to 350.  Spray 9x13 dish with Pam.  Sauté onion in a little butter till tender.  Add flour, mustard and salt; cook 1 min.  Remove from heat. Gradually add milk and broth till blended. Cook till thickened, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat; add cheeses and pepper, stirring until melted. Stir in sour cream. Combine cheese mixture and potatoes. Stir well.  Spoon into baking dish. Cover with foil and bake for 35 minutes. Uncover and bake another 35 to 40 minutes.

And moving on to Aunt Barbara's Fruit Salad---I think maraschino cherries are so pretty, so I had to include this picture.

Lately I've been posting 2 of Barb's recipes together (because otherwise we'd be here forever!) but that doesn't mean that I've cooked them and served them at the same time.

The Hash Brown Casserole I made for a women's luncheon and this salad we just had at home for dinner one night.

Dinner or Supper? 

What is it for you?

That is the question.

I would consider this lovely salad a--dessert salad.

Which of course, so many were in the 70's and 80's.

And they were good!  

You just have to be very cautious when  someone offers to bring a 'salad' to dinner and you are expecting a green salad to go with the meal you planned and you get...  a lovely dessert salad instead.

(this has happened to me)

This is Barb's 49th time in the FF Cookbook countdown and her 3rd dessert or Jell-O Salad.

This one is one of the best!

This recipe here is...wait for it....

the

200th in the countdown!!

Two-Hundred!

I say YAY me for my stick-to-it-ness!

Are you a sports fan?

I love the idea of being a sports fan.  

The Brown family--seen below, except for that strange guy on the far left--are huge sports fans.

Here they are at the Arizona Diamond Backs game earlier this spring.

from left to right:

some random guy photo bombing the photo.

Barb's son-in-law, Garrett

Barb's husband Doug, who's sticking out his tongue for some reason

Barb

Barb's daughter Kim

Speaking of photo bombing--- in both photos, Barb is holding Doug's hand down.  Like she is afraid it would do what? 

We'll never know because Barb is not letting go! No way!

*when I asked Barb about Doug's hand--she said: you never know with Doug, better to be safe than sorry.

That's all I got!

Recipe #200 is done!

I'm a little more than halfway done.

Friday Friend Recipe #188 - Quiche Lorraine

Come with me as I continue to countdown my Friday Friend Cookbook!

What is it, you may ask?

In a nutshell...
About 19 years ago, 50 of my closest friends and family, who had been on an e-mail forum with me, sent in recipes in different categories and we compiled a cookbook.
I decided to count those down!
Why?

Because  one night I was looking thru the cookbook and I said, "I should make every recipe in here for my blog"
The Handyman--who thinks he knows me better than I know myself, said,  "you'll never EVER do that."
Well,  maybe I will!  Maybe I'll show him!

Which brings me to recipe #188

Ashley's Quiche Lorraine

Sunday morning breakfast on the patio.

Quiche and a fruit salad and coffee.

Bacon, Swiss cheese and onions mingle in perfect harmony amidst the eggs and cream in this timeless classic.

This is Ashley and this is her 6th recipe in the Friday Friend Cookbook Countdown.

Check out all of her recipes here (just click)

click here

Before there was blogging--or before I learned about blogging anyway-- I would print out all the Friday Friend forum correspondence and put them in binders.  Years after we stopped doing this forum I have still have it all in notebooks

(I should probably toss them, but it is so fun at times like this). 

I would usually start a theme for the week or ask a question or two and then let the conversation begin. 

There were approximately 50 of my closest friends and family -- 15 of these were great answerers and 15 were occasional answerers.  The others were sporadic.

Ashley was one of those.

For instance, I looked thru 2 big notebooks this morning trying to find an answer or some dialog that Ashley contributed.

I came across this (after skimming the notebooks for 2 hours)

She what she says in the middle of the page --  Dr. Pepper is her 'soda' of choice.

That's it -- no story.

NO story!!

She likes Dr. Pepper.

And Winnie the Pooh.

She also started the Totally Lit Book Club that I'm in.  Of course it was just called book club 18 years ago -- we added the TOTALLY LIT, about 10 years ago.

( some of them below--organizing themselves as I make them get their picture taken  )

April and I are the only original members left, we've had people come and go, but they go because they move away.  Ashley and I share a good friend, Betty, who she invited to join the book club at the very beginning--18 years ago-- and she never did -- until last summer!  I'm so happy to have her!

We all ran into each other last summer at The Griddle and I whipped out my phone to take a picture--thank goodness, as I am running out of photos of her.

By the way, she didn't have Dr. Pepper in her glass....

And that my friends is FF Recipe #188--Ashley's Quiche Lorraine

Friday Friend Recipe #110--Grandma's Orange Salad

My Friday Friend Cookbook Countdown #110!

(#willreallyfinishthissomeday)

Tomi's Grandma's Orange Salad

and you know all the whys and wherefores of this countdown, right? Homemade cookbook, friends contributed, Handyman said I couldn't/wouldn't do it, I'll show him, yadda yadda yadda....

Grandma's Orange Salad

Tomi Pingree

Kaysville, UT

1 11oz can mandarin oranges

1 8oz can crushed pineapple

water

1 6oz pkg orange jello

1 pint softened orange sherbet

2 med. firm bananas sliced

Drain fruit, reserving juices. Set fruit aside. Add water to juices to measure 2 cups. Bring to a boil in saucepan; pour over jello in large bowl.  Stir until dissolved. Stir in sherbet till smooth. Chill until partially set. Fold in 3 fruits.  Pour into a 6 cup mold coated with non-stick cooking spray. Chill till firm.

(Tomi usually just puts it into a pretty bowl rather than using a mold)

**And I added cool whip into the mixture

And now to my Tomi story.  This is her 4th appearance in the Friday Friend Cookbook (you can see all her recipes here)

As I've mentioned before, Tomi and I would spend endless hours, first, exercising to Richard Simmons (remember the days of Richard Simmons Never say Diet?) and then talk about food and what we were cooking, while our 6 kids ran amuck.   They didn't really run amuck, and a couple of them were in school, so we probably only had 4 kids running amuck at the time.

We were able to catch up and have lunch this summer.   A 3-hour lunch was NOT ENOUGH TIME!

When I look thru the Friday Friend Notebooks, I find that Tomi  didn't answer a lot -- she said she always answered in her head, but when it came to putting it to paper, she thought it sounded weird.

For the record--it didn't.  But she is a thinker, unlike me, who is a bluter-outer and just write down whatever comes out of my mouth!

Like this:

One time, a long time ago, about 29 years ago to be exact, the Handyman and I decided to go camping for a few days with our boys, and to do a bit of hiking.

Lamoille Canyon, a beautiful place in Northern Nevada, was only about 30 miles from our home, and they have some really nice high lakes and we thought we would hike a couple of those and just sit around a campfire in the evenings (at our basecamp--these are day hikes for us) and relax,  and you know, get away from people.

So one evening we are sitting in our campground and we see a car driving up the road.  Now there are tons of empty camping/picnicking spots around--TONS.  But this car pulls up right to the one next to us.

This was me:

Seriously?

I can't believe it?

Really?  Right next to us?

I don't want to have to make nice chit-chat with some weirdos.  Don't they know? You don't crowd people!!

What the hell?!

The car pulls up, the people start pulling a cooler and camp chairs out of their trunk, they don't really notice us-- I mean, of course publicly recognize and give greeting to-- and all of the sudden I notice it's Tomi and Stuart and their kids.

I shout:

What are you doing? Following us?

Then of course, there was laughter all around (thank God, she hadn't heard me complain about them, before I knew who they were!) and she said,  "We just wanted to get up in the trees where it's cooler, for a little cookout.  It's been so hot in town!!"

They didn't know we were up there camping! And she just wanted her favorite spot--weird people (us) be damned!

So, we ended up having a cookout together!

Now, let me ask you something.

When you go to a campground and use the public grill, so you cover it with foil before grilling your food, OR do you light a big fire and think/pray that the fire kills all the 'stuff' on the grill?

To be honest, I was young and had never really thought about it, AND the Handyman does all grilling--he never covers the grill just burns it all off (and home he brushes and cleans it of course, but out in the wild, naw,  he just burns the crap out of the grill).

Tomi had her foil and covered the grill.

A lesson learned Handyman!

Remember, the camera adds 10 lbs! 

Although Tomi looks great!

Photos courtesy of my granddaughter Cassandra!

After a pizza lunch we went to the park so my grandkids could run amuck just like our kids used to do.

(this lunch took place during the infamous July 2016, when I had grandkids for on solid month)