Friday Friend Recipe #131 -- Gina's Cheating Sauce (Spaghetti Sauce #9)

Friday Friend Recipe #131--Gina's Cheating  Sauce

Making my way thru my Friday Friend Cookbook, one recipe at a time.

What is the Friday Friend cookbook: I have about 50 of my closest friends and family on an e-mail forum which I called the Friday Friends (from all over the county). At first, most of them didn't know each other, (they knew me) but over the past 18 years, we've answered and shared silly--and serious---questions, exchanged Secret Santa Christmas gifts, had a dieting contest in which we paid a $1 a week and that money went to a scholarship fund for a Friday Friends son's memorial scholarship, and we went on a great vacation for my 52 birthday.

 

AND, we contributed recipes for a cookbook.

 

I was looking at the cookbook the other night and I said, "I should make every recipe in here for my blog."
The Handyman--who knows me better than I know myself (this happened to be a question on the Friday Friend forum once---does your spouse/partner know you better than you know yourself?)--said,  "you'll never, EVER do that."
WELL---maybe I'll show him!  Maybe I will.

 

Which brings me to this... recipe #131

 

Gina's

Cheating Sauce

Gina is a great cook! GREAT, I tell you! And this sauce is mostly homemade--the title comes from Gina's comment in the parenthesis in her recipe.  She really is not a 'cheater'.

I was just a tad bit unclear -- this is how I made the sauce-- I made a meat sauce with all her ingredients, AND I added meatballs in the sauce.  It really was a good spaghetti sauce!

This is Gina's 1st--FIRST--appearance in the Friday Friend Cookbook Countdown (I keep finding these friends who hid out by only turning in 1 or 2 recipes) altho I do have her tagged in four other blog posts. I guess I don't think of her as a new one in the countdown--she's in my cooking/dinner club, and she's also a "Winnemucca Bird Nerd Herd" member, if you'd like to see other posts with Gina in them, click on this!

I have agonized over which story about Gina I should tell, because I feel that this might be her only recipe in the cookbook--and I can't go on for pages and pages (even tho I like to do that sometimes), so....I'm going to tell you about Gina's man, Mark.

Gina got married in her mid 30's.  She was much sought after, of course, but she had high standards. (and she had a group of 7 friends whom any man she dated had to be approved of by...it was a tuff crowd)

One morning, 14 years ago, after a blind date, April and I stopped by her house to have some coffee and we said,  "Well?  Do tell!"

Gina smiled and said, "he was a really nice guy, but we have nothing in common at all.  He's an adventurer.  He's an extreme sportsman! He climbs mountains and rides motorcycles and sky dives. Nothing in common. At. All.  He'll never call me back"

Then 13 years ago, this happened:

Gina's getting.... 

To that same guy who was 'nice' but would 'never call her back'.

I guess he did.

Call her back.

He called her back and then---he had to get approval from all of us!

So fourteen  years have come and gone...

And our adventurer Mark, has stolen  more than Gina's heart, he took her more 'spectator personality' and turned her into a 'semi-adventurer'!

She used to be a 'cheerleader' on the sidelines with us, but now she is running races, hiking mountains, riding motorcycles and snowmobiles. And having the ride of her life!

It  took  just one look--

That's my Gina Story--- I have tons more. We'll see if more recipes pop up from her.

And that is recipe #131

167 to go!

Saturday Snapshot and This and That

 

 

Besides cooking, reading, blogging and going for walks, I love to write letters-- real old-fashioned Snail Mail letters.

I sent my friend Jean a letter a while back and she told me that she was suspicious when she got it (she lives in town).. she said she thought, oh no, she wants something!  And then she proceeded to tell me what a gift it was to get a letter.

I cannot be humble here--it really is a gift.

I don't mean that everyone who gets a letter from me receives a gift, but I mean, when I get one from them!!

 

I do love to write them too.  I can't explain all the reasons why, it's just weird.

It's weird, but I love it.

Okay, not weird, but old-fashioned?

(the weird part is writing to people who live in the same town perhaps)

(and yet...it isn't)

 

My friend Gina, sent me this cool letter D cut out of a Reader's Digest condensed book, that she found it in a gift store.

I LOVE THE D!

But most of all I loved the letter she sent with it and  how she shared with me a bit about her love for reading.

We share that, as only true readers really can. It's kind of unspoken, our book understanding.

Her letter also spoke of her love for her mom...without her saying those exact words.

It's just  a feeling that comes thru when she talks about her mom's love of reading.

 

I've been meaning to tell her thank you.

It means so much to me.

 

And...isn't it the coolest D?

 

 

 

I'm sharing with Saturday Snapshot.

Trying to find a place for my D.

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by

West Metro Mommy Reads!

Cooking Club

WE DID IT!!

We finally started The Cooking Club!

You might think it just looks like a normal dinner party, 

BUT

It is not.

It's our Cooking Club.

I tried to get everyone's attention to take a photo....

April's eyes are closed (sorry April), and I caught Debbie mid-bite (sorry Debbie) but at least every one is looking my way.

Everyone but the Handyman, that is.

(He's busy buttering his bread or something.  He must eat, has no time for photos)

 

 I picked my best cooking friends and we had a great time!

Gina and Sally

 Debbie and April

There is no picture of me.  Maybe next time.

This is what we did --- 

we drew names for a dish.

for example:   appetizer, salad, side, main dish and dessert.

And then we decided on a theme.

Tonight's theme was: cooking like mama used to do.

You had to make a dish that your mother used to make.  

Then you had to come talk about it and 'justify' it if need be.

We had so much fun talking about the dishes our mom's used to make.  Even the guys got into it, they started telling stories of  mom's cooking and food memories when they were growing up. 

Gina brought her mom's old recipe box.

It was fun to see the old typed ones?  It seems we all have some that were typed on note-cards. As well as all those hastily written on the backs of envelopes and stuff.

And you notice the 'old momish' type of appetizers?  Stuffed celery and olives and gherkins? 

Those were from Debbie E. she even served them in her mother's old serving dishes.

 I should have taken a photo of everyone's dish, but I didn't.

(what was I thinking???)

But our menu for our Mom's Cooking Theme was:

Stuffed celery/olives/pickles-- Debbie E

Mini Meatloves -- me

Vegetable Salad-- Gina

Scalloped potatoes-- Sally

Cream Cheese Brownies -- April

Just like our mom's used to make!!

Oh...and I put the type of bread on the table like my mom use to:

white bread slices on a plate!

(Sally's husband Paul was very excited about that! )

At the end of the evening, we drew from a hat  (Okay it was a basket-- that basket on the table there) and our theme for next time is

Cajun Cooking!

And I just happened to have a cookbook I got out for everyone to look thru.

 (see that book shelf in the background --- those are all cookbooks.  I have a problem)

I can't wait till next time!!

We talked food, and our moms and books and birds and food!

I am going to link up with Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads!

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend.

Birding Weekend

Last year, while birding, we were discussing  collective nouns and how funny they are.  Especially when it comes to the animal kingdom/birds.

A Murder of Crows?

A Gaggle of Geese?

  A Hedge of Herons?

An Exaltation of Larks?

We got a kick out of them all.

So this year, our friend Jolina (fellow bird nerd extraordinaire!  and apparently an artist too)  made these shirts for us.  (T shirts with this drawing on them)

She drew the Quail.  

We see them in our backyards around here every day. 

We love them.

They are our backyard birds.  (even tho they are California Quail, we here in Northern Nevada claim them as our own)

And in this drawing she put collective nouns of some of our favorite birds.

Plus... a collective noun to describe us:

A Gamble of Nevadans. 

[oops!!  This just in from Jolina:]

Hey Debbie - our collective noun is "gambol of Nevadans" which I was worried that I'd misspelled it - but I had copied it from the book!!  But the definition of gambol is "to leap about playfully; frolic"

Yup, that's what we do. 

It is beautiful! 

We will treasure it always!

At one of the dinners on our birding weekend, a woman asked here she could buy our shirts.

Jolina won't sell them... but she could.

We LOVE our Quail bird nerd herd shirts!!!

And now, a few pictures from our birding weekend.

and then later, a recap on it . 

We saw  10,000 geese.

These are Ross's Geese.  

With a few Snow Geese mixed in.

On their way back to Canada.

The Sandhill Cranes are flying in.

This would be the "lesser' Sandhill Crane, because the 'greater' is not at the peak of their migration. 

????

Birding British Style!

Our tour guide, Duncan.

He served us tea (with milk) and toast with Marmite.  (he's a big fan...as I'm sure you can tell)

YES,  you can really find birds here.  Lots of them!!

And here too!

a familiar sight---every year on all my birding trips with these girls!

Very familiar.

I almost forgot the Pintail!!  Duck that is.

Isn't he beautiful?   Photo taken by our friend Gina's husband, Mark.  

He has a great scope and camera lens.

My birding weekend

This is where I live.....

The wild, wild west.  NO kidding.  Remember the TV show Bonanza?  Filmed just a couple of hours from here.  And the Ponderosa was open for tourists up until a few years ago.  (sigh.....)
But, back to me.... Nevada is a puzzle.  Because I was standing in the same exact place in the road when I took this picture above...then turned around  180 degrees and took this:

It was a grove of trees!!
see the baby owlet?  It's a Great Horned Owl, owlet.

I don't exactly live here,  right in this exact spot where the picture was taken, but this is  still in Northern Nevada, just a mere two hours from my house.    Who knew that  the dry  'high desert'  is a stopping point for so many species of migratory birds?  Not me!  Not until I discovered bird watching a few years ago and started attending the Spring  Wings Festival with my friends.

The Spring Wings Birding and Outdoor Festival celebrates International Migratory Bird Day, as well as the return of thousands of migrating songbirds, shorebirds, raptors and waterfowl to the Lahontan Valley.

THOUSANDS!  That's a  lot of birds!!  Altho, this year  was a lot dryer than it was last year, so while we saw over  45 different species of birds, we didn't see the concentration of them like we did last year.  We had a great time, we laughed a lot and ate too much and  spent time in the hot Nevada Sun,  I got pulled over by a policeman (no comment.  But I didn't get a ticket),  ate more, shopped a little, and as always, found a bird or two we hadn't seen before.

I'm going to share a few of my pictures tonight, and then write up another 'birding' post to share in a couple of days.

These are some old  (and maybe young) coots taking off from the water.  I know a coot, isn't technically a duck, but to me it is.  They look exactly like Daffy Duck! 

They work really hard to take off  from the water.  I love watching them.  It's almost like they can't make it, they flap and run and flap and run and then.....FLIGHT!

A bird...NOT, a duck or a water fowl.  A Yellow-Headed blackbird.

This workshop was a class on how to photograph wildlife.....

and the cows were as wild as anything I came upon.
(I kinda like cows for some reason)

In other news....I just thought this shot was funny....the first thing we all did when we got out of the van, was set up our cameras on our tripods.

This guy flew overhead during our photography workshop.  They really are a pretty bird.
The Pelican

and I just liked the reflection of the russion olive trees/bushes in the water

and finally, before I hit the sack.... a picture of

my friends!

Bird Nerds.

Taste of Home Cooking School

A Taste of Home

I have been a bad blogger lately. I could list the reasons why, but....... does anybody really care? You just care that I'm back (kind of) don't you?

Still...things are crazy at work, so this is just a short recap and pictures of our "Taste of Home" evening.

We had fun. That is the short of it.
We drove to Elko, in the afternoon, and checked into our motel and then went to the convention center and registered for the show. We got a great little "goodie bag" when we registered. It had all kinds of neat treats and coupons and samples in it.

There were vendors and food booths. And food booths and vendors.

The radio station who sponsored it, had the restaurants in town, serve us.... a buffet!!!
There was salmon and pork and pasta and beef and seafood!
All of it was included in the $7.00 fee for the show. We ate Great!!!

For anyone who gets the "Taste of Home" magazine, you would have loved it. Even for those who didn't get the magazine, it was tons of fun.
She made about 10 dishes from the "fall" magazine, and we all followed along as she went. there was a great camera showing her moves and instructions that showed on a big screen behind her.

We had a really fun evening.....
and....again...not much blog here...
but, some photos.....


Those who went...
(I'm in there somewhere---first photo. And don't forget...the camera adds, 10, no 20...NO 30 pounds!!)

The Buffet before the beginning of the show. I couldn't believe that I was the only one with a camera. And I don't mean, just from my group. I saw no one taking pictures, so I felt a little awkward.


Some of us "won" potholders.
(not me)
At the beginning of the show, they had the audience shout 'BRING OUT THE POTHOLDERS'
and boy did they! they had a huge stack or two, which they tossed out into the audience.
Gina, Mitzi and Julie won a potholder!!

The stage as we saw it.... you can see the big screen there. So we saw our teacher/cook and then we saw what she was doing on the screen.

I recommend that everyone should go to a "Taste of Home" show if they can.
It was fun.