Friday Friend Recipe #186 and #187 -- Oven Roasted Potatoes and Coconut Mandarin Bowl

My Friday Friend Cookbook Countdown #186 and #187!

(#willreallyfinishthissomeday)

Barb's Oven Roasted Potatoes and Coconut Mandarin Bowl

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....

...and the rest is cookbook history!

An extra bonus in  making these potatoes?  There is one packet left of onion seasoning so  you get to make onion dip!

The potatoes need no introduction - they are just good - we all know that.

I went out of the box tho and used red and white potatoes--not russets! 

Sometimes I am crazy like that...I go wild and no one can stop me.

And then we have the Coconut Mandarin Bowl!  I love fruit salads like these. No one else in my household does.  They remind me of growing up.  My mom would fix fruit salads with marshmallows and/or whipped cream and pudding and all kinds of 'extras'.   The Handyman's mother didn't.  She was a green salad, potato salad and macaroni salad kind of woman.  I'm sad to say, they missed out on so many good dessert salads such as this one.

These are Barbara Brown recipes.  I have lost count on how many she has in the countdown, but you can see all of them here! Just click.

Just Click

Barbara Brown!

She's the one who typed up the original Friday Friend Cookbook.  I asked for recipes to be turned in and I received.  Then I passed them on to Barb and she typed and typed and typed.

And typed.

This is what my copy of the original looks like today:

It is very well used and well loved.

Sometimes I find it hard to think of new stories to tell about my friends and family in the countdown, so sometimes I think I'll just give a fact or two. The trouble with this is that I feel I've given all the facts on Barb that I know.

The fact is-- she just celebrated a birthday, so I'll just call this a 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY 

Post

and say THANK YOU for starting this whole thing.

Here is Barb at her Happy Place: the Washington coast. She lives in Arizona but twice a year she spends 5-7 weeks at her son's beach house in Washington.  She takes her sewing machine and many books and has a wonderful time--alone for most of it.  Her son comes on weekends and her husband usually comes up for a 1 or 2 week vacation during her stay.

It's a FACT that Barb is happy, reading, drinking coffee on the deck, going for long walks on the beach and making quilts. I'm sure when her 'company' is there, she is also playing cards and board games.

And that's my story!

Two more recipes down and who knows how many more to go...

Friday Friend Recipe #185 -- Strawberry Spinach Salad

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... recipes #185

Georgann's Strawberry Spinach Salad

Salads are the hardest thing to take pictures of--EVER.

Pay no attention to Barb's name on top of the recipe---bad editing on my part. 

This is Georgann's salad!

I don't have many pictures of Georgann.  No cell phone 20ish years ago---man it's been that long since I worked along side her in the elementary school library.  Wow--time flies!

She sent me this one of herself and a couple grandchildren in a Christmas card a couple of years ago.

When we were working together, the school district sent all of the librarians and their aides to the California Young Readers Award Conference in Oakland, CA.  

The AIDES!!

It was glorious -- the best thing being that at dinner I was seated next to Zilpha Keatly Snyder. She is the author of 3 Newberry Books, but my very favorite was a book called The Changeling.

I loved that book and when I told her so... she said  "ahhh. You're one of those."  I wasn't sure what she meant, but I was so excited to be one of those!!  

I loved that book..... Ivy Carson belonged to the notorious Carson family, which lived in a run-down house in suburban Rosewood. But Ivy was not a typical Carson. There was something wonderful about her. Ivy explained it by saying that she was a changeling, a child of supernatural parents who had been exchanged for the real Ivy Carson at birth. This classic book was first published in 1970. It was awarded a Christopher Medal and named an outstanding book for young people by the Junior Library Guild.

Georgann and I were lucky to go on many book buying adventures and other conferences together in the 4 years we worked together.  I loved every one of them, but this trip was the most stand-out for me!

Cooking Club #12 -- It's all Greek to Me!

As you might have noticed--I am pretty absent on the blog lately ... and, I have a feeling it might be a permanent thing--this posting few and far between.

I'll still keep posting my Friday Friend Cookbook Countdown tho... and I have about 4 Cooking Club posts to put up and who knows?  I could be back with a vengeance sometime soon. 😁

I LOVE my cooking friends!

That's a given!

My favorite thing to do is to share food with friends.

We share stories about our theme-- I call it going down Memory Lane-- we laugh, we eat, and sometimes we learn something new -- in how we cook a dish, in how we taste a dish and in the traditions of the country we are spotlighting. 

Back in November we got together for Cooking Club after a few months hiatus.

Greek Cooking was our theme--OhPah!

Opa! (Greek: Ώπα), is a common Greek verbal emotional expression used frequently during celebrations or dancing in Greece. In the Greek culture, the expression sometimes accompanies plate smashing (purposeful or unintentional).

I'm going on record here to state: There was no plate smashing-- either unintentional or purposeful.

April had the luck of being in California a few days before we met for cooking club and she visited a Greek Market. She reported that she had the best time discussing appetizers with the owners of the market -- and she came back with a nice little appetizer. 

Oh--did I say Little?

LOOK!  Look at this board of appetizers!!  

Greek Olives 

Fruit

Cheese

Crackers

Nuts

Stuffed pepperoncini

A Hummus dip

Goat Cheese

And the best--Spanakopita! 

(spinach and feta turnovers) with date jam

Did we need more food than this? No, we did not.

And yet...we were still able to partake of more.

April explained how Greeks do appetizers.

Spanakopita! 

(spinach and feta turnovers) with date jam

We did some serious discussion!

Some serious contemplating...

And of course, no one could leave the appetizers alone!

Then we got down to some serious courses!

First course---soup and salad.

Sally and Paul had just gotten back from a Greek Orthodox Wedding where they had this soup at the wedding dinner.

Greek Lemon Chicken Soup.

OMG--it was so good!!

Paul looks kind of mad-- but he isn't. (maybe he was---he wanted to eat, not talk about it!)

Sally also made a Greek Salad which I did not get a better photo of than this.  It had lettuce and tomatoes and purple onion and feta cheese, Kalamata olives.

2nd course--

I whipped out a couple more side dishes --

some chickpea/garbanzo beans with ground lamb  and a orzo pasta with seafood.  Both were a bit spicy.

Lamb is a staple in Greek Cooking and since they are 'islands' Seafood is plentiful. 

The main dish is coming up and Sally looks very excited!  The Handyman?  Not so much--- he is suspicious of the Moussaka.

Paul's just after my seafood orzo. 

The Main Course:

Moussaka!

Moussaka is an eggplant- or potato-based dish, often including ground meat, in the Levant, Middle East, and Balkans, with many local and regional variations.

This one was eggplant-- very traditional -- and very good.

Gina did a great job on creating an international dish!

The Handyman was still suspicious of it tho--- there was eggplant in it after all.

More visiting took place -- and Paul put on some Greek music--just in case anyone wanted to dance and smash some dishes!

As I reported earlier, no one smashed any dishes.

Ahhhh -- the dessert course.

Pumpkin Pie.

BUT---this wasn't just any pumpkin pie.

Debbie cooked a whole pumpkin, pureed it and made it with olive oil.  It tasted really good, but had a very different texture than we were all used to.

Oh...and the crust was a filo dough crust. 

So...there you have it--our Greek Night.

I won't show the pictures of the Toga Party which took place later on in the evening...  Shelly and Lorin were sorely missed for that, as they were absent from this Cooking Club get-together.

Oh...okay, okay... we wouldn't have actually done a Toga-party without them, so that really didn't happen.  (sigh)

But I want to know something--- most of the couples when I said, 'hey I need a photo of each of  us' leaned in towards each other and smiled....

Sally and Paul

Debbie and Charlie

Gina and Mark

But when it comes to these two couples??? 

Myself and the Handyman?

April and Doug?

The Handyman would not smile, so I was going to make him!!

And April and Doug?  I said  "act like you like her" and he said,

"I don't"

I think he's kidding of course!

Cooking Club #12 was the best one yet!

And these cooking club meals were all good too... just click on the link to see.

Cooking Club #1 -Meals your mom used to make

Cooking Club #2- Cajun Cooking

Cooking Club #3 - Let's all go to Hawaii

Cooking Club #4 - American Regional Cooking --Great Lakes Region, featuring: SUPPER CLUBS!

Cooking Club #5 - Famous Chefs  (long post with other stuff mixed in, but just trust me)

Cooking Club #6 -Meatball Madness -- or something round  (long post combined with Famous Chef's.  Scroll thru some stuff to get there)

Cooking Club #7 - Breakfast for dinner

Cooking Club #8 - Slow Cooking

Cooking Club #9 - Mexican Street Food

Cooking Club #10- Your Christmas Cookie Heritage

Cooking Club #11 - Cooking from labels/back of box, can, or carton

Cooking Club #12 - It's all Greek to Me!

Coming Soon -- Christmas Surprise!

Happy Eating Everybody!

See you next time.

Friday Friend Recipe #184 -- Zucchini Brownies

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 #184

Tracy's Zucchini Brownies

These are so good!  Like a Texas sheet cake kind of good.

You all remember my posts about my friend  Tracy-- she passed away a couple of years ago, so she never got to see herself as a  celebrity chef . HA!  That's what she'd be saying right now...HA! AS IF the Friday Friends Cookbook was famous.

But, this is not so much a Tracy story, but an Evalynn story.

Evalynn is my granddaughter.  She told me last summer that she hated zucchini and would never eat it anyhow, anyway, anytime.

She was 10.

I fooled her!

And she loved it.

I don't know how she felt about being tricked tho.

Actually she's a pretty good sport about being tricked. Game playing is another story.  She's a rule follower. Do not deviate from the rules!

Every summer we have a cousin camp up at our cabin in Oregon.

(photo from last summer---missing a couple of cousins)

Yes, a rule follower.  The previous summer she had a little trouble with the miniature golfing outing and her younger cousins... so this time I told her, *'Ev, play your own game of golf. Just concentrate on you and have fun, because in this group, we have poor sportsmen, cheaters and 2 four year olds---it's not gonna be pretty.  Just play your own game of golf and have fun!'

She tried.  She really did.

It's just so hard when people don't play by the rules!

I think she might have lagged behind and pretended she was with that family--the ones without any other kids.

~grins~

Speaking of any other kids..

this was the night her parents told her she was going to be a big sister.

Zucchini AND having to share your dad from now on?

2 big things for one girl to handle.

She's doing just fine tho....

great big sister and will eat zucchini if it's concealed within brownie batter.

Those cousins tho.... that's another story.

*disclaimer:  the cousins don't actually cheat, they were just learning the rules of the game and she's a bit older than they are...and let me just say, a couple of her uncles (and maybe her dad) aren't out of the realm of trickery or bamboozeling when it comes to game playing!  The cousins learned from the masters!

Who knows how many I have left to go?

I've been on a little Friday Friend Cookbook break for awhile--so much so that a friend on Facebook asked me if I was done posting my stories about what I cook.

See Tracy!!  Famous! You can quit smiling down from heaven about that one!

We are famous, I tell ya!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!