Friday Friend Recipe #123 -- Spicy Siclian Chicken

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

What is it, you may ask?

In a nutshell...
About 17 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 #123 Meghan's Spicy Sicilian Chicken

Please forgive my photographs---it was hard for me to as everything was colorless!

Colorless but not tasteless.  My sister-in-law, Meghan is a great, GREAT cook, and she would never make bland noodles as a side dish--especially if she were taking photos. But...that's just what I did.  I have no excuse really, except that I was trying to get a meal on the table for the demanding handyman.

(you know that's a joke right---the Handyman is the most 'un'demanding man in the world.)

This wonderful chicken dish has both artichokes and green olives in it--two things the Handyman could gladly leave behind, BUT, he's a trooper and gave it a try and guess what? He really liked it. And if the Handyman likes it, its gotta be good.

So don't be put off by a bland color, just try it--it's really good.

This is Meghan's 6th time in the Friday Friend Cookbook Countdown  (if you click on the tag at the bottom of this post you can go to all her recipes if you'd like--everything is great!)

I have 10 sisters-in-law, and she ranks right up there at the top of my favorite list!

On reason is that she is always the life of the party (fun, generous, involves everyone, etc). Life of the party, yes, but it's usually her party!  She loves to host and have people over for dinner parties.  She's usually the chief cook and bottle washer, but recently at Grandpa's 85th birthday part--she didn't have to be the hostess, she just got to sit back, relax and enjoy herself.

My story will meander here a bit--which is so totally unusual for me, right? -- because while the funny story I usually tell  when I feature a cook for the FF Cookbook countdown is about Meghan and my beautiful niece, Devin, (who happens to be her daughter,)  I first wanted to tell you a bit about Grandpa's 85 birthday party.

Grandpa's chosen career was as a chemist.  He worked with other chemists and they made bombs.

That's the short version.  There is a much longer version, but we don't have the time here.

Here are all the old chemists who made bombs together at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories in Livermore CA.

When the Handyman was 12 years old, he went out on the golf course to caddy for his dad and Jim Evans.  Mr. Evans uttered the 'f' word when he had a bad shot.  This was back in 1964 and the Handyman had never heard that word before in his life.

Here he is reminding Mr. Evans of that incident:

Poor Mr. Evans did not remember that.

(but he got a good laugh out of it)

We got some great photos of  Grandpa and his 3 sons--and that silly son-in-law, who jumps in all the time....(the one with his arms around everyone)

We got pictures of Grandpa and all 9 of his children

We got a photo of all  the rest of us taking  a photo of Grandpa and all nine of his children...

Then we had to get a photo of all the outlaws--(in-laws) people who are not related to Grandpa by blood at all..

(we are goofy like that)

 And of course we took pictures of Grandpa with grandchildren and great grandchildren, but there are soooo many of them, I'm not going to share their cute little faces right now.

Speaking of outlaws, here are two of them back at the party... laughing at blackmail photos they are acquiring  of the family maybe?

 We told nice stories of Grandpa, ate good food and laughed and visited and had a great time!

Which brings us back to Meghan, one of my favorite sisters-in-law, who is a great cook!  Just  look at this cookbook countdown!

 Here is my funny Meghan story.

Towards the end of Grandpa's 85th birthday party, some of us were talking and the conversation took the turn to how well or not our children minded us. Some of us were complaining, some of us laughing, some of us doing soul searcher, when Meghan piped up that her kids would do anything she said.

We all kind of laughed and she said, no really---hey Devin!

(this is my niece Devin, who is 15)

go steal that golf cart out there!  Just take it for a joyride in a little circle there.

Um....really mom?

YES!

(here she is wanting her big brother to go with her... he didn't.  but her little cousins did)

And the family looked on.

 None of us know why Meghan challenged her daughter to joy ride...not even Meghan (okay, it could have been the wine), nor why Devin agreed (hopefully no wine was involved there), nor why the guys whose golf clubs were on the back of the card didn't get ANGRY, (except they were young men and she was cute AND beer was involved with them, as they were in getting a beer from the bar and had left their golf cart right outside)

That's my Meghan story!

Meghan mind control?

Like I said, no one really knows.

Recipe #123 out of 298.