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...