Friday friend recipe 272 and 273, Baked Brie with Pesto and Pine Nuts and Summer Time Cooler

 

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

What is it, you may ask?

In a nutshell....

About 21 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 #272 and #273

My mom's Baked Brie and Summer Time Cooler

I like cheese.  Warm and melty, hard and crumbly, soft and stinky. 

I just like it.

A lot.

I don't remember my mother making something 'this' fancy as an appetizer when I was younger.  In fact, I don't remember her making an appetizer at all, unless it was clam dip or her famous cottage cheese and ketchup dip.  (yes, you heard me right--click right here for a look)

But she sent this in when we were making the cookbook, so it seems she really did expand her repertoire after her kids left home.

And this? This is really good.  I had not had it before I made it for the countdown, but I'll be making it again--soon I hope. 

My mom and dad put in an underground swimming pool, once again, AFTER my brother and I left home, and they would host many backyard cookouts for friends and family.  One of my mom's 'go-to' cocktail punches would be this fruity drink below.  

While it is not summer quite yet, and yesterday was a cold and rainy day in Winnemucca, NV, I made a pitcher of these for the cookbook countdown and the Handyman and I played  cards all afternoon and drank cocktails.

It was wonderful--a lazy Sunday.

And we might have gotten a little tipsy--look at all that alcohol!

We had a lot to drink--what was I going to do, throw it away?

I'm not wasteful!

To my Mama--for teaching me so many precious life lessons, including how to lay a table properly, and that food tastes best when shared with friends.

I borrowed that dedication from a cookbook, but it's true!

So true!!

While it wasn't always fancy, it was always good.  I say it wasn't fancy food, because... well, it wasn't.  I grew up in a lower-middle class family, in south-eastern Washington, my mother a descendant of people who worked the land; farmers and ranchers, so it was meat and potatoes, potatoes and meat, 90% of the time. In the early 70's she discovered Taco Salad and Teriyaki steak. 

We thought we were fancier than schmancy!  We were soooo international!

That we could even pronounce Teriyaki, we thought we were so cool.

"sure, why don't you come to dinner tonight?  My mom's making Teriyaki steak and white rice with peas."

What an invitation that was!  

And to be honest, the Handyman fell in love with her Teriyaki steak, white rice and peas.

(and her cottage cheese dip.  see above LOL )

It must be why he married me and kept me around for 43 years--in the hopes of me making Teriyaki steak.  I never have.  I wonder if he has regrets?

My mom was a stay-at-home mom until I started Jr. High and then she got a job at an optometrist office--she would rush home every night at 6pm and make a full 4 or 5 course dinner  (meat, potatoes, vegetable and salad) to put on the table.

I always set it (the table) complete with folded napkins on the left of the plate, with the fork on top.  Water glasses above the knife and spoon on the right (or milk sometimes.  In the summer might get lemonade or iced tea with mint or--OR

 Kool-aid!  (it was 1972 for heavens sake!  Never soda pop, unless you went to a restaurant, but Kool-aid was different)

And usually the table centerpiece was cut flowers from the yard.

So--yes, that dedication is true--my mama taught me how to set a nice table.

So, I though to get a couple pictures of her at a table.

It was hard--only because I am unorganized and I had to go to the garage and dig out old old photo albums and I couldn't find what I wanted, but I did come up with these old old very candid pictures of my mom in very old kitchens in our 1970's middle class kitchen.

See what I mean about candid?  Clearly she wasn't ready to have her photo taken as she was getting ready to drain some boiled potatoes in that harvest gold pot.

Behind her, on the counter to the right, there are rolls and a bottle of Kahlua, which leads me to believe this was a holiday.  

Also take note of the 'stand on your kitchen counter  electric can opener'!

Okay, this picture was actually taken around 1979.

I know this because it's taken in my little single wide trailer with cool wall-paper.

Here I am with my mom and dad.

And this is  my mom not IN a kitchen-- but she is by the kitchen in my grandparents small apartment building.

My grandmother had wonderful Revere Ware with the copper bottoms, which she always kept sparkling and hanging on her wall--with the copper fish molds.

On holidays my grandmother would make a congealed salad-- tomato aspic in one of those fish molds. My mother loved it. 

Again...talk about candid  (my mother is probably turning over in her grave to think of these pictures of her I am using.  Sorry mom) here is a very candid one and it looks like my mom still has on her 'uniform' from work.

Look at that cool wallpaper?  And an avocado green stove/oven!  That was not a microwave on top. No-sir-ee!  It was another oven. We were fancy like that too. Oven on top and oven on bottom.

Big blue can of Crisco was a staple!

This is from the kitchen in our cabin way back when (it looks completely different now)  someone caught this of my parents being playful.

In the photo album my grandfather had written 'smooching' under the photo.

😄

And I will end with another very candid photo of my mom and my grandmother in the kitchen --had to have been a holiday, because I notice a big roaster pan full of bread cubes on the right.  Right next to the 'on your counter electric can opener!'

Historians will say that by 'scrapbooking' we lose some history of place, because you don't get the good background from old photos anymore--we cut those out.

Well--I just gave you GREAT background from old photos.

You are welcome. 

And these my friends are

recipes #272 and 273

Only 94 left to go!

I can do it!

WOO HOO!  I am below 100 recipes now.  Yay!  Yahoo! Whoopie!

Altho.... do you remember when I counted wrong before?  I think I did it again.

I keep counting what I have left by recipe AND by person and it does not add up to 94- it's more like 81. 

Which would make me very happy, but for now....I'll stick to the 94 until it gets closer to the end and I'll recount what I have left