Friday Friend Recipe #266, Helen's Cream Wafers, #267, Chicken Tortilla Casserole and #268, Spinach Parmesan

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 #266, #267 and #268

Barb's "Helen's Cream Wafers, Chicken Tortilla Casserole and Spinach Parmesan"

These cookies are delightful.  One of my son Luke's favorites.

We first had them when we went to spend New Year's with the Brown family, 25 or so years ago.  We played board games and ate leftover Christmas cookies all weekend long.

It was a blast.  

When I made these for the countdown, I made them for Valentine's day.

The Chicken tortilla casserole---

The Handyman liked it a lot.  It was warm and cheesy, so what's not to like?

(forgive photo--that is melted cheese on top, but picture taken the next day, after it had been in the fridge.  Don't judge--it's good.)

Spinach Parmesan.

It was good. A creamed spinach with some onion and Parmesan cheese.

Look at all those cheese 'strings' in the pictures.

I do love a good creamed spinach with a bbq steak. (grilled steak I mean)

I have to confess--I might have run out of pictures of Barb.  And stories.

I mean this is her 58th appearance in the countdown after all.  

Let me see what I can come up with...

So, I guess that I wrote "so I guess" a lot back when I had the Friday Friend forum.  LOL

(see my old forum texts/emails)

Anyway---Barb is a woman of many talents.  She can:

recite Casey at the Bat (my favorite poem ever)

tie a cherry stem into a knot in her mouth

and jump on a pogo stick without using her hands!

She is amazing. 

That's my story.  The many talents of Barb.

(she can also quilt like no one's business!)

and this is how I know she can do those things---she's never actually showed me in real life.  And we we finally DID have a reunion, we didn't have a talent show, dang it!

I'm making her do them all the next time I see her!

And these my friends are

recipes #266, 267 and 268

Only 99 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 99-- it's more like 86. 

Which would make me very happy, but for now....I'll stick to the 99 until it gets closer to the end and I'll recount what I have left.

I think next week I'll introduce you to my cousin Barb. (not to be confused with Barb the  original cookbook typist.  My cousin Barb has only 1 recipe entered, Barb Brown, FF Cookbook typist/editor blah blah, has a gazillion recipes in this countdown(

Friday Friend Recipe #223 and #224 -- Pecan Tassies and Chicken Potato Bake

My Friday Friend Cookbook Countdown #223 and #224

(#willreallyfinishthissomeday)

Pecan Tassies and Chicken Potato Bake

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!

My mom made Pecan Tassie's at Christmas time.  It's funny because what I sometimes think of as 'our' traditions, turn out to be everyone else's too.

Recipes on line describe Pecan Tassie's as a Christmas Classic.

They all look just a tad bit different.  Coming up--another Friday Friend turned in a Pecan Tartlet recipe--we'll see how they will look different than these...with basically the same ingredients!

Nevertheless they are both GOOD! 

We love pecan pie at our house tho.

I HATE myself when I have a meal that looks like this--I can still here my 7th grade Home-ec teacher telling us all that you eat with your eyes first.  Never should dishes have the same color pallet.

And especially not when I'm going to blast this all over the internet!

I really do know how to plate a meal.

While it might not be visually appealing, this simple chicken and potato dish is a very good comfort dish.

*I used a can of chicken and mushroom soup  

 Once upon a time--about 11 years ago, my mom and dad and their best friends Jim and Betty were coming upon their 50th wedding anniversaries. And so we decided to have a party!  Well, I did.  I have one brother and Betty has 2 sons--so mostly they did whatever I told them too.  (just kidding!  Slightly)

It was fun--because all 4 of them are life-long friends and they went to school together and graduated together, so we just celebrated at our cabin at Wallow Lake and invited everyone for hot dogs and hamburgers etc. Cake and ice-cream.

And during that time we had a 'toasts and tales' where old friends and family told stories about them.

It was a fun day.

Apparently we made Betty help clean the day before

And then somehow my mom dropped a cake--and she always thought things like this were hysterical!

She had no sense of a catastrophe about to happen  (like what are we going to do now??!  We have people to feed and we're one cake short, PLUS we have a mess now!)

She really was a glass half full person.

Taking a little rest after the cleaning--ready for the party next day?

The four of them always had fun together.

While going thru old photographs I found these 2 pictures of the 4 of them on a cruise.  I'm not sure where tho-- they are younger in these pictures than I am right now, I'm sure.  

Like I said, they always had fun together--- in elementary school, high school, family vacations, class reunions. cruises and more!

This is recipes #223 and #224 only 143 left to go!