i went to chapters to pick up a gift card for a thank you gift and came out with a new cookbook

 

snapshot - first trip to the library in a loooong time

 

snapshot - new books

 new book alert!

I have not opened either one yet but am excited for both.  I have been very very bad with reading so far this year.  I can't wait for the weather to (finally) warm up so I can sit outside and read. 

2 new cookbook on my shelf

 Potential gift ideas for your holiday lists?

I'm probably not quite the fan of Chrissy Teigen as I used to be for no particular reason, but even though I told myself I didn't need to buy her third cookbook, I couldn't resist.  I truly have enjoyed her first two quite a bit and I just couldn't say no to this one.  I have only flipped through it once so far, and that's when I was sick, so nothing grabbed me right away, so it's too early to tell how I feel.  I'll give it another more thorough read through soon, and make a list of things to try.

 

I actually impulse bought this one a few months ago after seeing some rave reviews online about it.  Julia Turshen has written 4 of her own books - I would LOVE to get my hands on Small Victories - and collaborated on other books including Hot Bread Kitchen, which I love, and one of Gwyneth Paltrow's books.  It is a truly excellent book.  I've tried 3 recipes so far and they've been great.  This is a definite keeper.

snapshot - grandma today

 Should I be offended The Mister brought this home for me from Value Village?

snapshot - 2 new cookbooks on the shelf

 

goodies and Christmas

 I was very lucky to receive a lovely bunch of books for Christmas - 

I am very excited about all of them, and I'm sure The Mister was smirking when he heard me on the phone saying how much I love Mexican food and I should cook some soon.  I am looking forward to the Instant pot books as well, anything that can help me cut down on my time in the kitchen is more than welcome.

We binged watched Nadiya Hussain's Netflix show Time to Eat last month, and enjoyed it very very much, and I went online and bookmarked a bunch of recipes to try, including her savory french toast recipe which we've made twice and is so delicious -

 Once I unwrapped Time to Eat, The Mister practically ripped it out of my hands and ran to the kitchen to bake the Olive and Rosemary Crown, with blue cheese inside.  One of the best breads he's baked lately.

We had a traditional dinner again this Christmas, turkey and veg and the fixins.

Mince tarts for dessert, using the wonderful tart dough from 100 Breads.

 With some of the leftover turkey we made Turkey Tetrazzini.  So delicious!  Makes a ton!

Our first dessert of 2021 was the Post Secret Apple Cream Pie.  Delicious, but very sweet.  

 

Hope 2021 is.....off to a start?  The last week has already been full of ridiculous news.  Deep breaths.  

snapshot - 2 new cookbooks

I treated myself to 2 new cookbooks last month - My Rice Bowl by Rachel Yang - I am so enjoying reading this!  There are many ingredients I don't know if I can find here, but I am excited to do some cooking out of this.

Over Easy by Joy Wilson - I started cooking out of this the day after it arrived and we are enjoying amazing recipe after amazing recipe. 

1 weekend, 2 recipes from Jamie Oliver

I borrowed Friday Night Feast by Jamie Oliver from the library this Spring and made Saturday and Sundays dinners from it.

Instead of lamb in the Epic Lamb Kebabs I used pork.  

They were good, but the star of the recipe was the flatbreads.  Delicious!  

For Sunday dinner we tried the Carbonara Cake - and used up some leftover ham from the freezer too (woot woot).  This was soooooooooo good, a bit nerve wracking to get it cooked and crispy but not make the pasta so hard it wasn't good eats, but I managed.

There was also some braided cheese bread, but I don't recall that recipe.  Looked good though.

Recipe: Carbonara Cake

Recipe: Epic Lamb Kebabs with salad and flatbread

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Jamie Oliver related posts from long ago:

ABC's of Food - J is for Jamie Oliver 

Rigatoni Con Verdura 

Walnut and Cheese Greens 

Amazing Yorkies 

Cookbook Cleanup - Book 2 - Nigella Express

The second book in my cleanup is Nigella Express which I got for Christmas 

wayyyyyyy back in 2007.

 

This one has always been on the edge for me - there is a lot of stuff in here I won't ever make either because it isn't appealing or it contains ingredients I can't find.  Every time I think about cleaning out my shelf I always think this one should go, and this time was no different; even before I had opened it to find some recipes to try I was already thinking I would add it to the donate pile.

I have had some good luck with this one in the past - the crepe sandwich recipes are good, the scallops and chorizo and the banana butterscotch muffins too. 

The real winner of this book for me is and always will be her Rapid Ragu; which she makes with ground lamb and I make with ground turkey- and tomatos, lentils and cheese.  Delicious and comforting.  

I chose 4 recipes to make - Flourless Chocolate Brownies, Goujons of Sole with Dill Mayonnaise, Home-made Instant Pancake Mix, and Macaroni Cheese.  

First up was the Sole and it was an easy recipe to follow that produced crunchy fish and a tasty sauce.  The pancake mix was easy to mix up, and also easy to scoop and prepare a nice breakfast of 'cakes.

The Flourless Chocolate Brownies were so easy and produced one of the BEST brownies I've ever had.  They were raved about.  The sun and the heat came out here, so the Macaroni Cheese was swapped out for Instant Chocolate Mousse; a recipe I have stared at for years.  I needed to make a birthday dessert and had all the ingredients on hand and this was another one that knocked it out - such a fabulous mousse from a simple recipe. 

This book is not a perfect fit for me, but it does keep showing me that it has some great recipes, and I need to get over my assumption that it isn't worth keeping.  It stays!

Bookshelf - 2  Donation pile - 0

Cookbook Cleanup - Will it stay or will it go? Book 1 - Simple Chinese Cooking

I am in clean out mode around here - well, I wish to be in clean out mode, but time and my family work against me.  I would love to declutter this house top to bottom but - when?  and how to get around these other 3 people who complain when I touch their stuff?  Ugh.

So far I've cleaned out the 2 bathrooms and reorganized the drawers and that felt good.  Next up is my part of the closet and my dresser - will I continue to hold on to all these clothes that no longer fit in hopes that I WILL drop some of these pounds???? - stay tuned!

I am also going to clean up the bookcases - both reading books and cookbooks and that's what this is about.  

A few years back I did a cookbook shelf clean up on Instagram and I kept meaning to bring it over here but didn't.

This is an area of my life that could definitely use some cleaning up, so I am going to go through all my cookbooks and see which ones should stay with us and which should move on so they can be more appreciated by someone else.

_____________________________________

First up is Simple Chinese Cooking by Kylie Kwong.  A search for Kylie on my blawg reveals I got the book in 2007 (!) and that we loved the dishes we've tried.  I can't remember what I made out of here in the last cookbook clean up, but whatevs.  

This time we made (in order of appearance in the book):

White-Cooked Chicken with Soy and Ginger Dressing 

Crispy Kings Prawns with Honey and Garlic Sauce

Asparagus with Baby Corn

Stir Fried Hokkien Noodles with Chicken and Oyster Mushrooms

While a couple of the dishes weren't quite what I was expecting - the white cooked chicken had a lot of ($$) stuff in it but was surprisingly mild tasting dish; the crispy prawn batter didn't make for a crispy prawn - everything was very good, and easy to make.  I would make any of these again, along with what we've already tried, and there is much more I look forward to making.

This one stays on our shelf!

playwright's melt

I pulled my copy of My Father's Daughter off the shelf a while back to make the 10 Hour Chicken for a special Sunday Dinner.  It was so good! Better than I remembered from all those years ago.  

The book sat out for the rest of the week and I started flipping through it, reading recipes to The Mister of things that sounded good.  

When I got to playwright's melt - olives, scallions, cheese, curry powder and veganaise spread on an english muffin and toasted, The Mister stopped and said "That's breakfast today" and started shredding cheese and firing up the broiler.

The kids both took one look at our plates and asked for cereal but that was ok - this would be wasted on someone who didn't appreciate it.

We used regular mayo instead of veganaise and canned olives instead of fancy ones and it was deeeelicious.  This version doubles the cheese but that ain't a bad thing.

Book Club - Back in the Day Bakery by Cheryl Day and Griffith Day

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For Summer Reading Club 2018 - Cookbook (Try a new recipe)

Focaccia Bread and Brown Sugar Chocolate Chip Shortbread

Sunday Dinner - Crab Cake Bennies

I am a fan of Chrissy Teigen's first book, and you know that when the second one came out, I got it ASAP.  I have yet to cook from it, but have read it cover to cover twice and once I get everything in my existence sorted out I will start cooking, most likely first will be the Pad Thai Carbonara because how delicious does that sound.

I had her first book out a few months ago when The Grandfather was over for dinner and we flipped through it to see what we could see.  We liked the sound of the zucchini lasagne although it seems so labor intensive.  But I should make it anyway.  My dad hovered on the crab cake benny page for so long I knew that we had to give that a try.

I made a couple of changes - I made real (from a package!) hollandaise instead of the recipes fake version mostly because my dad and kids would not eat her spicy version; and we skipped the bed of arugula because same as the spicy sauce.

These were AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGGG and the 3 grown ups fought over the leftovers for the next day's lunch.  We were all winners.

Here is a link to her recipe via House and Home.

creamed corn with bacon

We had a short but spectacular season for corn this year.  

For a spell we were lucky to eat it weekly as well as prep some for freezing - both on the cob and off.

The best way to eat corn is right off the cob, MAYBE a little butter and salt.

The second best way is Lucy Buffet's creamed corn with bacon.

The book earned a special place in my heart and on my shelf last year and it continues to knock us out with super delicious recipes.

Take a look at the book if you haven't already.

Kids in a corn maze, 2018

Cooking from Queso

My new filter again!  Do you love it still?
It won't be making an appearance for a while,  as I forgot my new filter plan almost as quickly as I planned it.

This is the first dish we made from Queso - El Paso Chile Con Queso.

I didn't use the fresh Anaheim peppers - instead I used part of a can of diced green chiles. 

My kids are not fans of heat.  

I also didn't serve this as a dip - I left the chicken a little chunky and served it over rice.

It was AMAZING.  I could eat it every day.

I tried the Chile Con Queso Sausage Balls for a test run for a potluck next month.  They were ok.  A bit dense and very tomato-ey.  We ate them, but they aren't a contender for the potluck.

I need to shave a few pounds off this bod so I can dive into some 

of the cheesier recipes in the book soon.  The melted cheese,  it calls me.

The rest of the order is here

The rest of my birthday order is here!  I also impulse purchased the new Pioneer Woman cookbook.  I bought one of her other ones - Dinner, I think, secondhand this summer, but I have yet to make anything out of it.  Been too busy to even open this one yet.
I added Bear Town in for my last pick because I wanted another fiction book, and I've heard good things about another book of his - A Man Called Ove.

I haven't been reading much this fall, since mid summer, but I'm trying to get back on track.  We are also doing nightly reading with The Boy and I thought I might mention some of the books he's reading here too.  He will be 8(!!!!!!) soon and is enjoying reading more, which makes me happy as I've always loved to read.

Menu planning and cooking have also fallen apart over the past few months as my days are longer and busier, and it is hard to come home and figure out something fast, interesting, nutritious, AND that everyone (kids) will  eat.

And with that, off to find something for dinner tonight!

Upcoming reads and miscellaeney

I received a book store gift card from The Mother In Law for my birthday this year.  The order was broken up into 2 deliveries and I just got the first.  Queso was a total impulse purchase but after reading the first few pages I can already tell it was money well spent.  

I have read in a few places how great we are never meeting in real life is, 

and am looking forward to it.

Some other stuff floating around my head -

I really liked this article - A High-Security Prison Is Offering YTT for Inmates
I am trying to convince my head that it is time to get back to yoga.  It isn't going well so far.

I made this honey garlic chicken a while back and loved it.

If you like chicken and peanut sauce- I do! - then you will love this chicken and broccoli with peanut sauce.

I don't watch much TV any more, but I am excited about David Letterman's show on Netflix.  When does it start?????  I liked this interview from early this year.


I have some childhood memories of visiting my great-nana when I was small; not many - but I remember quite clearly a big plastic photo cube she had on her coffee table.  It had photos of her great grandchildren in it, and I was fascinated by it.
I made one similar this Spring for The Grandmother - I bought a wooden cube and cut photos to size and glued and sealed them on.  It was a cute quick craft.  

The Kamloops Symphony Book Sale is on!

The Kamloops Symphony Book Sale started yesterday.  This year it's at Lansdowne Centre downtown, between the dollar store and London Drugs.  The crowds were big and there were some good books.  We picked up a handful for The Boy, and I scored the 2 above.  Yippeeeeee!  7 years after first reading it, I now have my own copy of I Like You.

The book sale runs until November 25.  Go often!

So toast

I am slowly wrapping up my cookbook review/shelf purge I started in the summer of 2015.  I've cooked from more than 130 books, gotten rid of close to 100 more, and I'm glad to be almost done.

I'd like to go back to some of the ones that I've reviewed and cook more from them.  And I need to get the shelf a little more bare than it already is - eventually the room that the bookshelf is in will become The Girl's room, and the bookcase might stay for her to use, so I will have to find a home for all the books elsewhere in the house. So fewer books would definitely be easier.

I have gone back to Chrissy Teigen's book a couple of times since I wrote about it on Instagram, and made a couple more dishes.  One was the Cinnamon Toast/Dark Chocolate, and whoa, it was so good.  I had previously made her Salted Peanut Butter/Carmel/Grapes toast which was also amaze.

This set me off on a few days of toasting it up -

This one was boring, but we had bread that needed to be eaten.  Mozza, a sprinkle of salt, and some hot sauce.

The aforementioned CT toast - she makes a butter/sugar/cinnamon spread for the toast.  I had some cinnamon and sugar already mixed together leftover from baking, so I used that.  The combo with chocolate is unreal.

This one is super ugly, but brie cheese is not a pretty melter.  I made this at work - toast with a microwaved scrambled egg, ham and brie cheese, finished with cayenne pepper.

The standard avocado toast, eaten by The Mister and me whenever we buy a bag of avocados and suddenly the kids no longer like avocados, so we have to eat large amounts of avocado toast to try to use them up before they go bad but we never do.