Book Club - A Map of Days by Ransom Riggs

2020-21

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She was both hard and soft, sour and sweet, old and young.  That she could contain so much was what I loved most about her.  Her soul was bottomless.

"Our blood relationships don't often survive the truth."

"The past?"  Paul shook his head.  "Is nothing but an open wound."

Cookbook Cleanup Book 17- So Good

I picked up Food by Richard Blais from the Dollarama for $4 last year without looking too closely at it - I've seen him on some food shows before and he seemed like a good guy, so why not drop 4 bucks on a book?

So Good has all the usual chapters - appies, soups, poultry, seafood, red meat, veggies, sides and desserts.  A further look shows that these recipes go deeper than other books I have on my shelf - goat, squab, rabbit.... Things that don't hit our table.

I started looking for some recipes to try, and found even more stuff that wasn't for us - pasta made with bone marrow, a noodle bowl with pigs feet, Oxtail, Abalone.  There is nothing wrong with any of this stuff, it's just stuff we don't eat.

We tried 4 recipes -

Chicken Shawarma -

Radiatore Bolognese - we used pork instead of rabbit

Buttermilk Biscuits

Honeyed Blueberries

They were all good - the bolognese especially.  Would I make any of them again?  Probably not.  Did I find other stuff I wanted to try?  No.

This book is not staying on our shelf, but I hope it finds a home with someone who can appreciate and enjoy the large variety it has to offer.

Cookbook Cleanup results so far - Bookshelf - 9  Donated - 8

Alton Brown's Hot Crackers

I'm going to be honest - the first 3, maybe 4 months (ie MOST OF IT SO FAR) of this pandemic were very bad for my weight/health.  Verrrrrry bad.  I entered it thinking this would be a good opportunity to work on getting healthier and stronger and maybe drop a few pounds.  Instead I immediately started stress eating everything I could get my hands on, from the time I woke up in the morning until bed.  All day.  Every day.

Right when all of this was gearing up and we knew things were going to change but didn't know in what ways, I went to Costco and dropped $400 on  a big shop for lots of staples (except toilet paper!), including a humongous box of saltine crackers.

I have mentioned before my love of saltines, so if you ever get tired of eating them one after another after another or in your soup, you might want to try Alton Brown's Hot Saltine Crackers.

They take no time at all and you are rewarded with a spicy buttery cracker to inhale by the handful, if that's the thing you're doing.

Book Club - the one by John Marrs

2020-20

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"If you've got the opportunity to love someone as much as they love you, then grab it with both hands and hold on to it for dear life."

"Then I began to understand that being here to see any sunrise was a major accomplishment.  It meant I've lived for one more day."

Garden 2020

I've got my first Garden 2020 photos and they are more than one month old already, so I'll have to do an update soon.

The Mister built a new garden bed in the backyard, very similar to the one he built at our house in Calgary so many years ago.

He and The Boy did all the building, and The Girl helped to pick out what should be planted.  They planted a whole bunch of lettuce, some carrots, cauliflower, zucchini, and tomatos.

All the plants are happy and doing well.  I LOVE all the fresh lettuce for salads and wraps.

My mint is taking over the flower bed, and I'm ok with it.

Book Club - Save Yourself by Cameron Esposito

2020-19

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She hadn't wanted to go to her hundredth birthday party, so she died.  That's how powerful she was, and never a failure.

Women are cultured to not ever take up space.  We apologize, we literally shrink our bodies, we lower our voices, we compromise and try to agree when challenged on a point.

I tried....... the internet breakfast sandwich

Like nearly everyone else I've been glued to my phone/internet more than usual, but for all the gross bad stuff on there, you can occasionally find some good, like when you discover new food people, or recipes, like the one pan breakfast sandwich.

It's pretty straightforward, eggs and bread in one pan, we added some cheese and ham to be super fancy.  I couldn't quite perfect the dunking the bread and turning it over and getting egg on both sides, as you can see from my photo, but it's a small problem that didn't affect the delicious taste of the sandwich.

Here's a little writeup that shares a video too, so you can make your own delicious sandwich.

Adult Summer Reading Club 2020

For Summer 2020 TNRD Library is mixing it up again with a new challenge.

This year you can either mark off a star on the log book for every 20 minutes you read - if you color all the stars you will have read 900 minutes aka 15 hours, or you can complete challenges instead.

Learn all the deets and register HERE.

Challenge runs July 6 - August 29.

What will we do with the rest of 2020?

I gotta say, this year is wild isn't it?  And mostly, truly not in good ways.

The world sure feels like a shit show in a burning garbage can, eh?

People are fighting hard - on the right side and the wrong side of important issues.

We are in a dark place.

I am trying to stay informed while also staying positive, which has become impossible for me.  There is so much craziness to read about, spiking my anxiety and sending me spiraling, but I can't look away from the literal train wreak that is happening out there.

What do we do with the rest of 2020? 

Wear your dang mask.

Wash your dang hands.

Practice social distancing.

Understand that doing these things keep you, your loved ones and people you don't know safe. 

Understand that keeping people you don't know safe is important too.

Support your local businesses.

Understand that Black Lives Matter.

Understand that BIPOC Lives Matter.

Understand that Trans Lives Matter.

Understand that saying these lives matter, pushing their lives mattering to the forefront does not mean anyone else's life matters less, and get your head out of your ass.

Be an ally against racism, systemic racism and discrimination.  Caring is cool.

Read.

Speak up.

Support.

Drink your water, eat your fruits and veggies.

Get some sleep.

Be kind.

Book Club - To Have And To Hoax by Martha Waters

2020 - 18

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Book Club - The Perfect Girl by Gillian MacMillan

2020 - 17

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When your world explodes, all the pieces of it shatter and spread, and you don't see some of them ever again, and nothing is ever like it was before.

Book Club - wow, no thank you by samantha irby

2020-16

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"Wow, she got that skin just from vitamins??" I sigh, taking a sip of a warm Crush grape soda I opened either three hours or three days ago.

I can't just wake and pop right out of bed like someone in a commercial for antidepressants.

When is the last time an actual human interaction make you laugh more than a meme did?

When the zombies come or the aliens land or whatever dystopian shit that is bound to happen in our lifetime happens, I'm not stockpiling buckets of slop and batteries or any of that doomsday shit.  I will be in the fetal position somewhere waiting for them to lobotomize me.

my favorites in april

here's a list of things I enjoyed in April -

On Prime - Galaxy Quest

Netflix - Kid Gorgeous 

Netflix - The Great Canadian Baking Show

Instant Pot Creamy Bacon Pasta

Coconut Cheerios

smoothie bowls

Tabitha Brown on instagram and tictok

wow, no thank you

Book Club - The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra by Vaseem Khan

2020-15

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"You taught me a valuable lesson, Chopra - there is nothing to be gained by being a hero."

"Indians are convinced that elephants possess mystical powers and an innate sympathy for the trials of humankind.  They are our friends; they are our keepers."

Cookbook Cleanup Book 16 - In My Mother's Kitchen

In My Mother's Kitchen by Trish Magwood is the 16th book in this here Cookbook Cleanup.  I bought it on a whim from the sale table at Chapters and as soon as I opened it I was both intimidated and in love with it.

This book has it all - lovely photos, not a lot of chatter, and wonderful recipes.

We tried 8 recipes from the book and I wanted to go on and on, there is so much good stuff in here.

Breakfasts, soups, salads, pastas, main dishes, desserts.  

I started out with 2 dessert recipes - first, Mardi's Shortbread, a good basic recipe that made a ton of delicious cookies.

I also made the Strawberry Angel Dessert - an angel food cake/jello combo that the book says is soooooo good - it was easy enough but none of us were super big fans of the soggy cake.  I was going to take some to work to share but I didn't have enough whipped cream to cover the whole cake and it looked absolutely hideous.  Not one for us.

We tried 3 chicken recipes - Thai Chicken with Peanut Sauce, which we all loved, Korean Chicken Thighs, also delicious, and Jamaican Shediac Cape Curry - more labour intensive than marinating and grilling the first 2 recipes, but also a real winner.

The Friday Night Burgers were fine, we didn't find them super flavorful, but they were fine.

Next was the Soy and Honey Sweet Potatos.  

Please enjoy this photo of me using the wrong sized bowl for my potatos.

And here they are on my plate.  I used a combo of sweet and regular potatos because that's what I had.  The Mister and I both loved these, me the most.  The kids were meh on them, but I belive we've already established they can't be trusted.

Lastly I made the chocolate chip cookies because when I was writing out this review I realized I hadn't made the chocolate chip cookie recipe in the book and I couldn't review until we'd tried them.

My verdict is that I truly love this book.  There is so much variety and interesting things just waiting to be tried.  There are definitely a few more chicken recipes I was to try and a maple pork tenderloin, and too many others to be named here.  If you see this book - GET IT!

Cookbook Cleanup results so far - Bookshelf - 9  Donated - 7

Cherry Sourdough Muffins

The Mister has been baking bread for a while now so he's not a new pandemic bread baker (not that there's anything wrong with that) but he has become a basic bitch in that he's jumped on the pandemic sourdough bread train (not that there's anything wrong with that either.)

His first sourdough starter ended with the starters death around day 6 or 7.  He complained, read some more recipes, decided what needed to be changed, and his next starter has been alive for a few weeks now.  He's made some very delicious bread with the starter and I'm eating way too much of it but it's so good I can't stop.  Will my clothes ever fit again?  Yo, I don't know.

Somewhere last week I came across an article about what to do with your sourdough starter or starter discard, and this muffin recipe leapt out at me.  Sourdough muffins! 

Recipe: King Arthur's Blueberry Sourdough Muffins 

I don't have any frozen blueberries but I do have some frozen cherries, so I cut them up a bit before adding them to the batter.  I also used 1/2 cup cornmeal and 1 1/2 cups of flour in hopes that the kids would like them.

I got 12 regular sized muffins and 12 mini muffins out of the batch.  The temperature seemed way too high to me and the muffins were browning very quickly so I turned it down to 350 which seemed much more reasonable.

It's a light tasting muffin, not too sweet - which I like.  You can't taste the starter, but I don't think that matters.  I LOVED the cherries in it!
If you've jumped on the sourdough train too - a very good train to be on - you might want to give these a try.

Better Homes & Gardens Soups & Stews magazine

The Fam gave me this magazine for Christmas or Valentines, and normally I'm not a fan of these special magazines that cost so much (12.99!) BUT this one is a real winner.  We've tried 7 recipes so far and are just getting started.

The first one I made was the Bolognese Soup.  This recipe alone was worth the price of the magazine.  So good.

We made the Creamy Thai Sweet Potato Soup in the crock pot, and served it with Pesto Foldover Sticks.

Red Wine Oven Stew with Cheesy Potatos was a Sunday Dinner winner.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Soup was my second top pick, after the Bolognese soup.  Omit the croutons and it is a super soup (heeeeee).

The White Chicken Chili was pretty good, of course the kids hated it, so there were a lot of leftovers.  Also hated by the kids but enjoyed by the adults was the Red Beans and Rice Soup with Cajun Chicken.  At least that one they picked the chicken and sausage out while telling me how much they didn't like it.

Book Club - Untamed by Glennon Doyle

2020-14

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I am sad for her,  but I am thrilled for me.  In our four minutes together she has asked me about the three subjects I know best: drinking, writing and shame.  This is my jam.  I've got this.  Hot damn.

....I resurrect myself every day, in every moment that I allow myself to feel and become.  It's my daily reminder to let myself burn to ashes and rise, new.

"I guess women have to almost die before we give ourselves permission to live how we want."  

"What is better: uncomfortable truth or comfortable lies?"

First a bunch of jumbled thoughts and then stuff I cooked last week

We are still here, still doing ok.  I hope you are too.

We started homeschooling this week, which is a lot of work.  For me.  More than I expected, and I did not find a good balance this week between doing my own work and dealing with the kids.

If I still drank, I would have had many many large drinks this week.

We don't get out for as many walks as I'd hoped, between me trying to get in a full days work at my desk in the basement and the quite uncooperative weather.  We had a beautiful weekend a few weekends back that made met think Spring had arrived, but since then Mother Nature has treated us to a long spell of cold temperatures, cloudy days, SO MUCH WIND, and then yesterday a full on snowstorm that deposited quite a bit of snow on our driveway. 

We ignored it, but it isn't melting and I feel like we are going to have to shovel but shoveling in April seems so wrong.

I am eating way too much food, especially early in the morning before anyone gets up.  I guess I am looking for comfort somewhere since there seems to be very little in the world right now.  I watch and read too much news and get myself upset and worried and head for the kitchen.  I'm putting on more weight which upsets me but at the same time I can't seem to muster up too much emotion to care.  I feel numb, I guess?  Every day I tell myself today is a new day but I fall into the same patterns as the days before.  Perhaps today will be different?

I just wrote out a post for the last book I finished reading - Untamed by Glennon Doyle, and one line I wrote is :

....I resurrect myself every day, in every moment that I allow myself to feel and become.  It's my daily reminder to let myself burn to ashes and rise, new.

So maybe today can be different.

Hmmmm, what else.  We've been watching a lot of movies lately, especially the Jumanji's - both the original with Robin Williams and the remake, and last night we watched the new one, the third one I guess it is.  I didn't get to hear or see a lot of it as the kids talk and fight and stand in front of me to stare at me, but what I did see what pretty cute and we laughed and I got teary at the end, and I'll have to watch it again to see what else I missed.

I have not been watching any shows for me lately - once I get The Girl to bed I try to stay away for a bit to do one last ill-advised scroll through the social medias before I get all bummed out and try to sleep, BUT 2 shows that I started and want to get back to are Anne With An E  - we tried to watch this with the kids but The Girl isn't old enough to be interested and it didn't have enough guns or action scenes for The Boy and Wynona Earp, which I started watching in February when I got a gross stomach bug and was awake all night so I watched a bunch of episodes all night and Tim Rozon is deeeeeeeelightful to listen to (and look at).

ANYHOW

I started following Ina Garten on Instagram last week and she posted a link to her Weeknight Bolognese sauce which I had all the ingredients for (except the wine) and it was very delicious and 3 out of 4 of us liked it and the little one ate all of her noodles that didn't have any sauce touching them.

I have not had rice balls since I posted this THIRTEEN YEARS AGO so it was time! 

I made leftover cheesy bacon rice croquettes with leftover ham instead of bacon and knew why I hadn't made them since having kids - neither kid liked them.  The Mister and I did, and they were super easy, but it might be another 13 years before I get to make them again.

 

We love Coolio's cookbook, and especially his banana bread, but this is the first time I've made it into muffins.  So good.  And peeking from the back there is Spicy Applesauce Cake from Homesick Texan.  It was AMAZING.  I omitted the chile powder and the nuts and everyone was crazy for it.  A good Sunday Dinner dessert.

Well, if you made it to the end of this your rewards are my thanks and all these delicious recipes you should try.  And also this thought that we should all keep with us today, and maybe all of the days -