Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

 2020-26 

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She had learned that when people were bent on doing something they believed was a good deed, it was usually impossible to dissuade them.

Snapshot - Breakfast

 

Guacamole, tomato and scrambled egg on toast.  Melon on the side.

Cornflake Cake

My Boo (eternal BFF) and I had a socially distanced birthday lunch for her this summer, and I decided it was the perfect time to try out a saved dessert recipe, a chocolate cornflake cake.  Well, "cake".  It isn't a true cake.  But there is a lot of chocolate.  What else do you need?

This Chocolate Cornflake Cake (which is apparently a favorite of the Queen's) was very easy to make, although not super pretty.

It did look a little nicer with its ganache topping.  I was so excited about the lunch I forgot to make the salty buttery cornflake topping.

One thing I will say is that this is a FIRM "cake".  The recipe says to let the cake sit at room temperature before serving.  This one sat out for more than an hour and it was still difficult to cut. 

We hacked off a piece to keep and served it for dessert to The Grandpa that night, and he was also a fan.  Another no bake dessert win.

Snapshot - Sidewalk Rainbow

book club - Educated by Tara Westover

 2020-25

 

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"Men like to think they're saving some brain-dead woman who's got herself into a scrape.All I had to do was step aside and let him play the hero!" 

Then she'd smile - not a soothing smile for someone else but for herself, of baffled amusement, a smile that to me always seemed to say, Ain't nothing funnier than real life, I tell you what.

The truth is this: that I am not a good daughter.  I am a traitor, a wolf among sheep; there is something different about me and that difference is not good.

It was not that I had done something wrong so much as that I existed in the wrong way.  There was something impure in the back of my being.

my favorites in august

 Here's a few things I enjoyed in August - 

It feels like I just struggled to find things to share that I enjoyed in July, and here we are at the end of August.  Bleh.

Little Fires Everywhere the book and the show - I finished the book and immediately started the show on Prime.  The book is much better, but the show is good too.

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The Great - I accidentally binged the first season and The Great is pretty great.  Hurry up season 2!

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Prime recommended Versailles after I was done with The Great.Very good but NOT light and funny like The Great.

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We changed our tv package and finally got access to Drunk History.  I don't think I've ever laughed so hard.

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Treated myself to a new face mist this month.

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educated - a really good, frustrating read.

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thai iced coffee 

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A flat of delicious blueberries!

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spending some time sitting with this.

Sunday Dinner - no bake cookie bar

This was a HUGE hit at Sunday dinner.  Everyone loved them and repeatedly asked me to make sure I had saved the recipe so I could make them again (soon).

I made these no bake cookie bars in a slightly bigger pan - 8x10 or so, to make it a bit thinner, which is our preference for bars like this.  You get more that way.

This is a good summertime treat as you don't have to turn on the oven - and who doesn't love peanut butter, oats, graham and chocolate?????

the power of orange and vinegar combined

I love cleaning with vinegar - it does a good job and it's cheap.  I decided to try one of the homemade cleaner recipes that are always floating around the internet.  I used this article for guidance although I didn't have any whole cloves or cinnamon sticks to add. 

I put my peels in a jar........

And added vinegar to cover.........

Let it sit for 2 weeks!

Pulled out the orange peels and there's my orange infused vinegar.

I added it to a spray bottle with some water.

 

And got to cleaning.

It works well and while it still smells very strongly of vinegar (of course) this is some orange there too.

Up next I want to try the lemon and rosemary cleaner - we used to have a rosemary plant in our garden, but I didn't notice if it came back this year!  Off to check.

book club - Sula by Toni Morrison

2020-24

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It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both.

They did not believe death was accidental - life might be, but death was deliberate.  They did not believe Nature was ever askew - only inconvenient.  Plague and drought were are "natural" as springtime.

"Being good to somebody is just like being mean to somebody.  Risky.  You don't get nothing for it."

Cookbook Cleanup 18 - Food

Book 18 is Food by Mary McCartney, another book picked up from Dollarama.

 

This is a book of family friendly vegetarian home cooking.  It's a toss up between what is more lovely, the recipes or the beautiful photography, of the food, ingredients, and family photography, including some photos from her famous family.

The table of contents covers breakfast and brunch, sandwiches, soups and salads, mains, sides and desserts.

I made 5 recipes from the book - 

Banana Muffins - super easy AND super delicious

Quick Breakfast Bowl - Yogurt, granola, fruit, nuts, honey - how can you go wrong?

You can't.  And you can customize it however you want.  So good.

Breakfast pancakes were a hit with all of us.

Arty's Chocolate Chip Cookies - always the best kind of cookie.

Choose Your Own Flavor Loaf Cake.  We chose chocolate.

I have to say that going into cooking from this book I was quite determined that this one would go.  I wasn't sure I could find enough recipes that interested me AND that the picky kids would eat, and also because I am determined to cut my cookbook collection down.  But I really really like this book, to look at and cook from.  It's staying and  I've got a list of what to try next:

 Hearty Quinoa and White Bean Soup

Sprout and Carrot Salad

Black Bean, Sweet Corn and Feta Tacos

Lip Smacking Minestrone

Cauliflower Cheese

Yummy Spicy Rice Noodles

Cookbook Cleanup results so far - Bookshelf - 10  Donated - 8

book club - The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory

2020-23

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"....wbat made it worse were the constant messages I got from society that women are weak, women should be afraid, women should settle for whatever they can get."

Good God, sometimes it felt like all of society was complicit in trying to make life harder for women.

Popsugar 2020 Reading Challenge

 I found a new reading challenge for 2020!

I have to be honest, I am not taking part in the library's reading club this summer. 

Keeping track of how many minutes I read at a time is not for me.  

So I was happy to finding a reading challenge with a list - and it's a very interesting list.

 

Read more about the challenge here 

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. 

book club - Girl, Stop Apologizing by Rachel Hollis

2020-22

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Other people don't get to tell you what you can have!

Someone else doesn't get to tell you who you can be!

A goal is a dream with its work boots on.

You've got to believe in yourself and believe that you're capable of making changes to become whatever kind of person you want to be.

garden 2020 update

You guys, we grew cauliflower.  CAULIFLOWER!!!!!!!!

We planted too many tomato plants too close together - we didn't think the garden would thrive as it is.  The tomato area is a solid mass of plants.  We probably should have pulled some to make more room but let's see what happens.

The carrots are coming along nicely but we most likely won't have enough for a meal because the kids keep pulling them up to see how big they are getting.

The lettuces are going crazy too.  We have lots of salads and lettuce wraps and sometimes we just stand by the garden and eat lettuce.

BOOM.

my favorites in july

Here's a few things I enjoyed in July -

Hamilton

I didn't pay attention to the news when Hamilton came out a few years ago as me seeing a Broadway show is super highly unlikely.  But when they announced it was coming out on Disney + I was excited - and I LOVED it.  I love the actors, I love the music, I cry every time I hear certain songs.  To my extreme delight, The Girl loves the music too and we often play the soundtrack in the evenings and sing together.

After falling for Hamilton and spending some time googling the show and cast I also fell in love with these 2 albums -

Leslie Odom Jr - Mr.

Jasmine Cephas Jones - Blue Bird

And another album I'm loving -

The Chicks - Gaslighter

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2 Podcasts

Why Won't You Date Me

Nicole Byer is a dang treat you guys.

Natch Beaut

This is an unlikely one for me as to look at me does not make you think of beauty in any way, but this podcast covers a huge range of topics from skin care and self care to mental health, self acceptance and a ton of other categories.  Jackie Johnson is an amazing host and she always has great guests.  This is a podcast that I started listening to at Episode 1 and am still working my way through, but there are a few specific episodes I want to mention from 2019 - Self Acceptance with Jeffrey Marsh made me cry and I now follow Jeffrey on Twitter and Instagram; Gender Dysphoria with Ellen Ford is a great listen;  McDonald's Frappuccinos with Travis Coles; Dancing with Grandma with Atsuko Okatsuka; Brag Better wit Meredith Fineman.

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."