2014 - Book 23

"Julie of the Wolves" - Alaska

This was a Newbery Medal winner by a great author, so it couldn't help but be a good book. I would recommend it for any younger readers out there, especially those who like animals. I wasn't the biggest fan of the ending, but it is a very real story and the writing is fantastic. The details are so vibrant, I almost felt like I was Miyax, living out in the Alaskan wilderness with her adopted wolf family. I feel like I learned a lot about Eskimo culture and wolves in this story, so it was educational as well as entertaining. Maybe I'm channeling my teacher friends, but this would be a great book report subject. Apparently there are two sequels to this one too, so even though it is a rather short book, there is more material out there if you would like to read it. If you're feeling too hot in the warm summer months, take a mental trip to Alaska and give this book a read :)

The recipes I have this week are chocolate "lasagna", grilled bok choy, and cookie dough Greek yogurt.

The chocolate "lasagna" was the typical all-American layered dessert with Cool Whip, chocolate pudding, and Oreos. Really, when you've had one of these type of desserts, you've had them all. It was tasty, but not home-made tasting enough for me, and kind of boring. But, this is easy to put together and it's pretty much a given that everyone at whatever pot luck you take it to will love it, so give it a try :)

The grilled bok choy was a new experience for me. It was tasty, provided you don't burn the thin ends of the leaves, but it wasn't really that good of a recipe. It was too salty, and it didn't make nearly enough. I had to double the recipe and a few of them weren't very well coated. It got mixed reviews, so I don't think I'll make it again, but it was an interesting new way to cook a veggie that I'm not very familiar with.

Cookie Dough Greek Yogurt sounded like a great idea, but again, this recipe didn't live up to my hopes for it. I bought a whole bunch of single serve yogurts and took this to a Pinterest party. Not too many people tried it (probably because it was put out after we were done with crafting and people were tired of "creating" things). Of the people that did try it, some said it was good, but it didn't really taste like cookie dough, and I'd have to agree with them. It's not bad, but just tastes like sweetened yogurt with chocolate chips in it . . . no resemblance to cookie dough, unfortunately. I really wanted this to be good, but it just wasn't. In the end, I was left with many unused Greek yogurts, and they were very useful in other dishes in the following week (soup and pasta sauce primarily) . . . so it wasn't a loss after all :)

Sorry for a week of mediocre recipes, hopefully I'll have better ones to share next time. Until then :)

2014 - Book 22

"Shattered Souls" - Texas

This was a really interesting book, and I liked it quite a bit. It seemed kind of weird at first, but I was quickly sucked in. It's a story about a girl who is hearing voices and thinks she's going crazy. It all starts to make sense when she meets a boy who tells her that she is a "Speaker", a reincarnated soul who can speak to the "Hindered", souls whose bodies have died but have some unfinished task preventing them from going to heaven or hell. This boy, Alden, is her "Protector", and they supposedly work for a secret organization in charge of helping the Hindered, eliminating the "Malevolent" (evil souls), and keeping all of this secret from humans. There are a lot more details to it, but it is an interesting look at how she deals with discovering all of this and what path she will choose to spend the rest of her life on. To top all this off, she also can't remember any of the past lives that she's spent with Alden, so that complicates everything. At any rate, I rather liked this story, and I was sad when it was over. Hopefully I'll have lots more books like that in the near future :)

The recipes I have to share today are watermelon cake, grilled cranberry chicken, and Snickers peanut butter brownie ice cream cake (yes, all of those wonderful things were combined into one dessert).

The watermelon cake was the surprise cake I made for my husband's birthday. He loves fruit . . . I mean really loves fruit, way more than cake, so this was right up his alley. The whipped coconut milk was a bit messy to work with, but the real mistake was following the directions and slicing the cake before frosting. I didn't do the best job of making it a perfect cylinder, so the pieces kept falling over. Combine that with frosting that doesn't stick too well and you have one big mess on your hands. I managed to make it look okay for the presentation, but it was definitely not my best work. Next time (and I think there will be a next time, because he loved it so much he requested it for his birthday cake every year) I will not slice the cake beforehand, and I'll try to do a better job of making the sides flat. I might try cool whip or a different type of frosting too. I did read one review who left it in the fridge over night on a piece of paper towel to let it dry out a bit so the frosting would stay on better . . . that might be another tip to try. All in all though, he loved it and it tasted good, so it was a success :)

The grilled cranberry chicken was also fantastic, but I forgot to take pictures of it. I don't like jellied cranberry sauce, so I just made fresh cranberry sauce using the very simple directions on the cranberry bag. I doubled the recipe and didn't bother reboiling it before serving (the sauce wasn't applied to the chicken until it was safely cooked, so there was no fear of contamination). It's just a really good combination of sweet and savory and spicy . . .  yum. We've made this recipe multiple times now, and it's been tasty every time, give it a try.

I don't think a dessert can look too much more appetizing than this crazy pile of sweetness. It was indeed just as good as the name implied it would be, and it was pretty easy to make too. However, I've been trying to wean myself off of liking the taste of overly processed foods and candy, so all of the candy, syrup, cool whip, and boxed brownie mix wasn't quite to my liking. It was pretty impressive though, it tasted good, and everyone liked it, so I'd say it was a winner, even though I probably won't be making it again.

Now that I've been posting multiple recipes every week, has anyone actually tried any of them? I know one of my awesome aunts tried the steel cut oats and loved them, so if you do try one of the recipes I've posted, leave me a comment and let me know how you liked it :)

That's all for this week . . . talk to you again soon.