2014 - Book 26

"Ashfall" - Iowa

This book wasn't too bad, but the writing wasn't that great either. Apparently it was the author's first book, and it kind of showed. All of the early chapters had obvious cliff-hangers at the end, and pretty much every bad or gory thing that could happen in this sort of situation did happen. I might be a bit biased as a girl though . . . I think boys would like this book more. I will admit it was an interesting concept, and I liked seeing how certain scenarios played out.

It is a story about a boy and his family trying to survive after the super volcano under Yellowstone erupts and destroys most of the U.S. Some people he met were helpful and kind, others were ruthless, horrible, and mean, and a huge number of people died. I don't know how our society would fare if that were ever to happen, but I don't think his predictions were too far off the mark. It wasn't a great book (not that I'm in a position to really be a book critic or anything), and I won't be reading the sequel, but it did make me think, which is always good.

I have one bad dish, one okay dish, and one good dish to share this week...can you guess which is which? Curry Chicken Pasta Salad, Homemade Mayonnaise, Zuppa Toscana

The bad dish first . . . homemade mayonnaise. Now, I'm not just saying it was bad because I don't like mayonnaise . . . on the contrary, I figured that if I made it myself it would taste better and I would like it. That part at least proved to be true . . . it did taste a whole lot better than the nasty stuff you can get in a jar at the store. My beef with this recipe is that I could not get it to work. It was probably my own fault because I cooked the egg yolk to a higher temperature than it said to, but I could not find pasteurized eggs anywhere, so I needed to cook it longer to make sure there was no salmonella. Does anyone know where I could possibly find pasteurized eggs for future reference? Anyways, it looked like it was working and I thought it was fine, until I set it aside and came back to use it later and it was complete liquid. So then I sort of tried again with another egg yolk and the immersion blender, and that worked a little better. But then I set it aside for a couple of minutes and when I came back to add the last little bit of oil (after my immersion blender had cooled down), the emulsion completely broke and I was back to eggy oil liquid grossness :( This was so frustrating because I ended up having to throw it all away . . . what a waste of tasty olive oil. So if you make it in a blender or use an immersion blender right away, and don't care about using raw eggs, I think this would work just fine and be tasty, but for me, the experience was horrible.

The reason I needed the mayonnaise was the Curry Chicken Pasta Salad. This was a recipe I found in my Penzy's Spices catalog and it sounded pretty good. It would have been super easy, if not for my stupid desire to try and make my own mayonnaise for it at the same time. A lot of people liked it, and it really is a complete meal (starch, protein, good fat, fruit and vegetable) . . , my husband took it for lunch the next few days and he said it was very good. I did end up cutting the curry down a bit because I only had the spicy curry powder and I didn't want it to be too hot, but I should have added more, because for me, it was a little bland. Since my mayonnaise didn't work, my mom was nice enough to give me her olive oil mayonnaise from the store, which I'm sure made it much nicer than just generic mayonnaise. Overall though, not my favorite. I think I like the Italian type of pasta salads better.

And now for some good news: when we got a large bunch of kale from our local farmer, my mind instantly went to Zuppa Toscana, and I was surprised to find that I hadn't shared it on my blog yet. This is a great recipe that comes together easily and can be adapted a bit, if you like. We usually double all of the ingredients except the sausage, and add extra potatoes and kale to make it more hearty. The flavor is great, and you don't even have to leave your house to get soup just like Olive Garden :) Now if only I could perfect those breadsticks ;)

Hope you all have a great week :)