2014 - Book 39c

"Boundless" - Final book in "Unearthly" series

Sigh. This book did not end the way I wanted it to. That's not to say that it wasn't a good book . . . it was, but when you have the typical love triangle story, someone has to lose. I really liked that this book made me think about angels a lot more than I typically do, and the author's take on heaven and hell was really interesting too. I think about half of you would feel the way I did about the ending, and the rest would be completely opposed, because both options were pretty good . . . not too often you find so many respectable characters in books these days :) So, I don't want to say more, because I don't want to spoil anything, but I was thoroughly entertained and captivated by this series, so I would recommend it. Now I wish there was a movie version I could watch :)

Okay, another blog with lots of recipes to throw at you. First of all, I created a recipe to enter the Sargento "Chopped" challenge. The semi-final winners got to go to New York and cook their recipe for Chopped judges, and the winner won $10,000, so I figured it was worth it to enter. The entry process was a huge headache though, because even trying different computers and different browsers, I could NOT get my entry submitted, and the little entry deadline countdown clock was looming at the top of the screen. Finally, I got really desperate and e-mailed all of my information to one of my very kind friends and he was able to submit the entry via his smart phone. So it was submitted, but I wasn't chosen . . . not really surprising since there were so many entries. Oh well, we got a really tasty dinner out of it anyways. I made roasted red pepper and spinach stuffed chicken with a side salad with roasted red pepper vinaigrette, a cheesy Alfredo sauce (not pictured) and Italian cheese crisps (cheese crisp directions).

Another success was my "Duo of Silks" pie. It was inspired by an amazing pie I had at a local diner, and I managed to recreate my own by putting half of two different recipes into store bought Oreo crusts (Peanut Butter Silk Pie & French Silk Pie). I tried my hand at making stabilized whipped cream too, but that was not so much of a success. I had lots of gelatin lumps in it, so I just ended up putting it through the strainer and having unstabilized whipped cream, which worked out just fine. One pie turned out beautifully, complete with fancy decorations, but of course, I forgot to take a picture of that one. But I decorated the other one in honor of "Pi Day" (March 14th aka 3-14) with a lovely chocolate chip "Pi" :) Both tasted equally good.

This "One Pan Veggie Fajita Pasta" was also good . . . very spicy, but very tasty. It would be even better with some grilled chicken in it. It did seem a little strange to have Mexican flavors with pasta, but I think it worked.

The Cheesy Chicken and Rice Casserole however was not such a success. It was rather bland, and even after the 45 minute bake, the rice was still a bit crunchy. If you were cooking for picky eaters, and let it bake a little longer, this recipe might be a good option, but it was not a keeper for me.

And finally, Bruschetta Chicken Bake. This was just okay. I liked most of it, but I really didn't like the flavor of the tomatoes in it, for some odd reason. I won't be making this again either.

Whew, okay, I think that's all for this post. I'm slowly but surely getting caught up on my posts and recipes. Thank you for bearing with these marathon posts . . . I hope you are getting some good ideas for new recipes to try, or at least are feeling inspired to find some good summer reads :) Hope you have a great week.

2014/2015 - Book 39b

"Hallowed" - Second book in "Unearthly" series

Yep, you guessed it, I got sucked into the "Unearthly series". Since I've already gone past my year-long reading challenge (and failed, unfortunately), I figured diverging into another series won't hurt anything, and then I'll still have the story line clear in my head.
I thought this was a pretty good second book. I don't want to give out too much of the plot, because I don't want to ruin it for anyone who wants to read the first one yet. But there are some good twists and turns and it is a good set up for the third book (which I just happened to get from the library during my lunch hour today). I'm really looking forward to learning how it ends.

I have a couple of short recipes and then one long RECIPE EXPLOSION about some of the most adorable and professional-looking cupcakes I've ever made :)

To start off with, I made some strawberry-covered chocolates as a kind of Valentine's treat (yes, I know I am very behind with my recipe sharing). I found the idea in my Food Network magazine and thought it was clever. Chocolate-covered strawberries are so popular, so I decided to switch it up and make strawberry-covered chocolate, essentially chocolate truffles covered in freeze-dried strawberries. Finding freeze-dried strawberries was a trick (thank you Hy-Vee), but all-in-all they were pretty tasty. Not very much strawberry flavor, so I think I'll stick with regular chocolate truffles from now on, but it was something cute to try.

And for the main course, a french onion pork chop skillet. Unfortunately, I was not a fan of this. I needed a way bigger skillet, or maybe two skillets, to give my meat enough room to cook. Also, it was leaning pretty heavily to the salty side of things . . . not a good place to be. I served it with a side salad though, so it wasn't too bad. Definitely not a "make it again" recipe.

Lemon cupcakes with lemon curd

For the main attraction, feast your eyes on these cupcakes that I made for my friend Lisa's baby shower. Lisa knows I love to bake, so I was really honored when she asked me to make the cupcakes for her shower. It turned out that there were going to be a ton more people there than I was expecting at first, so I made a lot of cupcakes. I wish I had written this post earlier, so I could remember exactly how many I had made, but I want to say I made at least 24 regular sized cupcakes plus probably 60 mini cupcakes. I decided to make two flavors of cupcakes, because some people are crazy and don't like chocolate, and then of course, I had to fill them, because filled cupcakes are fancier. I finally settled on chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate raspberry ganache filling, and lemon cupcakes with a lemon curd filling. I used German buttercream for both and just split the batch and colored half pink and half blue (because she didn't know if she was having a boy or a girl). She had also had rubber ducks at her wedding reception, so I thought using duckies would be really neat . . . this was my cupcake inspiration (duckie cupcakes). Found really cute duckie toppers at my local bakery store . . . I got half that were actual rubber ducks that squirt water out their beaks and the other half were just plastic toppers.
For the actual cake, I used my go-to chocolate cake recipe and filled them with this yummy chocolate raspberry ganache. I didn't think the ganache had quite a strong enough raspberry flavor, so I put some of the extra seedless raspberry preserves in the cupcakes as well. These were topped with a swirl of pink frosting and a fresh raspberry. In case you were wondering the proper way to wash raspberries . . . I found this video interesting (washing raspberries).

The lemon cupcakes were a bit harder to plan since I didn't have a go-to lemon cake recipe, but I looked at a few and decided on this one (lemon cupcakes). I saved two lemon curd recipes (Martha Stewart lemon curd &  Sugarcrafter lemon curd . . . which is just a slightly scaled down adaptation of Martha Stewart's recipe) and I honestly can't remember which one I used, but I'm thinking that I used the larger one so the number of egg whites and egg yolks was even . . . who knows. I do like the pictures on the Sugarcrafter site though. I'd never made lemon curd before, so I found them helpful.

I knew presentation was important too, so I put them on my nice cupcake stand and a three-tiered tray. Driving to that baby shower was sure nerve-wracking, but they all made it in one piece. Next time, I think more of these plastic trays would be a great idea. So, I think they are the most professional-looking cupcakes I've made to date, they were super tasty, and they were a huge hit with everyone. I hope you're enjoying them as much as I did :)

So cute :)

Now, I need to apologize for the length of this post. I definitely need to trim down my recipes so I don't overwhelm my readers too much. Anyways, I'll have a few more longs posts, probably, and then I'll try to pare them down a little bit :) Have a great week.

2014/2015 - Book 39

"Unearthly" - Wyoming

I was pleased to stumble upon another book that I really enjoyed. I even stayed up late reading it and took it to work to read during my lunch hours. Of course, it's another series, so now I'm (not so) patiently waiting to get the second book from the library. I have always been curious about the Nephilim in the Bible, and what they really were, so the idea of "angel-bloods" really intrigued me. Basically, this is a story about a teen girl finding out that she is part angel and discovering her powers. It really reminded me of the "Starcrossed" series in that way. She also is tasked with her life's purpose and she has to decide if she is going to follow her heart or her "destiny".
Having just driven out to the west coast and visited Yellowstone myself, that scenery was still pretty fresh in my mind, and it also plays a big part in this book. I thought it was pretty well written, and the story was right up my alley, so I enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to reading the next one :)

If you liked the cute crochet baby hat with the flower that I made before, you're going to love this one. It's a crochet puppy hat :) I made the newborn version for a friend of mine who just had a baby, but unfortunately, his head was so big that it didn't fit. So I told her to put it on a stuffed animal and I'll have to make him a bigger size at some point. Kind of a failure in the fact that it didn't fit, but a total success in the cuteness department (sorry I don't have a picture,  you'll just have to take my word for it that it looked pretty similar to the one on the instruction blog).

Now for the recipes :) One of my favorite foods of all time is a good batch of buffalo wings with medium sauce. Not too spicy, but spicy enough be the perfect combination of hot that when mixed with a piping hot chicken wing and some cool bleu cheese sauce makes for an explosive bite of awesomeness ;) I've had chicken wings all over the place, but I think this recipe is my ticket to tasty wings at home whenever I want. The recipe (Buffalo Wings) was spot on for cooking. The wings were crispy without frying, and although I didn't use the sauce recipe that went with the wings, it was pretty similar to the recipe I used, so I figure it would probably be good too. I liked the bleu cheese sauce, but it was not the star of the dish. Also, I can't believe how good the copycat Buffalo Wild Wings medium sauce is. Granted, I wish I could make it from scratch instead of having to start with Frank's Red Hot sauce, and I did use pasteurized eggs because I'm paranoid about raw eggs, but oh well . . . it works, and I'm happy in all my spicy, saucy glory . . . pass the wet wipes ;)

Mmmmmmm

Also, since I've never really made chicken wings before, this video on how to properly cut them up to get the iconic wing and drumette sections and discard the tips really helped me. Not all of the wings were that easy to cut, but this is definitely a good guide.

While I was on a butchering streak, here's a tasty recipe for some Orange Ginger Glazed Cornish Hens. The recipe calls for cutting them in half and then skinning them . . . not exactly a pleasant process with the bone crunching and the slimy raw skin, but it made for a nicely sized portion for dinner. I wasn't able to get all the skin off, especially at the bottoms of the tiny little legs, but it didn't seem to matter. I served them with rice and green beans and they were pretty good. Probably a bit too much work to be worth repeating, but they were good to try and would be nice if you needed something for a fancier dinner.

Well, that's all for this time . . . now to go count down the minutes until I can get the next book in the series. I've been out of the loop of reading for a while and it's so nice to get back into it. Have a great week :)