"Obsidian" - West Virginia (& "Onyx" . . . books 1 & 2 of the Lux series)
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p.s. I'm pretty sure the real Katy looks
nothing like this embarrassing cover |
Okay, this is going to sound really strange, but right now I'm writing a book review blog about a book about a girl who writes a book review blog. Crazy huh? Anyways, I'm sure I'm not as passionate about books as she is, but I try in my own little way :) This was a bit of a strange book. For starters, it's about aliens. I don't know why, but I have never been interested in alien stories. E.T. scared me and most of the other popular alien stories I found either scary or gross, so I didn't have high expectations for this book. I will admit that it was pretty entertaining though, and I just finished the second one in the series too, because the first book eneded with some cliff hangers that I needed to have resolved. Overall, they aren't great in the grand scheme of "bookdom". There is some bad language and the tension and innuendo between the two main characters is a bit much . . . definitely not a book for the younger young adult audience. I think the author also writes adult romance novels, and I think some of that flows over too much into her young adult books. However, back to the story: (Slight spoilers ahead . . .) The premise is that there are good aliens (Luxen) who had to flee their home galaxy when their planet was destroyed and are living as refugees on earth. They are known by the Department of Defense and have to keep a low profile as part of their agreement in order to stay here. There are also bad aliens (Arum) who want to kill them and take their powers. Katy, the main character, happens to move in next to a brother and sister duo of good aliens and her life gets a whole lot more complicated. I'll leave it at that . . . check it out if you're interested. It's a little embarrassing to admit I've read this book because when asked, "What are you reading?", by a coworker I had to say, "A YA novel about a sexy alien" . . . not very professional of me . . . oops.
Anyways, on to a better topic . . . cupcakes :) Oh, and soup and some more cake, and some salsa too . . . why not?
To start with, I have these really yummy, but incredibly putsy
Almond Joy cupcakes. They were super tasty, but trying to dig through the container of sliced almonds to find perfect ones and then arrange them into "petals" on the top was kind of a pain. It was probably worth it though, because although they were really putsy, they weren't hard to make at all, and the results were really good . . . definitely a keeper.
This first soup I was not a huge fan of. I haven't had a chicken pot pie in a really long time, so when I saw this simple recipe for
Chicken Potpie Soup, I had to try it. The soup part was actually pretty good, I'm just not a huge pie crust lover. I was skeptical about putting chicken seasoning on the pie crust, but it did taste pretty good. If you like pie crust, then I think you would like this recipe. But just for my personal preference, it wasn't that great. Maybe if it was puff pastry I would like it better? It is a good soup though, and I think oyster crackers in it would be a tastier alternative.
The
Wonton Soup was really good. It was more time consuming than the other soup, but that was partially to do with my lack of knowledge on how to properly grate fresh ginger and how to assemble wontons. The wonton wrappers that I used were nowhere near big enough to allow a whole tablespoon of filling in them (I got a little over a teaspoon) and mine looked nothing like her pictures. So I'm sure I was doing something wrong there. Also, the wontons get soggy . . . really soggy . . . really fast. So I only cooked as many as we would eat that night, and they were really yummy. I saved the other assembled wontons and tried to cook them subsequent nights, but they either got really doughy or soggy and fell apart depending on how long I cooked them. I was a little scared of the miso paste, but I found some white miso in the refrigerated section of Whole Foods and it was really mild and the soup had a fantastic flavor. I liked the wontons, but in the future (and to use up all the rest of the miso I have now) I'll probably just make the soup without the wontons . . . the baby bok choy and mushrooms are really good :)
The other cake I have to share today is this amazing
Fresh Strawberry Yogurt Cake. A friend found this recipe and asked me to make it for our Bible study group, and it was a very good decision to do so :) And who doesn't love a Bundt cake? So easy. I also want to say that I used Aldi Vanilla Greek yogurt, but it might have been plain. Anyways, that combined with the ripeness of my berries made a perfect batter, I didn't have any berry sinking issues like she did. Very, very tasty and easy . . . give it a try.
Finally, another recipe using some of summer's bounty,
Watermelon Salsa. I wasn't sure about the combination at first, but I've tried salsas with sweet ingredients before and liked them, so I decided to give it a shot. It was actually really good, and it held up for a few days in the refrigerator too, which is a plus in my book.
Okay, I'm really hungry now after looked at all these recipes again, I should go eat dinner. I hope you all have a wonderful day :)
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