Category Archives: Other

Everything other than book reviews

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Weekend Cooking: Spicy Apple Cake & Beef with Endive and Sun-dried Tomatoes

wkendcooking

 

This is a meme hosted by BethFishReads found here.

This weekend had an inauspicious start as far as cooking goes.  Friday night we had a dinner of nibbles – well all the nibbles we could pull together from the pantry and fridge, cheese, crackers, olives, nuts, carrots and hummus for dip, and fruit with creme fraiche and honey.

 

Saturday was a better planned day with a breakfast of Spiced Apple Cake made with a recipe from Mari’s World and dinner from a Williams-Sonoma recipe: Beef with Endive and Sun-dried Tomatoes

Ingredients:

For the beef:

3 lb. beef rump roast

Salt & pepper

Olive oil

6 cloves of garlic – minced

1 1/3 cups beef stock

¼ cup white wine

Thyme sprigs

3 bay leaves

 

For the salad:

2 tsp. Dijon mustard

2 Tbsp. sherry vinegar (I didn’t have this; I used white wine vinegar instead)

2 Tbsp. walnut oil (I didn’t have walnut oil; I used grapeseed oil)

2 large heads of Belgian endive

½ cup pitted and chopped green olives

½ cup oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes

Zest of 1 lemon

2 Tbsp. chopped fresh parsley
  • Season the beef generously with salt and pepper
  • Heat 2 Tbsp. of olive oil.  Once it is hot, sear the beef turning as needed until browned on all sides.  Transfer to your slow cooker.
  • Pour off most of the oil.  Return to medium high heat and add the garlic and cook for 1 minute.
  • Pour in the stock and wine and dislodge any bits stuck to the pan.  Add the thyme sprigs and bay leaves and transfer all to the slow cooker.  Cover and cook on low for 5 to 6 hours.
  • Once the beef is done; remove from the slow cooker and shred with two forks.
  • To make the salad, whisk together the mustard, vinegar, oil, & lemon zest.
  • Chop the olives and sundried tomatoes
  • Core and chop the endive and parsley.
  • Combine all salad ingredients and toss to coat.

 

To serve, spread all the shredded beef on a serving platter.  Pile the salad on top of the beef.  Use tongs or two spoons to serve, giving a generous portion of both meat and salad.

 

The apple cake was awesome both for breakfast and later in the afternoon with a pot of Williamson tea.

The dinner was very tasty with a wonderful blend of flavors and textures.  (It’s optional but we drank a nice bottle of red wine with ours)

Both of these are recipes I will keep and make again.

Hope everyone else is having “foodie” fun this weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

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Weekend Cooking at Beth Fish Reads

19389-wkendcooking  This is a meme hosted by Beth Fish Reads found here.  This weekend I’ve actually done quite a bit of cooking and cooking activities so….here we go.

Saturday I finally used the beignet mix I brought back from Cafe Du Monde along with a can of their chicory seasoned coffee.  I LOVED both and had them everyday when I was in New Orleans.  The mix worked perfectly and in very little time we had a heaping platter of beignets coated in powdered sugar and lovely cups of cafe au lait..breakfast of champions or perhaps not.

Today I made (with some of my own additions) Delia Smith’s shepherd’s pie.  Recipe to be found here: http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/main-ingredient/lamb/shepherds-pie-with-cheese-crusted-leeks.html    Where Delia used lamb, I used ground beef and pork.  Where Delia used lamb stock, I used a combination of beef stock, red wine and the liquid from soaking a few dried shiitake mushrooms that I added.  I also added a splash of Worcestershire sauce and some baby peas before I spread the potato topping.  Very delish and one of my daughter’s favorites.  I tend to use recipes as a jumping off point quite often.

My daughter had a potluck work function and volunteered to bring pie…then someone said they had to be gluten free.  We tried our hand at gluten free baking and it seemed pretty successful.  She bought gluten free pie crusts from Whole Foods for the Pecan Pie and the Brown Sugar Pumpkin Pie (Martha Stewart’s recipe) and then I helped her make her own for  Sky-high apple and cranberry pie found here: http://www.marthastewart.com/857649/sky-high-apple-cranberry-pie

The final food related part of my weekend was attending a cooking demonstration at Williams Sonoma.  They offer them Sunday’s at 11:00 and they are usually fun and full of interesting information & hints.  Today’s was “Hands Free Cooking”, basically using Slow Cookers and Pressure Cookers.  Came away with a really tasty recipe:  Beef with fennel and sun dried tomatoes. Thinking about trying it next weekend. When I scan in the recipe, I’ll post it here.

Anyway that was the extent of my food – related weekend activities (unless you count drinking countless pots of Williamson Traditional Afternoon tea with Walker’s shortbread)

What good things did you eat this weekend?

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End of Dewey’s Read-a-thon :(

  1. Which hour was most daunting for you?  Hour 18 – couldn’t stay awake
  2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year?   No, particular titles, just  I would suggest a variety of genres, authors, and format.
  3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year?  No, everything seemed to work really well.
  4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon?  Really everything was great, although maybe it was just me but it didn’t seem the twitter presence was as much as previously?  
  5. How many books did you read?  I read 4 books in total.
  6. What were the names of the books you read?  Murder on the Candlelight Tour, Strictly Murder, Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club, Ghost in the Machine
  7. Which book did you enjoy most?  Ghost in the Machine
  8. Which did you enjoy least?  Thursday Morning Breakfast (and Murder) Club
  9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders?  Nope, just a reader 🙂
  10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time?  I will participate again as a reader.

My mistake this time was to use the Read-a-thon to try to clean up my Kindle.  First, because many of the books are just impulse buys because they were freebies or very cheap, so not books I was really invested in reading.  Second, reading for that long on my Kindle bothered my eyes.  Third, all my books were mysteries.  Mysteries are my go-to genre, but four in a row (especially when a couple were just ok) was a problem.

Still now I know and I can have a better plan for next time.

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Dewey’s Read-a-thon Mid-Event Survey

12 Hours down for the Dewey’s Read-a-thon

Mid-Event Survey

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired?

Doing fine.  Not sleepy yet.  Eyes are doing good, but I’m reading on a Kindle so I can enlarge the print as needed.
2) What have you finished reading?

I’ve finished 3 books so far, unfortunately no 5 star books yet.
3) What is your favorite read so far?

Not really been overly enthused so far.  I’m on to Ghost in the Machine by Ed James next.
4) What about your favorite snacks?

Haven’t really been snacking.  I did eat dinner though.  Pork Belly in Cider Gravy, Roasted Carrots and Parsnips, Smashed Red Skin Potatoes – yummy!

5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon? If so, give them some love!

I have been trying to stay mainly reading for the first part. When I get tired later, I’ll start perusing the blogs and adding to my Bloglovin’

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Dewey’s Read-a-thon Introduction

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

I don’t know if I’d call it fine, but I am in New Jersey.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

I am not really sure and that is worrying me.  I’m feeling kind of ambivalent today.
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

I put dinner in the crockpot already – pork cooked in cider (a very autumny dish) and we’re having it with roasted root veg, so I guess that is what I am looking forward to most of all.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

I am a teacher in an urban district and a mom with one kid in college and the other finishing high school.  I love to read across genres.  I’m a big tea and coffee drinker.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

I think I will try to participate in some challenges this time.  I also plan on going out at some point to my Independent book shop.

Have a great read-a-thon everyone!

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Read-a-thon Prep

Getting excited for Dewey’s 24 Hour Read-a-thon this Saturday.  A fun event consisting of blogging, tweeting and reading.  I will probably fit in a visit to my Indie Book Shop as well.

My reading plan is to attempt to clear up my Kindle, but we’ll see… I have some intriguing books piled in my bedroom as well.  On my Kindle I have:

  • A Canterbury Crime by Brian Kavanagh
  • Murder on a Candlelight Tour by Ellen Elizabeth Hunter
  • Why Do Falls Fall In Love by Louise Marley
  • Thursday Morning Breakfast (and murder) Club by Liz Stauffer
  • The Frequency of Murder by John Hogarth
  • My Soul to Keep by Sue McNeill
  • Ghost in the Machine by Ed James
  • In the Blood by Steve Robin
  • A Killing Karma by Geraldine Evans
  • The Dead Lie Down by G.i. Tulloch
  • The Sloan Monroe Series by Cheryl Bradshaw
  • Black is the Colour by Helen Howe
  • The Circular Staircase by Mary Roberts Rinehart

These are all books I have sitting on my Kindle that I keep putting off because the books piled up next to my bed keep jumping the line :).  Although I won’t get to all of them obviously, I hope to at least make a dent.

Snacks are on the agenda for tomorrow…must stock up on finger food and my absolute favorite…Williamson Tea.  My grocery store makes me very sad, they don’t stock it.

Hope everyone else has a fun read-a-thon!

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This is a meme hosted by Midnight Book Girl found here.

This morning I only had a little time to read and I spent it with

 

A really interesting, so far anyway, book I am reading for my book club.  I read a little in this after giving up on:

 

I had this series on my TBR page forever and picked up the first book and a couple more from my local used bookshop, but I just couldn’t get into it.  Not exactly sure why, just I couldn’t immerse myself in it and ended up shelving it in my very small “did not finish” pile.  I may try it again later.  It is a very popular series, so maybe I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind for it.

So, what are you reading this morning?

 

 

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Sundays in Bed with Midnight Book Girl

Somehow my bloglovin’ and my reader dropped the feed from Midnight Book Girl and so I’ve been missing out on Sundays in Bed, this meme that is hosted by her.

My Sundays in Bed read is one that I am reading for my One Drink Minimum Book Club, not really a light and fluffy read, but very interesting.

Beyond the Sky and the Earth:  A Journey into Bhutan by Jamie Zeppa

“Mountains all around, climbing up to peaks, rolling into valleys, again and again. Bhutan is all and only mountains.  I know the technical explanation for the landscape;…It is easier to picture a giant child gathering earth in great armfuls, piling up rocks, pinching mud into ridges and sharp peaks, knuckling out little valleys and gorges, poking holes for water to fall through.”

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Thursday Thirteen

Going through a rough time, so I thought I’d list 13 things to look forward to (in no particular order):

  1. The weekend 🙂
  2. Broadchurch finale tonight at 10 on BBC AmericaImage from BBC America
  3. Christmas
  4. Book Club meeting Oct. 9
  5. Daughter coming home December 13th
  6. Catching up with the Agatha Raisin series and Hamish MacBeth
  7. Thanksgiving Break image from busymom.net
  8. Two week long Christmas Break this year
  9. Lunch date with family member I haven’t seen in a long time
  10. Receiving retro pay
  11. Receiving estate settlement
  12. Malice Domestic
  13. Retirement
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Bloggiesta

 

  • Clean up pages (change goals page)
  • Check all links.
  • Clean up tags
  • Visit blogs and comment :)
  • Check in with twitter for #Bloggiesta
  • Visit my Goodreads page and do some fall clean up there as well (library shelves, TBR list)
  • Visit my FIctFact account and catch it up with my series reads.
  • Set up a calendar and/or goals for posting and meme participation.

I am pretty happy with what I accomplished with everything going on this weekend.  I will be visiting blogs and commenting this evening.  I am relatively new to blogging (less than 1 year) so I have been learning a lot from other people – twitter cards, hosting book clubs, branding, and many other things.

Hope everyone else is enjoying their Bloggiesta!