This Week's Reads 8/9

I'm late getting this up, sorry folks! Crazy weekend celebrating my son's birthday!

Ten Girls to Watch: A Novel by Charity Shumway
I LOVED this book.  Loved it.  The author loosely based it on her real life experience...and wow, those were some experiences.  The basic premise of the book was a 23 year old woman with an Ivy League degree, living in NYC and struggling to find work.  Then she stumbles into a job tracking down 50 years worth of a magazine's 10 Girls to Watch lists.  Needless to say, she gets to talk to some amazing women, and learns a lot from them in the process.  It was delightful.  And just because I loved it extra much, here's one of my favorite little blurbs: "Experience is like evidence.  When you're young and you don't have much experience yet, you don't have much basis for confidence.  All you really have is hope, and that can get shaken pretty easily.  But as years go by, you start to gather this evidence.  You made it through this or that and you did okay, maybe not perfectly, but okay, so when you stumble, which you will, you can look back and say 'Well, I survived that, so I can probably survive this.'  Or there will be things you're really proud of, evidence of your abilities, and you can look back on those things and say 'I did it then, I can do it again.'  Right now, you're just building up those experiences."



Take the Trophy and Run: A Bloomfield Novel by Gail Sattler
A charming quick CLEAN romantic read.  One of a series of non-sequential books set in Bloomfield.  Fun and sweet.








Tulle Death Do Us Part (A Vintage Magic Mystery) by Annette Blair
This is number six of the Vintage Magic series.  I adore this series.  A bit more racy than I typically like in my reading material, but it's very fade to grey, for all its innuendo.  It's just so fun.  The characters are endearing, the mysteries interesting, and the psychometric angle unique and fascinating.  I've thoroughly enjoyed it.  This is a series I like so much, I reread them!

DIY Food Edition: Dried Fruit

I grew up on homemade dried fruit.  I honestly didn't even know for years that you could buy it!  And as I have purchased some since then, I can say I wasn't missing much.  Store bought dried fruit is typically icky and very often has sugar and preservatives added to it.  You know those de-lish-ous dried mangoes from Costco? That are so yummy they are like dessert?  That's because they ARE dessert!  In one serving size, there is 32 grams of sugar.  That's more than that of a Twinkie, folks.
Now, dried fruit that you make yourself is actually good for you!  Because it's being dried, not cooked, none of the nutrients are degraded, so you're getting the full bang of the good stuff.
I bought a dehydrator a number of years ago.  (This is the one.It has served me well for the past 5 years, and it was what I could afford at the time, so I don't regret buying it, despite the fact that it is dying now...it turns on and off randomly....)  (And now I have an uber-expensive commercial grade dehydrator from Cabela's on my covet list...)  That's what my mom used, so that's what I wanted to use.  It is the more energy efficient method of indoor drying, but you can just use your oven if you're not drying often.
So here we go.  In this case, I am making mangoes, bananas and plums.
Step 1: Prep the fruit.  Obviously, this step kinda depends on what you're using.  Mangoes and bananas, obviously you'll want to remove the skin.  Other fruits like pears, apples, plums, peaches, etc., I personally never bother removing the skin.  My mum didn't either.  Too much extra work, and we don't want to lose that extra fiber, right?  :P
In the case of the mangoes, I picked up this nifty mango slicer, and it works like a charm.

Then I sliced the mango halves and peeled the skin off each slice.
If your bananas are a little far gone, try slicing them right through the skin, and then peeling the skin off the individual slices.  It takes a little longer, but then you don't squish your overly ripe banana while slicing it.

The plums, as mentioned, I don't peel.  Just wash them thoroughly, and then slice into thin (about a quarter inch) slices.  Thinner your slices are, faster they will dry.  And I just prefer them that way.  Up to you.  But overall, remember to keep the slices of each batch uniform or else some pieces may not get dry enough.
When I dry apples (and sometimes with pears too), I drop them into a bowl with some lemon juice and stir it around to coat.  This prevents them from turning an ucky brown during the long drying process.
Step 2: Load them up.

I just stick 'em on my dehydrator trays, making sure none of the pieces are touching.  If you're going the oven route, line your trays/cookie sheets with parchment paper or silpat and lay your fruit out in a single layer, again, not touching.  You might even try placing a cookie rack on your tray and putting the fruit on that.  More air circulation and thus faster to dry.
Step 3: Dry 'em!  I flip on my dehydrator.  Ovens: heat it up to around 150 degrees.  You want to dry it, not cook it.  This will take several hours (say 4 to 8...how's like for a vague window!).  Fruit is done if it is chewy.  A great way to test this is to rip a piece in half and take a look.  If any beads of moisture form, it's not done.
I personally over-dry mine by typical standards.  I like just a little crunch.
Step 4:  Let it sit.  Typically 12 hours is the recommendation.
Step 5: Pack it up in storage containers or bags.

And there you are!  A snack you can actually feel good about, healthy and tasty!

This Week's Reads 8/2

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
Wow.  What a beautiful captivating book.  I adored it.  Set in Alaska in the 1920's.  Unusual.  Mysterious.  Bittersweet.  Complex.  Thought provoking.  I highly highly recommend it.  First novel from this author, who is a native Alaskan.  Hope she writes more.

 I Belong With You by Shannon Guymon
I love Shannon Guymon.  This is book two in her Love and Dessert Trilogy.  Enjoyed the first one (You Belong With Me), which is why I read the second.  I even messaged the author herself on Goodreads to tell her I had thoroughly enjoyed them and to urge her to write the third ASAP!  She said it will come out early September, MAYBE late August.  These are fun, happy-ending (squeaky clean) love stories.  I will say I found the time frame perhaps a little quick and thus not so believable, but then again, I met and married my husband in just under a year, so who I am to judge, right?!  :)

Still working on Salt Sugar Fat.  My husband doesn't love it, since I'm scrutinizing every single label more thoroughly now.  :)

A little digiscrappin'

I've found some time here and there to do some digiscrappin'.  You know, I have a lot of hobbies, but I love some more than others.  This one is on the more side of things.  :)  It may have something to do with the fact that I am preserving priceless memories of my darling children who are growing up WAY too fast.
Anyway, before I wander any further down that tangent, let me show you some recent layouts:

Template: Stolen Moments
Kit: Hope Chest by Etc. by Danyale
Alpha: Bugging Out by Kristin Aagard

Kit: Almost Spring by Etc. by Danyale
Template: Lorie M Designs
Alpha: Boy Girl Crush by Etc. by Danyale
Font: CK Alayna

Template: Stolen Moments
Kit: Boys in my Backyard by Stolen Moments and Stacy's Backdoor Designs

Template: La Belle Vie Designs
Kit: Stir Crazy by Kristin Cronin-Barrow
Alpha: Basic Black by Stolen Moments

Kit: It Skips a Beat by Etc. by Danyale
Template: Kara Swanson
Fonts: Lt Chickenhawk, Return to Sender, skinny jeans, Engravers

Now, I've been promising for ages to post about how to get started with digital scrapbooking.  And I intend to honor that promise.  Just not in the way I originally intended.  Stay tuned, hopefully I'll be posting about it this month.

This Week's Reads 7/26

Still making my way through Salt Sugar Fat.  Still horrifying.

Against the Tide by Elizabeth Camden
Really REALLY enjoyed this one.  Historical fiction, set in Boston in the 1800's, concerning the raging illegal opium trade.  Full of suspense and romance.  Loved it.  Will probably read some more of Elizabeth Camden.

An Inquiry Into Love and Death by Simone St. James
Fascinating.  Unusual.  Also historical fiction, set in a coastal town in England the 1920's.  This book was all kinds of mysterious and suspenseful, as it dealt with real-life crime AND a ghostly presence.  Also some romance.  There was one scene I felt the need to skip, as I like all romance in my books to be squeaky clean.  Otherwise, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I have a hold on her last book at the library, and I'm looking forward to the publication of her new book in April!

DIY Food Edition: Baby Food

In an attempt to un-process our food as much as possible, I'm going the DIY route with a lot of things I'd otherwise just purchase.  Baby food was one of those things with my first baby.  I started making my own with my second baby.  And now that I'm onto my third baby, it's no big deal to whip up small or big batches of homemade baby food!
So here's the basics.  Puree fruit.  Serve.  Or cook vegetables.  Puree.  Serve.  :)  But just for kicks, here's a photo step by step for ya of a veggie batch.

My tools:
A big pot
An immersion blender (here's mine, for example)
Silicon ice cube trays (these little gems can also be found at Walmart if you're lucky) or old baby food jars or little baby food storage containers

The goods:
2 large sweet potatoes
5-6 medium carrots

Step 1: Peel the sweet potatoes (I don't peel the carrots, just scrub them really well with a veggie brush), and chop both sweet potatoes and carrots into small chunks (mine were about a half inch by half inch by inch rectangles of sweet potato).  Smaller they are, faster they cook.

Step 2:  Plop 'em in a big pot.

Step 3: Cover with enough water for them to cook in.

Step 4: Bring to a boil, turn down to medium low and let 'em cook until tender.  Check with a fork, if it pierces easily, they are done.

Step 5: Puree with immersion blender.  Or you could just as easily throw it all into a regular blender and puree.  You may need to add water, but be cautious, you don't want it to be TOO watery and thin.  How thoroughly you puree depends, of course, on the age of your baby.  We're still in the silky smooth puree stage.

Step 6: Put into storage, whether that be old baby food jars, special little baby food storage containers, or in my case, silicon ice cube trays.  I adore these, they are easy to use and then you have perfect little 4 ounce cubes of baby food.  After you fill those trays, tap it on the counter to settle the food.
Don't fill any of these containers all the way, as the baby food will expand as it freezes.  (And no, the glass baby jars will not break if you don't fill them up all the way, I used those for my second baby's food, and nary a one broke.)

Step 7: Freeze.

No, freezing will not cause dramatic color change.  These are prunes.  Forgot to take a photo of the sweet potato/carrot cubes before I popped 'em out.

Step 8: If you are using the silicon ice cube trays, pop those babies out and put them in a freezer ziploc or for  longer storage when I make a big batch, I seal 'em up with my Food Saver.

Step 9: Thaw (I pop mine in the microwave, 1 minute for one cube, a minute thirty for two cubes) and serve to a darling baby who will undoubtedly make a big mess with it.

She makes prunes look good.

This particular batch made about 26 4 ounce cubes of baby food.  (Stage 1 jars are typically 2.5 ounces, Stage 2 jars are typically 3.5 to 4 ounces, Stage 3 jars are typically 6 ounces.)
I spent less than $2 (I don't know exactly how much, unfortunately, but I guarantee it was less than 2 bucks since I got the carrots on sale!), so that's less than 8 cents a serving.  Gerber Stage 2 from walmart.com is $0.54 per 3.5 ounce serving.  Savings?  Check.  Knowing precisely what is in your baby food?  Check.
Easy Peasy!

This Week's Reads 7/19

Okay, so truthfully, I don't have time to write good book reviews.  I just don't.  (Which is why the "book reviews" I've posted in the past....aren't really book reviews...just what I have to write for the Blogging for Books program!)  But I love to read, and I read a lot.  Especially since I'm nursing, I have to sit down multiple times a day, so I read while baby eats!

So my new idea is a weekly (I hope) post on what I'm reading this week.  No book reviews.  Just a little blurb for a few reads of the week.

So here goes.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an accident country girl and The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from my Frontier by Ree Drummond

I've been reading Ree Drummond's blog for a few years, and meaning to catch her Food Network show, but I never have.  Until my husband went out of town this week and I discovered it can be streamed through Amazon Prime.  Yeah, I've watched 9 episodes in the last two days.  Anyway, this inspired me to check out her two cookbooks from the library and pre-order her newest one.  Everything she makes looks amazing.  I cannot, however, cook like she does everyday.  For one, my husband is not a cattle rancher, he's a lawyer.  Still a hard worker, but not the of the variety that ends in burning off thousands of calories and creating rock hard muscles (sorry if you're reading this, hon, though I highly doubt it).  For two, lots of her recipes include things I'm trying to cut out of our diet as completely as possible!  That being said, nothing wrong with an occasional decadent indulgence!!!!

Glimmer of Hope by Sarah M. Eden

A Regency era romance.  Honestly, I didn't love this one.  Which I found shocking because I've adored all Sarah Eden's books.  This one just felt too rushed to me.  Too many issues, too much territory to cover, and not enough pages.  Highly recommend all her other books though!

Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss

Wow.  Where to start.  I'm still in the middle of this one, so I'm not offering final conclusions, but I will say I think this is more than worth reading.  I picked it up because I have been so interested in improving my family's health and eating habits.  The research done to figure out how to get the consumer begging for more is...almost sickening.  What is in processed food IS sickening.  There's also a lot of history of the industry.  It has been fascinating to read about how these convenience foods came about.  Above all, however, I like that this book is written by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who details all his sources in an extensive Notes section and Bibliography.  I'm the kind of person who is very picky about sources.  There is just so much "information" out there, it can be difficult to know what to believe and what to take with a grain of salt.  If primary sources are not provided, I'm going to take it with a grain of salt.  This, however, I can take seriously.

Book Review: Gone South

Gone South, by Meg Moseley

Book description:

Leaving frosty Michigan for the Deep South was never a blip in the simple plans Tish McComb imagined for her life, dreams of marriage and family that were dashed five years earlier in a tragic accident. Now an opportunity to buy her great-great-great-grandparents’ Civil War era home beckons Tish to Noble, Alabama, a Southern town in every sense of the word. She wonders if God has given her a new dream— the old house filled with friends, her vintage percolator bubbling on the sideboard.
 
When Tish discovers that McCombs aren’t welcome in town, she feels like a Yankee behind enemy lines. Only local antiques dealer George Zorbas seems willing to give her a chance. What’s a lonely outcast to do but take in Noble’s resident prodigal, Melanie Hamilton, and hope that the two can find some much needed acceptance in each other.
 
Problem is, old habits die hard, and Mel is quite set in her destructive ways. With Melanie blocked from going home, Tish must try to manage her incorrigible houseguest as she attempts to prove her own worth in a town that seems to have forgotten that every sinner needs God-given mercy, love and forgiveness.

I actually really liked this book (which was especially pleasant after the last book I reviewed with the Blogging for Books program).  The characters were interesting and likeable, and I really enjoyed all the moral dilemmas and misunderstandings they faced.  It was a book about fighting prejudices, dealing with unfulfilled expectations, and coming to terms with unpleasant truths. It was a delightful very real story.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars. I did receive this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group in exchange for this review.