weekly meme – Page 2 – Peaceful Reader

Weekend Cooking; I'm not actually cooking …but stop by anyway!

I haven’t cooked it yet but in a moment of relaxing after school I found this recipe while paging through my new Vegetarian Times magazine. I’m plan to cook it; maybe just not this weekend. My plan is to put my feet up a lot this weekend. Starting now.

Potato and Cauliflower Burrito

1 15-oz can fire-roasted crushed tomatoes
1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce, drained
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tsp. canola oil

1 small onion, halved and sliced (1 cup)

1/2 tsp. dried oregano
3 cups small cauliflower florets
1 medium Yukon Gold or russet potato (6 ozs), cut into 1/4-inch cubes
3 T. chopped cilantro
4 8-inch flour or whole-wheat tortillas, warmed
1 cup cooked brown rice, warmed
1 cup grated vegan Monteray Jack cheese

1. Pulse tomatoes, chipotle chile, and garlic in food processor until coarse puree forms.

2. Meanwhile, heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and oregano; saute 2 minutes. Stir in cauliflower, potato, and tomato mixture, and season with salt and pepper, if desired. Cover, and simmer 10 minutes. Uncover, and simmer 5 more minutes, or until cauliflower and potato are tender. Stir in cilantro.

3. Divide cauliflower mixture among tortillas, top with rice, and sprinkle with cheese. Roll up tortillas, leaving one end open.

***I’m going to use regular (real) cheese when I make this.

This burrito is only 360 calories with 10 g. of protein. There are 4 other burrito recipes included in this article, Better Burritos which states “forget those monster restaurant burritos that may be yummy, but are anything but low-cal. (A typical veggie burrito from a chain offering fresh ingredients clocks in around 750 calories-and that’s without guacamole.) (35-VT, June)

Golly, that’s a lot of calories for a veggie burrito!! I do love Chipolte’s burritos-not so much knowing this. I’m not much of a calorie counter but that’s a large number for one item. Perusing Chipotle’s website I have to say I’m still a fan as they do use good ingredients and they have a handy nutritional guide-I rounded up and only got about 500 calories so I wonder which big burrito VT is talking about.

Hope your weekend is lovely. Happy Mother’s Day to all. I dropped hints to Groovy Girl and Teenage Boy about taking me for a long walk at our local nature reserve, if its not raining that is. Either way it will be a beautiful day.

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking meme. Everyone can play along with any food related post. Click over and see what she’s cooking up-it’s always informative.

Seriously Selling Books

(My organic, buy-local hero, Alice Waters)

One of my dear friends is the brains behind our (now 2nd) annual Christmas Bazaar. Last year she made me make chocolate covered pretzel sticks and cookies. This year she asked if I would be in charge of a used book sale as part of the bazaar. Well, that is right up my alley so it took about two seconds to say yes.

So here I’ve been for the last three hours, selling books at rock-bottom prices. We are a church filled with readers so the book selection is stellar-really! I have a stack right next to me of excellent titles I just couldn’t pass up. Two are cookbooks: Chez Panisse Desserts by Lindsey Remolif Shere with a preface by Alice Waters and illustrated by Wayne Thiebaud. I’m buying it because I trust Ms Waters so much but also because it has recipes like Nutmeg Geranium Ice Cream, Langues De Chat and an entire chapter on just chocolate.
The other cookbook is a spiral-bound book called Screen Cuisine with a really silly illustration on the front. I couldn’t find an image of it and I don’t have a fancy phone to snap a picture to share. I happened to browse through it and discovered it was published by the National Film Society. The list of recipes arefrom a cornucopia of famous people such as Rosemary Clooney’s Viennese Goulash, Newman’s Own Marinated Steak, Carol Burnett’s Fresh Peach Souffle and Dean Martin’s “Dean’s Chix Dish.” Wow-this is a classic. After each recipe is their “signature.” I have to buy it just for the amusement. Only at a church bazaar could you find two such amazing recipe books. My husband, of course, rolled his eyes at the amount of books I brought home! You can’t beat 50 cents a book.

This post is part of Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking. She reviewed The Wine Trials; 2011-a fantastic book about blind taste testing a variety of wines and their rankings. I know it is a useful book because I have the first edition-2008. My thoughtful husband gave it to me as a birthday and I still use it. A gift that keeps on giving! Even though I haven’t tried all the wines in my version I’d love to take a look at this newer version. Thanks Beth Fish for a great reveiw!

Cucumbers to Pickles

We made pickles for the first time ever as a family and it was a fantastic learning experience for everyone. I dream up lots of plans but don’t always follow through so when I announced part way through the summer that I was interested in making bread and butter pickles they males in my house did small eye rolls and gently nodded their heads. My daughter, of course, was gung-ho from the beginning. I googled bread and butter pickles and found this man, Drew Kime’s wonderful website/blog and just followed his easy steps. We bought baskets of smaller cucumbers and mixed them with regular sized cukes from our farmer’s market, rinsed them and my son took charge of slicing.

From above cucumbers to these delicious pickles. We will have pickles all winter long plus I’ve given a few jars away. They are just the right amount of spicy to sweet. My husband and I just sat down and ate lunch together: two pieces of soft bread, stone ground mustard, thinly sliced radishes, salad greens (two scores from this morning’s market), sharp cheddar, and a jar of homemade pickles to dig into=YUM sandwich!

This post is part of Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads. She’s got something appropriately timed about witches and wine with a giveaway included.

Other news: I’m very close to finishing linger by maggie stiefvater. I wish I was in Mpls this weekend for the Kid Lit conference as she is the headliner and I would love to hear her speak and maybe have an opportunity to shake her hand. I have this weird excitement about shaking hands with certain peeps. I can feel the eye rolls and fond smirks even as I type this!

Around the World Cookbook

by Abigail Johnson Dodge

DK Publishing

(2008)

     My daughter brought this great wire-bound book home from her school library. She even renewed it last week but we still haven’t had a chance to make anything from it. We have had several important house guests though and they have all perused this cookbook. My mother-in-law and my mother both think it would make a fantastic Christmas gift for their various granchildren. My mother-in-law wants to have a copy of it for herself to use when grandchildren are there.
     My friend V copied down a brussell sprout recipe from it and generally liked the cookbook but was taken aback how Africa (the Continent) is lumped together with The Middle East and the Mediterranean. We could understand this mixture if just North Africa’s cuisine was part of this group but the entire African continent is too diverse to add entirely to one group. Oh, and Africa only has one recipe including in this entire section and it is one brought by the Dutch Settlers-as if the African people never made anything themselves before, during or after the Dutch invaded. Note to publisher: Give Africa a little more space next time because as V said “It’s like people of color (from Africa) don’t really cook or matter!” It is always a startling experience to view a piece of art from another’s eyes. Other than this faux pas we like the cookbook.
     Inside the book there are pages of kitchen rules, ingredients lists, kitchen tools and vocabulary. Each section begins with a photo and information about the country, Asia starts the book off and has it’s own large section with such delicious recipes miso soup, bok choy stir-fry and Vietnamese lettuce rolls. I was impressed with how many meatless selections there were throughout the book. Besides the already mentioned countries, others included are India, Indonesia and Australia and Rusia and Northern Europe, South America, Mexico and the Caribbean and U.S. and Canada. There are also sections on finger food, cheeses and flatbreads from around the world. I have to say there are several recipes in each section that I want to try.
Overall a solid A rating.
     Today as we drive across part of Iowa to a regional Cross Country meet she plans to pick several recipes that she and I can make tomorrow. I have my heart set on a few, like the Canadian Butter Tarts with maple butter! Oh, Canada!
Click for Abby Dodge’s website. This post is part of Weekend Cooking hosted by Beth Fish Reads. Happy Cooking!!

Shop Indie Bookstores

Teaser Tuesday

Miz B. at Should Be Reading hosts this weekly bookish meme.

Provide a snippet (about two lines) from your current read;

just enough to tease the readers. Include the title and author

so participants can add it to their wish lists.

My teaser is from A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolick:

The young soldier behind her had whispered in Catherine’s ear and pointed as a rainbow appeared. She could still smell, all these years later, the sweet sweat of his young body in his immaculate uniform. She could remember it better than all the rest of her childhood, better than the mountains of Virginia that lay beyond where the rainbow shone. (18)

My handsome husband and I started this book on our little overnight adventure; me reading to him in the car as he drove and we are really intrigued by the characters. It is an odd book and we are only on the 4th chapter…we’ll see what the rest of the pages bring.

Happy Reading!

Blogger Hop Friday

Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books hosts Friday’s book blogger hop party. The question of the day is a good one (from Elizabeth at Silver’s Reviews) and Jennifer’s answer made me laugh so hop there to sign up and then hop around and find some new blogs!
Here’s the question:

When you write reviews, do you write them as you are reading

or wait until you have read the entire book?

Oh, I wish! I’m not that organized to be jotting notes while I’m reading. I try to take notes and sometimes I put a sticky note at a particularly great passage but I’m inconsistent. I want to be better but don’t like my reading to be regulated either. Often I’m reading on the fly also like the past few weeks I’ve been getting extra reading done while my daughter is at play practice. I sit in the lobby and read-I never have post-its or my notebook with me.

I read a post written by a fellow blogger that said she always finished her post for a book before she even started another book. I admire that but feel like a “kid-blogger” cuz I want the reading to be number one and blogging, the side writing adventure. At some points I’m several books behind and I don’t review all the books I read either. Sometimes I have to combine review posts because the library is begging for their books back. I don’t think these things are going to change soon either; my life is fun and crazy busy!

What about you? Do you write and read at the same time? Or are you morea fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants blogger?

I have to clean my house tomorrow night because my mom is coming to take care of my children while I head to an undisclosed location for one night away with my husband. My house needs to be clean for my mom but after the house is clean I will be ready to relax and blog hop my Friday night away!!

Happy Friday….

It’s Friday and time for the Book Blogger Hop hosted by Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books.
The question for today is
Do you judge a book by its cover?

Emphatically Yes! A beautiful cover draws the reader in and will continually keep a hold on you.
For instance while I read Shiver I kept looking back at the cover, even though it’s just some vines and a wolf, it was
Sam’s and Grace’s world and I felt drawn into it.

I will read books with less-than-attractive covers because it could still be a fantastic story within-it just makes me disappointed in the art and perhaps expect more from the story. Once I learned that authors have pretty much no say over their cover art, which is was a shocking discovey and complete failure in the balance of the world, I think I judge less.
No matter what though the cover has the opportunity to pull me in and great attention to detail should be paid in representing that story, the one hand-crafted by the author.

Hop on over to Crazy-for-Books, check out the rules and the hundreds of blogs participating, and hop, hop, hop!

Hippie Chick/Teaser Tuesday

“It did not stand to reason that a shark would find you in the first quarter hour you were in the water. Statistically it would have been a fluke, a crazy ironic coincidence, like lightning burning a Z in Zorro’s shoulder blade, or a boat impaling itself on a rusty engine part.” (30)
~hippie chick by Joseph Monninger

Teaser Tuesday is a bookish weekly meme hosted by MizB. at Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along. Just grab your current read and do the following:

Open to a random page

Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (don’t share too much; You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Happy Tuesday!

One Crazy Summer-Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by Miz B of Should Be Reading, highlighting a random passage from your current read. It’s easy to play along.

My teaser is from One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. There are two other books I’m trying to finish up before I fully immerse myself in this one~I am intrigued from the few pages I’ve read.

I did as Big Ma had told me in our many talks on how to act around white people. I said, “Thank you,” but I didn’t add the “ma’am,” for the whole “Thank you, ma’am.” I’ve never heard anyone else say it in Brooklyn. Only in old movies on TV. And when we drove down to Alabama. People say “Yes, ma’am,” and “No, ma’am” in Alabama all the time. That old word was perfectly fine for Big Ma. It just wasn’t perfectly fine for me. (16)

She has such spunk and I love how this quote highlights the changing of an era over the word “Ma’am.” I’m excited to keep reading!

What’s teasing you today??

Book Blogger Hop

Well, it’s 9:30 in the morning and there are already 189 entries over at Jennifer’s blog, Crazy-for-Book! It’s a great list of blogs so I’m ready to start “hopping” around. I’ve had fun the last few weeks and have been amazed at how many book blogs there are….it”s downright crazy!!

Her question today via Michelle’s Book Blog is:

How many books do you have on your ‘to be read shelf’?

It’s not so easy to compile this from the many different piles around my home and the

variety of lists I keep but here goes:

113 tbr list on Good Reads

155 in my house in various locations

100 on my computer list

For a Grand Total of 368 books

Thanks you seven-year-old for helping me run around and count piles!!

This doesn’t take into account the books on my library shelves at school that

I want to read but never get around to them.

Have fun “hopping” around!!