Month: April 2016

Recent Reads: I’ve been holding out on you!

Lauren4 Comments

On Tuesday, I finished up a book during my lunch break, decided I should write a post about it, then realized I’d finished five other books since the last time I did a book review post!  I don’t know how or when that happened by I’m simultaneously feeling pleased (for reading lots!) and disappointed in myself.  Let’s fix that today!*

*Today, as in the Rockies Home Opener!!!  If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know Joey and I look forward to this day ALL YEAR LONG.  As is tradition, we will be lunching at Biker Jim’s, drinking beer in the sunshine, breathing in that Coors Field air, taking note of everyone’s walk up song and rooting for our dear Rockies to be less bad than last year.  Happiest of Fridays!

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

All the Light

Okay, don’t get me wrong I really liked this book, but I had heard SUCH good things about it that I think I expected to like it a lot more.  I’m even having a hard time pinpointing what I didn’t love about the book.  I just can’t really put my finger on it.  I guess I should just focus on what I did like, which was the effortless back-and-forth interweaving aspect of how the story was told, a totally new perspective of what it was like to be a young boy in Nazi Germany, the indisputable love a father had for his blind daughter, the fact that Marie-Laure was never painted as helpless and the language.  It read like poetry and there’s nothing better than literature written like that.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Jane

Wait, you don’t re-read Victorian lit for fun?  Me neither…  In all honesty, I started this in December and though I flew through the first half, Part II took me FOREVER to get through.  Partly because I was reading other things and partly because Jane’s life without Rochester is boring as can be.  Come on, we knew it and she knew it too.  I did finally make it through (and gave myself a pat on the back), but I think it’s safe to say I probably won’t be reading that again any time soon.  I swear I liked it the first time around!

The Grownup by Gillian Flynn

Grownup

This was our March book group pick and it was all of 60 pages long.  I read it in less than an hour, then made Joey read it so we could discuss.  It made a few mentions of The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and it did have that same eerie appeal to it in the beginning, but then Gillian Flynn fell into her pattern of writing a book with three twists and it felt all too predictable.  The feminist in me wants to love a successful female author, but the English major in me says her writing is formulaic and far too concerned with shock appeal.Read More »

Make This Now

Lauren1 Comment

After I published my first “Make This Now” post, Joey told me I should make it a weekly series.  I told him I’d been saving up recipes and writing that post for over a month, so I probably wouldn’t have enough content to make it a weekly thing, but he assured me that even one recipe a week would be good enough.  Go figure that a week later, I’d end up with three recipes worth sharing!  This edition includes all things carby, aka delicious, so pay attention now.

Vegan “Brioche” Slider Buns

IMG_2045

When you can’t stop thinking about slider buns, even during Game of Thrones and your husband can’t stop talking about slider buns, even during a Fantasy Baseball draft, you know you’ve found a recipe winner.

Vegan or not, these were SO GOOD.  The yeast actually foamed up (which never happens for me…), they rose like a charm and they made the biggest, fluffiest, softest slider bun cloud I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.  I started the dough and Joey formed them into the slider buns while I was at book club and then we baked them and it was probably our proudest joint-effort-moment thus far in life.  I can cross “find PERFECT burger bun recipe” off my life goal list.  DONE!

Creamy Chive Potatoes

IMG_1264

I don’t even like potatoes (‘cept sweet potatoes and, uh, all French fries), but this recipe!  I can’t even deny the potato goodness here.  It transcends all potato blandness and just becomes something so innately satisfying.

We’ve made this before, but even so, I wasn’t prepared for that first forkful to hit my taste buds.  HOW IS IT SO GOOD?  Full Disclosure: we used almond milk, which might be the furthest thing from the half-and-half the recipe called for, and it still turned out so creamy and luscious.  They almost taste like gnocchi — or, as I call them, “potato pillows” — but without all the trouble of actually making gnocchi.  Just know we had to go to FIVE different grocery store to find chives and it was 100% worth it.

Orecchiette with Peas, Shrimp and Buttermilk-Herb Dressing

IMG_7499

Confession: I reach “recipe exhaustion” after making something about five times.  As much as I wanna be that person who has an arsenal of tried and true recipes they’ve made so many times they know how to make them by heart, I’m just not.*  BUT, I’ve been making this every spring for like five years and I look forward to it every.single.year.  It’s so dang easy, quick and delicious.  Warning: serious garlic breath ahead, but it’s so very worth it.

Exceptions to this rule: my mom’s stuffing and red velvet cake.  I will NEVER get sick of those two things.

Happy Eating!