What I've been reading

Two posts in two days. When it rains it pours.

I feel compelled to tell you what I am reading. Why? Because it is not enough for me to force my cooking whims on you, I must force my reading choices on you as well.

I apologize. Kind of.

This was an unexpected and unplanned purchase for me. I was at Barnes and Noble and it was in the "our staff recommends" section. I read the back and decided it was worth a try.

The book is narrated by a hysterical 11-year-old girl names Flavia de Luce. She's a bit sassy, sarcastic, and loves chemistry. Basically she solves a murder.

So if you like funny, witty, murder mysteries (and maybe like the occasional chemistry aside) you'll like this. My mom is a chemist and loves detective novels so I bought it with the intention of if I hate it, at least I can pass it on to her and she'll like it.

Turns out I like it to. In my completely made up scale, I give it a "rent it from the library".

Enjoy.

P.S. here's what the author says about Flavia:

Q: Flavia certainly is an interesting character. How did you come up with such a forceful, precocious and entertaining personality?

AB: Flavia walked onto the page of another book I was writing, and simply hijacked the story. I was actually well into this other book–about three or four chapters–and as I introduced a main character, a detective, there was a point where he was required to go to a country house and interview this colonel.

I got him up to the driveway and there was this girl sitting on a camp stool doing something with a notebook and a pencil and he stopped and asked her what she was doing and she said “writing down license number plates“ and he said “well there can’t be many in such a place“ and she said, “well I have yours, don’t I? “ I came to a stop. I had no idea who this girl was and where she came from.

She just materialized. I can’t take any credit for Flavia at all. I’ve never had a character who came that much to life. I’ve had characters that tend to tell you what to do, but Flavia grabbed the controls on page one. She sprung full-blown with all of her attributes–her passion for poison, her father and his history–all in one package. It surprised me.

Oven Roasted Butternut Squash

Happy Halloween!

Oh what...? I'm like a week late. Yeah, I know but I don't really get around to blogging that much these days and I couldn't resist showing off the awesome pumpkins. Guess which one I made.

That's right, I made the spooky ghost/haunted mansion one! Andrew made the cute little guy on the left. He thought it would attract more trick-or-treaters and be kid friendly. Too bad we weren't even here on Halloween so didn't light them or pass out candy.

In keeping with the pumpkin family, I made butternut squash! It's a perfect fall treat! (What? I'm late again and it's already winter? Right.)

And it is a vegetable, healthy, yummy, and best part- incredibly simple to make. ...Once you get the hang of it.

I bought one of these at the store and brought it home super confident that I could do this on my own. I didn't need a recipe to tell me how to make a squash! So I cut it open with my super large knife and stared blankly at the little alien I was looking at.

I brought half of the thing over to Andrew and said, "What do you think I should do with the seed part? Do I cook them with it or throw it them away?" He responds uncharacteristically excited, "YEAH! Just scoop it out and poop them in the garbage!"

...Uhhhh what?

So I gave him a blank stare, and pooped those seeds in the garbage like I was told.

Enjoy!

Oven Roasted Butternut Squash

• One large butternut squash
• 2 tbs butter
• 2 tbs brown sugar
• 1/2 cup water

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cut the butternut squash open lengthwise. Remove the seeds.
3. Stab holes in each half of the squash with a fork.
4. Cover with butter, 1 tbs per side.
5. Place the squash on a tin foil-covered cookie sheet. Pour the 1/2 cup of water on the sheet- this will keep the squash from drying out while baking.
6. Cook for one hour or until soft and easily pierced by a fork.
7. Sprinkle with brown sugar.
8. Eat.

What I've been reading

Right now I am 50 pages away from finishing The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and I can't put it down or think about much else.

I read this book about 6 years ago and loved it then. I decided to read it again to see if it withstood the test of time. It did. It might now go on my list of favorite books.

The story is about an architect, Howard Roark, and how he is a crazy genius/artist and makes masterpiece buildings, the public's crusades against him, and his intense love affair. He has all these set backs because the collective public is blind and will crusade against purity and passion. However, because he never cares about man and the masses and only cares about the integrity of his passions, he is ultimately happy and successful.

He's basically Rand's ideal of humankind embodied and you can't help but rally around him.

It's a great read that I couldn't put down 6 years ago and still can't put down. I highly recommend it. It's about 900 pages and every page is interesting and reads quickly.

Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls

I've been stressed.

So stressed.

Work. Big, important, global event happening at the end of October where I play tour-guide to a bunch of Chinese journalists. 20,000 things to do to prepare for said big, fat event.

Stress.

So, I did the only thing natural one can do when stressed. I made the most delicious sugary, ooey, and comforting thing I could: Cinnabon cinnamon rolls. Remember those browned-butter cinnamon rolls I made a long time ago? Throw away that recipe. Those are 10 times harder to make and taste half as good as these babies.

And they really do taste EXACTLY like Cinnabon cinnamon rolls. I think the vanilla pudding is what does it. And the frosting is dead on too.

I ate approximately 10 and felt so great. Don't think of it as an unhealthy amount of sugar, think of it as anti-anxiety medication. It worked for me.

Enjoy.

Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls

ROLLS:

• 1/2 cup warm water
• 2 packages dry yeast
• 2 Tbl. sugar
• 3 1/2 oz. pkg. vanilla pudding mix
• 1/2 cup margarine −− melted
• 2 eggs
• 1 teas. salt
• 6 cups flour

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:

• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1 teas. vanilla
• 3 cups confectioner's sugar
• 1 Tbl. milk

1. To make frosting, mix all ingredients until smooth.
2. In a bowl combine water, yeast and sugar. Stir until dissolved. Set aside.

Rolls:

1. In large bowl, take pudding mix and prepare according to package directions.
2. Add margarine, eggs and salt. Mix well. 
3. Then add yeast mixture. Blend.
4. Gradually add flour; knead until smooth. Place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled.
5. Punch down dough and let rise again.
6. Then roll out on floured board to 34 x 21" size. Take 1 cup soft butter and spread over surface. 
7. In bowl, mix 2 cups brown sugar and 4 teas. cinnamon. Sprinkle over top. 
8. Roll up very tightly. With knife, put a notch every 2". Cut with thread or knife.
9. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet 2" apart. Take hand and lightly press down on each roll.
10. Cover and let rise until double (I put mine in the fridge overnight).

Bake at 350 15−20 minutes. Remove when they start to turn golden. DON'T OVER BAKE!!

Frost warm rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting

rat-a-tat-a-touille

I made ratatouille awhile ago to balance out my frequent habit of making a bowl of cookie dough and eating the entire thing. When you have a pile of vegetables for dinner all desert binges seem justified.

The recipe, from A Smitten Kitchen, was suggested to me by my vegetarian sister-in-law. For that and may other reasons, I really like her

It was easy, cheap, delicious, and guess what?! A big. fat. healthy. pile of vegetables!

If and when I make it again, I would double the tomato puree to add a bit more liquid to the dish. I like my rice to have something sticking to it, you know?

Also, I used feta cheese instead of goat cheese because it's what I had on-hand and I'm crazy like that. I would do it again, it was delicious.

The recipes looks like it is complicated but I swear the prep time is 30 minutes max.

Enjoy!

Ratatouille

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1/2 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced
2 cup tomato puree
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 small eggplant (my store sells these “Italian Eggplant” that are less than half the size of regular ones; it worked perfectly)
1 smallish zucchini
1 smallish yellow squash
1 longish red bell pepper
Few sprigs fresh thyme (I omitted and didn't miss a thing)
Salt and pepper
Few tablespoons soft goat or feta cheese, for serving


Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.


Pour tomato puree into bottom of an oval baking dish, approximately 10 inches across the long way. Drop the sliced garlic cloves and chopped onion into the sauce, stir in one tablespoon of the olive oil and season the sauce generously with salt and pepper.


Trim the ends off the eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash. As carefully as you can, trim the ends off the red pepper and remove the core, leaving the edges intact, like a tube.
On a mandoline, adjustable-blade slicer or with a very sharp knife, cut the eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash and red pepper into very thin slices, approximately 1/16-inch thick.


Atop the tomato sauce, arrange slices of prepared vegetables concentrically from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables. You may have a handful leftover that do not fit.


Drizzle the remaining tablespoon olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from the thyme sprigs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.


Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit inside. (Tricky, I know, but the hardest thing about this.)
Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables have released their liquid and are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. They should not be brown at the edges, and you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.
Serve with a dab of soft goat cheese on top, alone, or with some crusty French bread, atop polenta, couscous, or your choice of grain.

Blueberry Crisp

Ok, where the heck did summer go?

I have a very big beef with Utah right now, for multiple reasons. One reason is the hugely anticipated rivalry BYU vs. Utah game yesterday. Don't even get me started on how embarrassing that was. Then there was the fact that summer lasted approximately two months. Winter was a whopping six months long with the final snow falling on May 30th. May 30th! June was coldish but ok, July and August finally brought the heat, and now September is letting in the 60s like it aint no thing.

It should be 80 degrees in September, not 60. I just bought a really cute summery dress from Anthropologie. Guess that's going in the closet for another year.

Annnnnnd I had to go into work on Saturday to meet some very threatening deadlines. That one can't technically be blamed on the state of Utah, but I am adding it to the list anyway.

At least there is blueberry crumble to comfort me. That is precisely what I came home to yesterday after we left the BYU game. Life didn't seem so terrible once I was shoveling blueberry crisp and ice cream in my face. No, not so terrible at all.

The recipe is straight out of the Betty Crocker Cookbook and I wouldn't change a thing. It was delicious and the fruit didn't need any extra sugar at all. Since it is so low sugar and so healthy, I went ahead and ate five servings to get all my fruits for the day. You can too. 

Blueberry Crisp

• 4 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• Serve with ice cream

1. Heat oven to 375. Grease bottome and sides of an 8-inch pan.
2. Spread blueberries in pan. In a medium bowl, combine all remaining ingredients (except the ice cream, of course) until well mixed; sprinkle over berries.
3. Bake about 30 minutes or until topping is golden brown and the blueberries are warm and tender when pierced with a fork. Serve warm with ice cream.

My Version of Waldorf Chicken Salad

I am not a salad person. I want to be. I wish I was... Salad people seem so hip sometimes, you know? Like runners. I am always wishing I was a runner or a salad person. But alas, the cool runner, salad, fruit smoothie lifestyle isn't meant for me. 

Lettuce just doesn't do anything for me. Every now and then I try to fool myself into thinking that I'm fit and healthy and a salad person and I bring salads to work for lunch. I try to make a big production of pulling my salad out of the fridge and really play up the assembly process so my coworkers think good things about me like, "Wow, Jocelyn is a salad person. Man I wish I was a salad person like Jocelyn." Then I eat it, feel superior, and become absolutely, desperately starving 3o minutes later. 

I can't handle that.

This salad may just be the exception, however. It's got a lot more going on this lettuce. There's a lot in there that can fill you up and that is what I need! I need to be full. I need it. Plus it's flavorful and yummy.

There's some nice tender chicken left over from this meal, crunchy Fuji apples, and crisp sweet grapes. If I had the money I would have candied almonds and put them in here too, but they are like $8 a jar and I am not that into almonds.

All in all I think this salad is a winner.

Enjoy!

My Version of Waldorf Chicken Salad

• Roasted chicken, sliced (or you can grill a chicken breast and season it with thyme, rosemary, garlic, etc.)
• Fuji or Pink Lady apples, cubed
• Red, seedless grapes, sliced in half for optimal forking ease
• Romaine Lettuce (or other type)
• Dressing of your choice. I prefer blue cheese or ranch for this meal. It offsets the sweetness of the apples and grapes.

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl, toss, and serve chilled. Enjoy!