I Interrupt this Book Blog for COOKING

I have been cooking like a fiend!

I absolutely love cooking, but I get distracted and tend to mess up whatever it is I am cooking. Not this year! I am going to focus and learn to really cook well.

I got some awesome tools from Saint for Christmas to help in my endeavor.

Kitchenaid Mixer (apple green)
and a ton of cool green accessories to match
(matching is important)



I then bought myself a few things
A Bread Baking Class

and
The Kitchenaid Recipe Book


I have been making and baking and cooking like a crazy person. I have made HOMEMADE PIZZA DOUGH. I love pizza and am so excited that it is all from scratch. It is so easy too! I am going to try a calzone this week.

I have made Salisbury Steak Meatballs over pasta.

Lemon Blueberry Bread (oh my is this good!)

I made a baguette and served it with a breakfast egg bake for our manager's meeting.

Peanut Coleslaw with Chicken which I am going to wrap in lettuce leafs and maybe pour over salad

Cranberry Pecan Muffins

I am trying really hard to make a few meals at once, then separate for individual meals especially lunches for work.

What is your favorite recipe to make?

Wordless Wednesday - Homemade Bread

Honey Oat Wheat Bread that I made from scratch for sandwiches. Oh and it tastes as good as it looks!

WordlessWednesday

Review - Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

Title: Pandemonium
Delirium #2
Author: Lauren Oliver
Publisher: Harper Teen
Publish Date: Feb 28, 2012
Hardcover, 375 pages


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Let's start with the fact that the ending is shocking, amazing and absolutely jaw dropping. I was so ecstatic that I wanted to scream. I was hoping for an ending like this, I had an inkling, but really? I was floored when Lauren Oliver did it. YES!

I am a fan of Lena, the main character in this series. Lena is sweet, kind and follows the rules until she meets Alex. A boy who is supposedly cured of the dreaded disease, love. But as she spends more time with him, her eyes open to a world of possibilities. She must choose between the world she knows and love and a world she may want to know, but leave everything behind. I can't give away too much as YOU MUST READ THE FIRST BOOK, but this book leaves off literally where the last one ended. Nothing left to our imaginations.

Lauren Oliver introduces new characters in this book. Ones we aren't meant to like and ones I liked instantly, but really, this book just made me love Lena more. She is in great pain and feels utterly lost. Everything is new, but the pain is so fresh she can barely breath. Learning to live with this pain is possibly too great. Raven, a woman who has felt the pain Lena is dealing with, tries to help, but is she may have ulterior motives. When it comes to survivial, it is so hard to judge between those who are willing to survive at all costs and those wanting to simply help.

Summary -

I’m pushing aside the memory of my nightmare,
pushing aside thoughts of Alex,
pushing aside thoughts of Hana and my old school,
push,
push,
push,
like Raven taught me to do.
The old life is dead.
But the old Lena is dead too.
I buried her.
I left her beyond a fence,
behind a wall of smoke and flame.

Lauren Oliver delivers an electrifying follow-up to her acclaimed New York Times bestseller, Delirium. This riveting, brilliant novel crackles with the fire of fierce defiance, forbidden romance, and the sparks of a revolution about to ignite.

Review - Room by Emma Donahue

Title: Room
Author: Emma Donahue
Publish Date: Sept 13, 2010
Publisher: Little Brown & Company

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Unfreakin-believable!!!

Seriously amazing and I loved every minute of it. Even the parts that made me cry inside for Ma.

READ IT!!!

The first couple of pages, I kept revisiting all the people that have said how wonderful this book was and comparing it to the infancy of Jack, the main character and his writing this book. I wondered if I would find this book as intriguing as others. (A bit like the movies, when the reviewers give rave reviews, I rarely every like the movie.)

But OMG this book is mind boggling. It changes everything. The person I really felt for though was not Jack, but his mother. I couldn't stop wanting to protect her, to hug her. The way she lives through being stolen and hidden in a room for seven years. She has Jack, her son from the man who kidnapped her. And then she has to endure Jack and all of his inquiries and needs for like to remain the same. I really don't want to tell too much. This book should really be experienced by all. So fabulous!!

Summary -
To five-year-old-Jack, Room is the world. . . . It's where he was born, it's where he and his Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma it's the prison where she has been held for seven years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in this eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But with Jack's curiosity building alongside her own desperation, she knows that Room cannot contain either much longer.

Room is a tale at once shocking, riveting, exhilarating--a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances, and of the diamond-hard bond between a mother and her child.