Weekend Cooking: Triple Mushroom Soup

I recently checked out Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever. While leafing through the soups I discovered this mushroom soup recipe. My family loves mushrooms and I thought it would be a nice accompaniment to some steaks I was planning on cooking up. I was not wrong. This mushroom soup (recipe link) was creamy and full of flavor. I will be making this one again and again.

In my mind you can never go wrong with a recipe that starts with bacon. The dried porcini mushrooms were a little difficult to find. The first grocery store I went to had never heard of dried mushrooms but I found them at Whole Foods with no problem. A friend suggest that I try the wild mushroom mix at Costco next time. 

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

Cartwheel by Jennifer duBois

I added Cartwheel to my library hold list because someone said it was the next Gone Girl. I liked Gone Girl so I figured I'd check out Cartwheel. Maybe it was that comparison or the fact that Cartwheel is about the Amanda Knox case that caused me not to love it.

If I would have known that Cartwheel was a fictionalized version of the Amanda Knox trial I wouldn't have read it. I don't really like court room dramas. And since Ms Knox is from the Seattle area too, I've heard a lot about the case and Ms Knox. I also don't like thinly veiled fiction because I'm constantly trying to decide what's real and what's fiction.

Lily is studying abroad in Buenos Aires. Lily is an odd sort of girl. She's not like her study aboard roommate, Katy. Katy seems perfect. She doesn't cause the woman that they are living with to get upset. Katy is quiet and seems to always be studying. Lily hardly studies, seems to upset the the host family they are living with daily, and feel awkward all the time. Lily meets Sebastian, the boy next door, who is also odd. They fall into a relationship. Lily isn't sure how she feels about Sebastien.

Once Lily is charged with murder, Lily's divorced parents and her sister come to Buenos Aires. Lily's family was odd too. I had a hard time figuring them out. Sebastian was also strange and hard to figure out. duBois created some interesting characters but I felt they like they stayed at arm's length the entire book. I wouldn't compare Cartwheel to Gone Girl because the characters aren't fooling you, they are fooling themselves. There was a little twist and I did fall for it but I didn't feel anything for any of the characters. I didn't hate them or like them. They never jumped off the page for me. It could have been just me and my expectations though.

Cartwheel would be great for those who like court room dramas. I liked how some chapters were about now, the trial, and some talked about the days leading up to the murder. Others who shared their thoughts about Cartwheel: Literate Housewife, S.Krishna's Books, Like An Open Book, BermudaOnion, Booking Mama, and Never Enough To Read.

Ex-heroes by Peter Clines

I added Ex-Heroes to my library queue because it sounded like something I would want to read. Zombie? Check. Superheroes? Check. A ringing endorsement from a couple of my favorite authors? Check. Ex-heroes was all those things I wanted but didn't push past typical stereotypes.

Somewhere in the future an illness mutates and causes the dead to rise. The Government acts too slowly and the nation is lost. A group of superheroes saves part of Los Angeles and creates a community for superheroes and civilians to live in relative safety.  Superheroes patrol the streets of Los Angeles, killing exs (or zombies). A gang who also has some territory in Los Angeles and causes trouble for our superheroes. The superheroes decide to squash this threat and mount their assault.

There was plenty of action in Ex-Heroes. The story moved fast and it felt kind of like a movie. But the superheroes back stories were so tired. A beautiful woman who wants people to look past her beauty so she hides behind a mask. An aging superhero who feels guilty for those he couldn't save. A beast who's hell bent on revenge. This is the first in a series so hopefully the characters dig deeper and give me more to care about in the next book.

Great action read. A lot of fun and very little substance. I'll pick up the second in series (Ex-Patriots). Others who shared their thoughts on Ex-Heroes: Mom Read It, A Bitter Draft, My Shelf Confessions, and What Mark Read.

Awkward and Awesome Thursday

Awkward:

-I've been sick since Saturday. No bueno.

-Again I was late buying and packaging our Christmas presents. I'm crossing my fingers that everyone gets their presents by Christmas. 

-I want more skinny pants so I can wear my boots more often.

Awesome:

-In a few short hours I'll be starting my vacation. I'm looking forward to a week of relaxing. 

-I'm cohosting Library Loot with Claire now. I've been participating in Library Loot for a while now. I'm very excited to be the co-host.

-I'm 300 pages shy of my 40,000 pages read goal. So looking forward to completing that goal!

What's been awkward and awesome in your week?

Library Loot

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and me that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

Did you see Claire's news? I'm super excited!!

You Have Killed Me

The film noir feel to this one made me pick it up off the shelf. 

The Girl Who Chased The Moon

I've wanting to read more of Sarah Addison Allen's books.

Enchanting The Lady

Linda recently reviewed a book later in the Relics of Merlin series. It sounded good so I checked the first book in the series out.

What did you get this week?

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

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

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! 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!

"Flight was sort of the last straw., in a good way. Maybe I'd read too many comic books as a kid or watched too many superhero movies as an adult. I don't know. Could be I was just stupid enough to think this had happened to someone like me, in a city like this, for a reason. That one man could change things."
pg 7 Ex-heroes by Peter Clines

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

I picked up Me Before You because I kept hearing everyone rave about it. Every once of hype was right. Me Before You was amazing.

Louise Clark is in her last twenties and hasn't strayed far from the boundaries of the English town she was born in. Lou lives with her parents and has been dating the same guy, Patrick, for the last 7 years. Lou isn't sure what she wants but she feels this is the best life for her. When the cafe she's been working at abruptly closes, Lou is forced to find another job.

Two years ago, Will was living the high life. A high paying job, a great flat, a beautiful girlfriend. But one rainy day changes all that and Will now lives life as a quadriplegic. Rather than riding a motorcycle, Will's conveyance of choice is a power wheelchair.

Since Lou doesn't have many skills, her employment counselor points her in the direction of Will whose family is looking for companion/aide. Lou has no medical training nor any experience working with the disabled. Will's mother thinks Lou might be the change that Will needs. At first Lou and Will tolerate each other but soon they find they have more in common than they thought.

Moyes made me laugh, cry, and want to hurl Me Before You out the window. Very quickly I was absorbed into Lou and Will's lives. I also thought Moyes did an excellent job of portraying Will who lived a big life but is now confined to his wheelchair. Most people don't think about what life is like for someone who is disabled. How people treat those with disabilities can be cruel even when people think they aren't being mean. Will's character was complex and engaging. I will remember him for a very long time.

One of the best reads of the year for me. I'm looking forward to reading more of Moyes' work. Others who shared their thoughts on Me Before You: Love, Laughter, and A Touch of Insanity,  Beth Fish Reads, BermudaOnion, Lakeside Musing, and Rhapsody in Books.

Weekend Cooking: Crock Pot Corn Chowder with Bacon

I had seen this corn chowder on Mavis' blog a while ago. I made it once and Tai said "Needs more bacon and roasted garlic". So the next time I made it, I added our changes. All of us really enjoyed it. I made it for Thanksgiving lunch. But it's perfect for any cold day.

Crock Pot Corn Chowder with Bacon
(adapted from Mavis' Corn Chowder with Potatoes, Bacon, and Chives)

16 oz frozen corn
8 oz of diced potatoes
1 lb of bacon, cooked and diced
1/2 onion, diced
8 cloves of roasted garlic, smashed
4 cups of chicken broth

3 cups of milk

1/4 cup butter

4 tbs cornstarch

Put corn, potatoes, bacon, onion, and garlic in crock pot. To smash garlic, take roasted garlic in a bowl. With the back of a spoon, mash the garlic. Just to make sure you don't get a mouthful of garlic. Pour 3 1/2 cups of chicken broth into crock pot. Cook on low for 3-5 hours, basically til the potatoes are fork tender. 
When potatoes are fork tender, add milk and butter, cook on low for another hour. My soup wasn't as creamy as I wanted so I took the remaining broth, put in a mixing bowl, added cornstarch to create a slurry. I turned the crock pot up to high and added the cornstarch/broth mixture. I stirred it to get that great creamy look. 
Serve with some buttered bread. Made 6 generous bowls.

Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

I've been wanting to read Dash & Lily's Book of Dares for sometime. I was waiting for the holiday season to be upon since the book takes place around Christmastime. I'm glad I finally read it. It was everything I hoped.

One day Dash is browsing The Strand, a famous New York bookstore, when he finds a red Moleskine journal tucked on a shelf. Intrigued he opens the book and finds a set of dares waiting for him. Dash decides to take up the dares. Meanwhile, the book's owner, Lily, waits to see what will happen. The book wasn't Lily's idea but her brother, Langston's. Langston wants to find Lily a boyfriend so he can spend with his and Lily will leave the two of them alone. But Dash not only will follow the dares but dole some out of his own.

I really enjoy Cohn and Levithan's collaborations. I loved Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist. While the back and forth POV was the same. Dash and Lily aren't Nick and Norah which was perfect. Everyone describes Dash as snarly. But I think he was rather a fine young man. He spends his time reading and exploring bookstores. He's a bit of a loner but has a hysterical friend, Boomer, who provides a lot of comic relief. Lily's an outsider. She gets along with everyone but has no true friends. She can sometimes overreact so her family shelters her. The book of dares was an excellent way for both of them to get over those things that were holding them back.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Dash & Lily. I wouldn't mind spending more time in their world. It was the perfect lighthearted holiday story. Others who reviewed Dash & Lily's Book of Dares: The Diary of A Bookworm, Reading Until I Fall Asleep, Moonlight Book Reviews, YA Book Nerd, and Pink Fluffy Hearts.

Library Loot

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

Marble Season

I spotted Marble Season on one of those best of 2013 lists. I decided to check it out.

Stumptown vol 2

I really enjoyed the first volume of Stumptown. Been looking forward to the second for a while now.

 This Is How You Lose Her

I liked parts of Diaz's other book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. But this looks like short stories. It was sitting on the library shelf so I decided to try it.

Solo: The Deluxe Edition

More Batman comics. 

What did you get this week?

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

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

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! 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!

" I like the fuggy bacon-scented warmth of the cafe, the little cool bursts of air as the door opened and closed, the low murmur of conversation, and when quiet, Frank's singing tinnily to itself in the corner. It wasn't a fashionable place-its walls covered in scenes from the castle up on the hill, the tables still sported Formica tops, and the menu hadn't altered since the day I started, apart from the addition of the chocolate brownies to the iced bun tray."

pg 8 Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld

After reading Leviathan, I wasn't sure about continuing the series. There were parts of Levithan I had to push myself through. I decided to give Behemoth a shot. I'm so glad I did. Behemoth was so much fun to read.

Behemoth picks up after Leviathan ends. All the world building that Westerfeld's did in Leviathan pays off in Behemoth. Behemoth was fast paced and engaging. I enjoyed catching up with Alek and Deryn. I loved how the story progressed and the how the characters reacted to the new challenges. I liked how Alek began to change and grow into the young man he will become. I liked how Deryn stepped up to the challenges that she faced. At one point, I thought Alek and Deryn would be separated but Westerfeld deftly kept them together. And Keith Thompson's illustrations really help sell the world Westerfeld created.

A great second book in the series. Can't wait to get my hands on Goliath, the third in the series. Others who shared their thoughts on Behemoth: Dear Author, The Overflowing Library, The Ranting Dragon, The Misadventures of A Teenage Bookworm, and Books For Ears.

This was my twelfth read for the Mammoth Book Challenge.

November Book Tally

Spirit and Dust by Rosemary Clement-Moore (387)
Paying For It by Chester Brown (292)
Almost Like Being In Love by Steve Kluger (354)
The Prince by Kiera Cass (64)
The Transfer by Veronica Roth (34)
The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin (448)
Keepsake by Kristina Riggle (368)
Forever In Blue by Ann Brashares (384)
Obsidian by Jennifer Armentrout (355)
Amethyst by Lauren Royal (416)
Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie (416)
Hawkeye vol 2 by Matt Fraction (136)
Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire (346)
Dollhouse by Anya Allyn (291)
A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel by Hope Larson (392)
The Mighty Thor vol 1 by Matt Fraction (144)
The Mighty Thor vol 2 by Matt Fraction (136)
The Mighty Thor vol 3 by Matt Fraction (160)

Eighteen books read this month. Ok a lot of them were graphic novels and two were novellas. But I still read a lot. My Thanksgiving weekend was nice and relaxing with plenty of time to read.

Stats:

Fill In The Gaps YTD: 0 (None this month)

Historical Reading Challenge YTD: 14 (The Orchardist and Amethyst)

Mammoth Book Challenge YTD: 11 (None this month)

Let Me Count The Ways Book Challenge: Pages read this month (5123), Pages read this year (37355)
Total books to date: 121

Dollhouse by Anya Allyn

Dollhouse was recommended to me by my horror loving hairdresser. She never tells me these books are horror but every books she recommends is. She knows I won't check them out if she does. I'm such a scaredy cat. Dollhouse is straight up creepy. While Dollhouse was outside of the normal books I read, I still found it enjoyable.

Cassie and her mom moved from Miami to Australia. Cassie still feels very much like an outsider at her school. She's really only made one friend, Aisha. But she hangs out with Aisha's friend, Lacey, and Aisha's boyfriend, Ethan. One day while on a school project related hike, Aisha disappears. All fingers point to Ethan even though Lacey and Cassie were there too. Ethan keeps searching for Aisha even after the cops give up. Cassie and Lacey decide to join the search. Off into the creepy, cold woods they all go.

Parts of Dollhouse reminded me of hundreds of horror movies. Pretty girl disappears in the woods. A few months after her disappearance, her friends head off to find her. There's a creepy guy who lives in a creepy remote house with a lot of dogs. And a ton of weird strange secrets even amongst the friends. Even as the reader, I felt left of out what was going on. I wanted more back story on the characters. Maybe there's more in the rest of the series, but I felt I needed a little more at the front end. And because it's set in Australia, Allyn uses some Australian slang that kept confusing me. I wasn't sure if it was a typo or Australian slang. I went with slang more often that not. But I thought it was a solid start to creepy YA series. I will be continuing. Others who shared their thoughts on Dollhouse: I am A Reader, Not A Writer, Book Worm Brandy, and The Fiction Diaries.

Library Loot

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

The Inexplicables

I saw that the last book in The Clockwork Century was released (Fiddlehead). Obviously I need to read The Inexplicables before I can read the last one.

Agnes and the Hitman

After I read Welcome to Temptation, a friend recommended Agnes and The Hitman. 

What did you get this week? 

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

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

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! 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!

"So she stood there glaring at him, perfectly still. As the minutes stretched out, her body stiffened, her muscles beginning to throb. And it was worse inside her brain, boredom twisting into anger and frustration, the rumble of the airship's Clanker engines turning her head into beehive."

Pg 6 Scott Westerfeld's Behemoth

Amethyst by Lauren Royal

I love my iPad and have been using the Kindle app a lot. The world of free books is so alluring! That's how I found Amethyst. It had good reviews so I decided to give it a try. I was not disappointed. Amethyst was a great historical romance.

Amethyst lives in London and the book opens with the return of Charles II. Amy (Amethyst) meets a dashing green eyed stranger. Years go by and the green eyed man still lingers in Amy's mind even though she's betrothed to her father's apprentice. One day the green eyed man comes in her father's jewelry shop and Amy still feels an intense attraction to him. The green eyed man, Colin, is intrigued by Amy. But since he's a lord and she's a commoner, he tries to put her from his mind. During the London Fire, Colin rescues her from the fire and takes her home. Once Colin's family mets her, Colin and Amy find it hard to resist each other.

I liked both Amy and Colin. Amy is stubborn and devoted to doing things her own. Colin's family had been exiled with the King. Colin is determined to keep his family safe and is looking to marry a titled woman. Despite their attraction, both believe there is no future for them. I liked the fact that Colin and Amy care for each other deeply. Neither of them wants the other to be hurt. I also really liked Colin's family especially his sister, Kendra. They were a fun, lively bunch.  

I'll be continuing the series. I've already downloaded the next in the series, Emerald. I was unable to find others who shared their thoughts on Amethyst on a blog :( If you read Amethyst, let me know!
This is my fourteenth read for the Historical Fiction Challenge.