A book and a recipe

I read "The Fault In Our Stars" By John Green yesterday. Let me tell you, it is one of the best books I have ever read. Though it is a young adult book, adults would love it too. This book is narrated by a 16 year old girl with terminal cancer who meets a boy at a cancer support group. The two make a hilarious and insightful duo that ask and attempt to answer so many questions that most of us don't think about because we oftentimes like to think ourselves invincible or at least years from death. Yes, their is a lot of melancholy to this book, some might even call it down right depressing, but it is beautiful non the less. This book had me laughing even during the darkest moments. Truthfully I laughed far more than I cried, which really helped to give it a balance that left my heart feeling light.

Now for a recipe. This is just a simple way to cook eggplant, zucchini, bell pepper, onion, and tomatoes.
Slice up your veggies width wise so that you form circles. You will want them to be about 1/4 of an inch thick, but my husband likes them to be more like 1/2 an inch thick.

For the sauce you will need to pure 8 ripe tomatoes with 5 sun dried tomatoes that have bean soaked, 1/4 cup of olive oil, salt, pepper, 1-2 cloves of garlic, and a small handful of basil.

Pore a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of a pan and put down a layer of veggies. A layer of sauce, a layer of veggies. Continue until you have reached the top but make sure you have sauce on the top. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 45 min to one hour.
*When preparing eggplant make sure to drain the bitters. Put down a layer of paper towel with salt on it, and your eggplant, more salt, and more paper towel. Make as many layers as needed and put some bricks or canned food on top to squeeze out the bitter juices. Depending on how thick the slices are it takes usually takes 1 to 4 hours. 

My odd cat, 2 drink recipes, and the easiest Asian dish.

 First of all, living with my husband has made me learn quite a few things, such as my cat who wont eat tuna or other usual cat treats besides her food really likes lentils and bread. (Below is Jacob giving her... bread) So Weird!

This week I got some supper awesome books in, Sapphire Blue (2nd book in the Ruby Red trilogy) and The Lost Prince (a continuation series of the Iron Fey.) Such Good Books! I highly recommend you check out Ruby Red and The Iron King.

For a little shindig I made a supper yummy punch with Raspberry soda (a 6 or 8 pack of hansen's) and rosewater. That's it!!!! You could use raspberry juice and sparkling water though to cut down on the sugar. 

I love ginger and lemon together, so yummy! I usually boil some ginger root and mix it with some lemon juice and honey, but I wanted to make something that I didn't need to wait for it to boil and steep every time I wanted some. So, I brought like 3 cups of water to a boil and simmered 2 inches of ginger root that I had cut up (with the skins on) for about 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours. I turned the heat off and just let it sit their for a couple more hours, what I ended up with was some really, really STRONG ginger! It was crazy how spicy that stuff gets! Since obviously I had to majorly dilute it I put a bit in my cup then added water until I was satisfied with the strength, I ended up getting 1/4 cup of ginger juice stuff mixed with about a cup of water. To this I added a bit of xylotol (you can use honey, stevia or other types of sweeter BUT! I warn you stay away from the aspartame or face dire consequences, plane old sugar would be way better than that icky junk.)

 If your unfamiliar with xylitol is just as sweet as sugar, but it is actually good for you. It doesn't spike your blood sugar, it has 40% less calories, it's good for your bones (including teeth) and your gums, It kills certain harmful bacteria, and it inhibits yeast which is supper awesome if you get those pesky yeast infections. I get xylotol made from birch, but it is easiest to find it made from corn (just get it organic! I suggest the Now brand if you get it made from corn.)

Back to the recipe, So basically it is 1/4 cup of supper strong ginger tea mixed with a splash of vanilla (can omit the vanilla if you'd like) juice from 1/2 a lemon, and some sweetener  Mix that in a cup, and fill the rest of the way with water. The lemon juice helps to detox your organs especially the liver and kidneys  and the ginger is so supper good for a range of things, from ovarian and colon cancer, to digestion, to reveling headaches  cramps and nausea, and it is also good to take during the cold and flue season. So tasty and makes you feel good, plus it is cheaper than ginger ale! Mixing the ginger tea with komboucha is yummy also. 

 This dish is supper easy. Cook some Asian egg noodles and some veggies (I just threw some frozen veggies in while the noodles were cooking) Mix with 1/2 an inch of fresh ground ginger (I use a small grater) 1/4 of a bunch of fresh chopped cilantro,  a couple tbsp of sesame or peanut oil, and a few tbsp of soy sauce. You can always add a bit of fish sauce too if you'd like.

Low Tea, and book swap

I didn't get around to doing a video tutorial, no surprise their, but I have something even better! Low Tea treats!!! Low tea is held around 1-3 the typical time for the wealthy who don't go to work, wear as High tea is held around 6 with dinner for the working class who get off of work at that time.

 

We had  a simple chi tea, and a cinnamon orange rooibos blend. I used cream instead of half and half (which is homogenized and absolutely terrible for the body).

We had blueberry lemon scones, orange cranberry salad, turkey open faced sandwiches, and a delicious quiche made by my cousin.

Since all our beautiful flowers are gone I used some fake flowers that actually look quite nice  and I put them in a mason type jar with a flip lid.

The lovely quiche. 

Us ladies have a bit of an affinity to hot sauce.

We also discussed the books we had read the month before, and traded for some new books to peruse.
This is the book that I am borrowing. I haven't started reading it ye, but I am looking forward to this collection of short stories.

Now for the Recipes!

The Sandwiches were so easy. Great harvest has Stuffing bread right now so I sliced that and put cream cheese on it, some homemade cranberry sauce that I pureed in the blender, and some turkey slices. You can change this by using mayo and by putting pickled red onions on too. If you don't have access to the bread then a whole wheat will work great. So Yummy and easy either way! 

The cranberry sauce is supper easy, 1 cup of water and 1/3 cup of honey in a small pot. Bring to a boil and add 4 cups of cranberries. Bring back to a boil, then simmer for 10 minutes. Now you can add orange zest, cinnamon, nutmeg, nuts, blueberries, or something else, or nothing else. For the two recipes that I used it for in this blog I din't add anything else.

The Orange and cranberry salad was just 4 oranges sliced, and about 1/2 cup of cranberry sauce with the cranberries still mostly in tacked. (As in Not Pureed and not that canned jelly kind). Mix the two together, and their you go. Now that I think about it though, It would have bean nice to put a cinnamon stick in with the cranberries while they cooked.

For the scones I used a recipe from a blog Be book bound. I did alter it, so this is my little twist, and I also didn't have the sugar to I didn't do the topping I made my own up instead.

• 2 1/4 cups of flour
• 2 tsp of baking powder
• about 1/4 tsp of salt
• 1/2 tsp of baking soda
• 2 tbsp of honey
• 1/4 cup of cubed and cold butter
• 1/4 cup of non hydrogenation shorting, chilled.
• 1/2 cup of yogurt mixed with 1/4 cup of water (easier to keep on hand than buttermilk)
• 1 egg
• Zest from 1 Lemon plus a bit of juice, about 1/8 of a cup
• about a cup of frozen blueberries (if you use frozen too, don't dethaw them or they will make your scones all weird, the same goes for muffins)

Preheat your oven to 400. sift all the dry ingredients. Add the butter and shortening and cut it in by hand or with a food processor. Just like making pie. Mix the wet ingredients and combine with the dry. Fold in the berries. Put on a buttered baking sheet and form into a squareIsh shape. You'll want it to be about 1/2 in tall. With a nice knife, cut into squares but leave them in place. Bake for about 25 to 30 min. When you pull them out let them cool for 5 min, then re-cut, will be so easy, you might not even need to. After they have cooled completely drizzle some glaze on 'em.

For the glaze:

Mix juice from 1/2 a lemon with 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar till smooth. Now add in 1/8 cup of cream cheese to the mix. (you can add more if you like) It is easiest to mix with a fork. You may need to add some water, about 1/4 cup so that it is the consistency of thin to medium paste, depending on what you like. I like mine thicker because it stays on the scones nicer.