Recipe Review: Homemade Pasta Sauce

Three weeks in a row with pasta, BUT this one is extra special.  One reason is because my nephew Jacob was here to help make and taste test.  AND second because the pasta sauce was made from tomatoes that I grew in my garden last year and froze.  

My hope is that this is the first of many recipes that includes things from my garden and with four garden beds and a few grow bags, my 2024 garden should be bountiful.  

Now to the recipe.  I had low expectations as I am quite opinionated on pasta sauce, but this one quickly went into the notebook to use over and over again.  With the aid of my immersion blender (first-time use!) my tomatoes were easily thinned out and adding minimal seasoning, the tomatoes were the star of the show which made me even happier that they were fresh from the garden because are always 10 times better than store-bought.  

Jacob chose penne pasta and we added some meatballs and this was a great dish for a rainy weekend.  

Recipe Review: Slow Cooker Crack Chicken Soup

Slow cookers always make me think of wintertime meals and I was excited to try this recipe knowing from the beginning that it could freeze, so I could eat what is made and stow the leftovers for another time.  

I had heard of marry me chicken (and had it, very good!), so I was sort of intrigued by crack chicken.  A super easy recipe like most crock pot recipes are - put ingredients in turn on.  BUT mid way through, you pull the chicken out and need to shred and one of my most favorite kitchen hacks (thanks to Instagram!) is to place chicken or chunks of beef in your stand mixer and its shredded in mear seconds or minutes.  

Once your chicken is shredded put back in crockpot and then add the last few ingredients, 10 minutes and serve!  I served it as soup with some great garlic bread.  AND then the next day I added macaroni noodles to try something different and it was so good!  I was able to freeze the remainder in a few sandwich bags and froze laying down for easy storing.  

I hope to do this one once a year to eat off for a little bit and then have some in the freezer for later!
    

Review: Data Baby by Susannah Breslin

Publisher: Legacy Lit

Pages: 224

Format: book

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  What if your parents turned you into a human lab rat on the day you were born? Would that change the story of your life? Would that change who you are?

 
When Susannah Breslin is a toddler, her parents enroll her in an exclusive laboratory preschool at the University of California, Berkeley, where she becomes one of 128 children who are research subjects in an unprecedented 30-year psychological experiment that predicts who she and her cohort will grow up to be. Decades later, trapped in an abusive marriage to a man with a violent history and battling breast cancer, she starts to wonder how growing up under a microscope shaped the person she became and her life choices. Is she the narrator of the story of her life—or is something else? Already a successful journalist, whose published work has appeared in Forbes, The Atlantic, and Harper’s Bazaar, she decides to make her own curious history the subject of her next investigation and embarks on a life-changing journey that will expose the dark secrets hidden behind the renowned longitudinal study of personality development that she grew up believing knew her better than she knew herself.

Kritters Thoughts:   Susannah Breslin grew up in California and with two very academic professors as parents, they enrolled her into this long-term research project where her and her life were observed and theories were made based on her reaction to tests and to life itself.  Essentially Susannah and many of her peers across the country were lab rats and their response to various tests were used to make predictions on what kind of adults they would become and the life they would end up with.  

Maybe spoiling it a bit, the last chapter was it for me.  While Susannah was a lab rat, aren't we all now with big tech tracking our every moves through google searches, phone analytics and gps.  It made me remind myself that for sure the instagram and facebook ads are targeted and know exactly what I am shopping for or what life issues I need solved (dog hair in laundry!).  So maybe in the end we are all being tracked and companies are predicting the life that we want and the products that will best get us there!

A quick little memoir that really made me think about the quality of research and had me pondering all of those personality tests that affirmed what I was already thinking about myself.      

Rating:

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Legacy Lit.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Recipe Review: DATE night

Last year my parents recommended a fun appetizer, dates with goat cheese wrapped in bacon - YES!  I made it a quite a few times last year, but after buying a container of dates, I wanted to see other options and tried out two more.  I thought it would be fun to make dates for THE DATE night of the year - Valentine's Day.  So whether your person is salty or sweet, DATE night! 

All of these were perfect to prep ahead of time and then finish and plate and be ready for your DATE night.  

One of the new ones I tried, was dates with cream cheese, some pistachio kernels, and then a drizzle of honey, SO good!  I love cream cheese, its sweet but in my opinion not TOO sweet, so its the perfect stuffing with the plain date and then the sweet addition of honey.  Now the pistachios came in a large bag and maybe on the expensive side, so going to see what else I can make with pistachios!  

The second date recipe I tried was a bit of a take on a snickers, with peanut butter stuffed inside and then dipped in chocolate melted with coconut oil.  This was so easy and so so yummy.  I loved that I could make these and stick them in the fridge to enjoy for days.  

So if you need an idea for this week of love, may I suggest one or more DATE recipes for DATE night! 

Review: The Opera Sisters by Marianne Monson

Publisher: Shadow Mountain

Pages: 352

Format: eARC

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:   Based on the true story of the Cook sisters, who smuggled valuables out of 1930s Nazi Germany to finance a daring, secret operation to help Jews find hope for a new life in England British sisters Ida and Louise Cook enjoy their quiet, unassuming lives in south London. Ida writes romance novels, and Louise works as a secretary. In the evenings, the sisters indulge in their shared love for opera, saving their money to buy records and attend performances throughout England and Europe, becoming well-known by both performers and fellow opera lovers. But when Hitler seizes power in 1933, he begins targeting and persecuting German Jews, passing laws that restrict their rights and their lives. The sisters continue their trips to the German opera houses, but soon, Jewish members of the opera community covertly approach the sisters, worried that they will be stripped of their wealth and forced to leave their homes and the country. Danger looms on the horizon, threatening to spill across all of Europe’s borders. Ida and Louise vow to help, but how can two ordinary working-class women with limited means make a difference? Together with their beloved opera community, the sisters devise a plan to personally escort Jewish refugees from Germany to England. The success of the plan hinges on Ida and Louise’s ability to smuggle contraband jewelry and furs beneath the watchful eyes of the SS soldiers guarding various checkpoints. But how many trips can they make before someone blows a whistle? Or before the final curtain falls on Germany’s borders?

Kritters Thoughts:  A set of sisters that really lived through World War II and were driven to help Jewish people who were watching the rise of Hitler and his army and their hatred for their ethnicity, so Ida and Louise Cook were drawn to help in any way possible.  

I have read a very large number of World War II books, so I think my standards for this sub-genre of historical fiction are quite high and for me this one didn't hit the mark.  The reason this one wasn't a right fit for me was mostly in the format of the book and how it was put together.  From the beginning, the way the book was written/put together made it feel like a bunch of short stories that abruptly ended and then started back up.  I didn't feel as though the book had flow and it was interruptive and hard to read.  

With that being said, I did love these sisters and wanted to hear more of their story.  I loved their determination to help people that they didn't even know and the many ways they went about trying to take care of each and every one of them no matter their age or lot in life.  The moments where the book really focused on them and their endeavors I loved, but it would stop all of a sudden and go somewhere else and it was just jarring and took me out of the story.  

I would love to find another story about these women and their fearlessness.  

Rating:

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Recipe Review: Super Bowl snacks

With the Super Bowl coming up next week, I decided I wanted to spend the last week testing out recipes that could be used for a Super Bowl party, so two versions of air fryer Fried Pickle Chips and then a from scratch cheesy dip with some pretzel bites.

I am a huge fan of my air fryer.  And I am a fan of fried pickles, so wanted to see if I could make them at home in a semi-healthy way.  The first version, I used panko bread crumbs and they were fine, but I didn't love how thick the bread crumbs were.  

So second version I used this batter that is meant for chicken, but why not try it with fried pickles - AND yes, totally worked and loved them.  Need to remember to spray some pam on the foil, but this will for sure be the way I make for Super Bowl and beyond! 

Finally.  an easy cheese sauce that you can make and then put in a crock pot to keep it going for a party.  AND it is a dupe for the cheese sauce at Shake Shack.  It was nice and easy and tasted so good.  I may have cheated a bit with frozen pretzel bites that I threw in the oven, but making pretzel bites is on a future to do list.      

Review: One in a Millennial by Kate Kennedy

Publisher: St Martin's Press

Pages: 336

Format: audiobook

Buy the Book: Amazon

Goodreads:  From pop culture podcaster and a voice of a generation, Kate Kennedy, a celebration of the millennial zeitgeist

One In a Millennial is an exploration of pop culture, nostalgia, the millennial zeitgeist, and the life lessons learned (for better and for worse) from coming of age as a member of a much-maligned generation.

Kate is a pop culture commentator and host of the popular millennial-focused podcast Be There in Five . Part-funny, part-serious, Kate navigates the complicated nature of celebrating and criticizing the culture that shaped her as a woman, while arguing that great depths can come from surface-level interests.

With her trademark style and vulnerability, One In a Millennial is sharp, hilarious, and heartwarming all at once. She tackles AOL Instant Messenger, purity culture, American Girl Dolls, going out tops, Spice Girl feminism, her feelings about millennial motherhood, and more. Kate’s laugh-out-loud asides and keen observations will have you nodding your head and maybe even tearing up.

 

Kritters Thoughts:  Were you born between 1981 and 1995?  Did you survive Y2K?  Do you know the exact musical melody of dial-up internet?  THEN you must listen to this book immediately!  

Kate Kennedy was raised in Richmond, VA and made me laugh out loud and even cry a few tears while listening to her dive back into time and recount all the things that millennials have survived and maybe even why we are who we are!  Her cultural references made me laugh at myself so hard and I immediately followed her on instagram and subscribed to her podcast like the fan girl millennial that I am!  

I knew before starting this book that non fiction is my pure wheelhouse of audiobooks, so I knew that I would want to listen to this one and I was right!  Listening to Kate Kennedy share her own words and hear her laugh at herself and choke up was just the right addition to my commutes and hours of house chores.  While I want to branch out this year in my audio listening, it was nice to start the year with one I knew that would be a home run. 

My first audiobook of the year and although I completely loved it, it took me a weird amount of time to finish it!  Made me realize how much I want to find more time in my days and weeks to make audiobooks a priority.    

Rating:

Audiobook 2024 Challenge: 1 out of 24

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley.  I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.

January

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To recap January, I was ready for a new year to begin and made a few goals for the month and the year and I knocked January out of the park!  I tried and loved 4 recipes and even have some ready for February.  My reading is on track, maybe a little behind in the audiobook world, but that's ok.  And my workouts have been so good - well-rounded, inspiring, and a wonderful break from the things going on around me.    

1. Rabbit Hole by Kate Brody (audiobook)

2. A Light Beyond the Trenches by Alan Hlad

3. City Under One Roof by Iris Yamashita

4. Yours for the Taking by Gabrielle Korn

5. Seven Girls Gone by Allison Brennan

6. Diva by Daisy Goodwin

7. The Missing Witness by Allison Brennan

8. Cold Pursuit by Nancy Mehl

9. Cold Threat by Nancy Mehl

10. One in a Millennial by Kate Kennedy (audiobook)

Total pages read, clicked, and flipped: 3,474

Where Have I Been Reading?:

Maine

Germany 

Alaska

New York City

Louisiana

Los Angeles, CA

St. Louis, MO

Burlington, IA