Book Review: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

One day, in the not too distant past, a group of students and I were discussing books and movies, and which is better in their opinion. Because several of my students in the discussion are Native American, we turned to movies such as "Smoke Signals", a modern tale about Native American life and experiences. One student said the movie reminded him of a book he does like, "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian". He asked if I had read it, and I replied that I had not. The student brought the book to me the next day; he said he wasn't a big "reader" but he liked this book and wanted my opinion. I saw a name on the cover that I instantly recognized from my literature classes, and one I had not had a great connection to thus far: Sherman Alexie. I had always found his writing to be so negative, but, I took it home and later that evening, I cracked it open. I inhaled this book. It was at once poignant and hilarious; moving and thought-inspiring, yet not difficult to read. This is the story of a young man trying to better himself and become visible in the world, rather than being satisfied to live out the stereotypes of generations of his people. If you are a fan of Alexie's work, you'll love this book. If you are not, this book will change your mind. I have rated it with five out of five stars on my Goodreads list. Check it out!

Gettin Scrappy

Friday, there was no school for the girls and I, so me and the small one headed to my friend Cinnamon's house for a day of scrapbooking fun. Cinnamon is the scrapbooking queen: she has things I've never imagined to be used for all sorts of creative notions. She set up Madyson with her own little station and provided her with all the materials to make her Valentine's Day cards for her class. Which was very kind! Those things aren't cheap anymore, since you need several boxes to accommodate large class sizes. Madyson needed 34, and they turned out very cute, though I haven't taken a pic of them yet, and she needs to address them still. But Cinnamon is amazing! She asked what I wanted to make, and I of course always make cards. I know page layouts for albums are the ideal project for most scrapbookers but I like short term commitment for my scrappin. So I said cards; she said what kind? All kinds! I'm into vintage/collage/Victorian style, and anything reminiscent of the 20' and 30's . We made some awesome cards! Can't wait to see my wonderfully creative friend again and make some more magic.

Popcorn Kernels of Evil

So I was cruising food recipes on Pinterest the other day and one for Marshmallow Caramel Popcorn caught my eye. In a few short days, it's become a crack-like addiction at my house. And it's so easy! Just melt one stick of butter with 1/2 cup of brown sugar in the microwave. Add 10-12 big marshmallows and nuke it again; stir and add 10-12 cups of popped popcorn. Especially delicious if your popcorn is buttery and salty. Amazing!

PS-Sorry about the pictures; I was trying to get my share before the others ate it all...

Mount Vesuvius of Broccoli Island

As promised, here is the delicious soup that goes in those bread bowls! Thanks to Emily, today's guest photographer and soup capture. Er. Thanks Emily!

 

 

Broccoli Cheddar Soup

Ingredients:

¼ cup onion, diced small
3 tbsp butter or margarine
2 tbsp olive oil
¼ cup flour
1 cup heavy cream
3 cups milk (2% or to preference)
1 cup water
3 cups frozen or fresh broccoli (stems and florets)
2 ½ cups cheddar cheese, shredded (reserve ¼ cup for garnish)
Salt
Pepper
Fresh ground nutmeg
Parsley, chopped (optional, for garnish)
Bread Bowls (optional)

Directions:

Melt butter in olive oil; when butter is completely incorporated with oil, add onions and a sprinkle of salt (about ¼ tsp) and sweat the onions until translucent. When onions are ready, add flour and mix with onion/butter mixture; cook the mixture (called a roux and pronounced “roo”) for about two minutes, until very lightly golden brown. When roux is ready, add heavy cream and stir until roux and cream are completely mixed together and smooth, without graininess. Then add milk and water; pepper to taste. Add broccoli, stir, and cover; simmer on medium to medium high heat for about 20-30 minutes, stirring occasionally. When broccoli is tender, add cheddar cheese and stir until soup is thickened and creamy. Add freshly ground nutmeg; serve in bread bowls or other type of bowl, garnish with shredded cheddar and parsley if desired.

Makes 4-6 servings.

 Pictures!

Ingredients standing at ready

 

Melt butter in olive oil over medium heat.

 

Dice some onions. Do it better than I did, and use non-red onions. Haha.

 

Sprinkling the sauteeing onions with salt would have been a great picture. Did you know salt doesn't photograph well?

 

Making roux. Thanks French people!

 

Add heavy cream, then milk, and then water. That's the soup base.

 

Broccoli diving, a new sport

 

Stirring the pot

 

Look familiar?!

 

Oh. My. Gosh. CHEEESE!

 

Freshly ground nutmeg smells delicious

 

Remember those bread bowls? I lopped off this one's top and hollowed out its insides. Then filled it up with creamy cheesy soup. I like to dip the bread pieces in the soup while it's cooling. Also, I didn't have any parsley for garnish so I went with extra cheese. Heavenly!

 

The Mount Vesuvius of Broccoli Island. It's making me hungry right now.

 

Enjoy!

For The Cat Lovers Out There

Because my dear friend Laura asked, here's a pic of my big boy, Rio. I'll see if I can get a picture of all three cats together sometime.

Have a great day everyone! Make bread!

Yes. I am beautiful. Your point is....?

 

 

Ok, that's enough Mom. MOM! STOP!

Bread Bowls: Vessels of Deliciousness

As promised! Here is the recipe for the bread bowls. I warn you, these pictures are not beautiful. I did not edit them and make them magical. Sorry!

The broccoli soup will be on tomorrow's post or possibly Tuesday's (I have a paper to write tomorrow. Sigh), since you have to make these bread bowls in advance. The dough must have the chance to rise overnight, so it's best to bake them off the next morning, the day you are eating the soup. But, these bread bowls make great gifts too. Here we go!

For 4 bread bowls, you need the following:

Bowls, measuring devices, yeast, salt, flour, a cooking utensil
(Dutch Oven) and water (not pictured, too shy)

Fill your 4 plastic bowls with these things:

1 1/2 cups flour in each bowl
3/4 tsp. salt in each bowl

Someone didn't measure this very precisely. Oh well.

That's right. I'm a professional photographer. HA!

Okay, next up, you need to combine 1 c of warm water with 1 1/8 teaspoon of dry active yeast for EACH bowl of flour and salt, and then let it sit for 8 minutes so the yeast can wake up. A side note about yeast: if the water is too hot, you kill the yeast deader than a doornail. If the water is too cold, the yeast just shivers and huddles inside it's yeasty fur coat and does absolutely nothing. Ok done with Yeast/101.

I just did four cups of warm water with the yeast to make it easier for myself:

Yeast!

Yeast with warm water! Any questions?

Pour one cup of the yeast and water mixture into each bowl with the flour and salt. Stir with a rubber spatula until mixed, but don't over do it! The mixture should be sticky, maybe a little watery even. That's ok, this is a new way to make bread, the lazy way. Here is a visual:

The lighting here is atrocious

The one in the middle of these three is PERFECT, but don't worry, this recipe is extremely forgiving. You can add a bit more warm water if your dough is too stiff, like the first bowl (to the left), or a bit more flour if it's too watery like the third bowl (on the right). Or don't. They will all turn out brilliantly anyway.

The middle bowl is what we are looking for, but all of
these will bake up nicely. Sweet!

Ok that's it. You are done for the night; the last thing to do is cover your bowls with plastic wrap, or if you don't have plastic wrap (guilty) and your bowls are deep enough that the bread won't rise over the tops, you can cover with a clean kitchen towel. Here's how I roll:

Funny story...I did this once with a shallow bowl and half
of my dough was stuck to the kitchen towel the next
morning. Ok it wasn't funny at the time, but I feel
that you should learn from my mistakes.

Ok so the next day, after you've had your coffee and breakfast, here's what's up next. Grab your Dutch oven (hopefully it's well-seasoned) and throw it in the oven, and crank that baby up to 475*. Now, it is sort of important to have a Dutch oven to do this with, and if you don't have one of these very useful instruments of cooking splendor, you owe it to yourself and your future descendents to get one. Literally, you can pick a nice, cast iron model up at Walmart for $22.87, I just checked. Mine was passed down to me from my stepfather, and no, you cannot have it. Here it is in the oven, preheating. And, apparently, it's time to clean the oven.

A gift from Nick

While your Dutch oven is preheating, pour your dough out onto a heavily floured surface. I mean HEAVY on the flour, this dough is super sticky. Fold the dough onto itself four times, and let it rest a few minutes while the oven is preaheating. In fact, if you have the counter space, do the same for another bowl of dough while you're waiting. Oh yeah, I repurposed some plastic wrap from a package of tortillas we finished off, to use as a barrier between the dough and my counter. For some reason, it just sticks to my countertops no matter how much flour I use, so this way works good for me. If you have a sticking problem, try this out.

Sticky and elastic is the goal here

Perfecto!

Try to shape the dough into a nice round ball; it will sink into itself but it should stay round. I use the plastic wrap to sort of lift all corners and make it the shape I want it. Once you've got it rounded out, place it in the Dutch oven CAREFULLY: remember, that sucker is screaming hot! Usually I try to drop it in the center of the Dutch oven, but if you hit the side, DO NOT try to fix it. The pan is so hot that it starts cooking the bottom right away. I know from painful experience that where you drop it in the Dutch oven is just where it is staying. Period. So drop carefully.

I peeked at it while it was cooking. I couldn't help it! It smelled so yummy.

Halfway done!

The bread needs to cook for 25 minutes, each one. No more, and no less. For some reason, 25 minutes is exactly the right amount of time, even if you are making a bigger loaf of bread. It's the oddest thing. So next, take your bread bowl out of the Dutch oven very carefully; I use a metal spatula to lift it out of the pan so I can grab it. And no, there's no picture of that, what do you think I am, an octopus?! I can't spatula, lift, grab, and photograph at the same time you know! But isn't it beautiful?

You can slice off some pieces and make delicious paninis with it, or you can chop off the top, hollow it out, and put soup in it (that's next); use it for sandwiches, make crostini with it, or spread any number of concoctions of deliciousness on it...anything where a few nice slices of artisan style bread is just what is needed. Enjoy!

My Amazing Camera

I received an amazing camera for Christmas this year, courtesy of my very kind, loving, and caring husband. He knows me so well; in fact, he is the very best gift giver I've ever known. The camera he got for me is called a bridge camera, because it spans the gap between the old point-and-shoot variety and the very complex DSLR cameras. One day, I'll have one of those complicated machines, but I love the quality of pictures on this baby. Here is a picture of my new camera (which, ironically, I had to take a picture of with my cell phone so it's not that awesome):

Anyways, I had to clean out the camera from all my happy clicking away over the holidays, so that I could use it for the next project I'm doing with my older daughter, Emily. For her culinary arts class, she needs to have step by step photos of a delicious dinner from start to finish. So stay tuned for those pictures but in the meantime, here are some of the amazing photos my new camera has taken so far.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This and That

I have been writing a bit lately so I have no knitting or other crafty-ness to share today. But: my book reached and sailed past the 10,000 word mark! Hooray! There was a dry spell of three months but now we are back on track. My other book has made some headway too, but the muse has not come back to me since the last scene I wrote for that one. Apparently, I can read two books at once but not write two books at once.

In other news, this weekend I will teach my daughter to make one of her favorites, soup in bread bowls. We will be photographing each step for her culinary arts class assignment but I will post them here as well. With my awesome new camera!

Until next time: this makes me smile. Happy Friday, y'all!

Seahorses. Yes, Please!

Seahorses are amazing, beautiful creatures in my opinion. In fact, raising and breeding these fabulous creatures is on my bucket list. Here's a beautiful black stallion seahorse, and an amazing crocheted seahorse (the only kind I can have right now).

If you've ever considered seahorses, as pets or objects of beauty and interest, I highly recommend "Poseidon's Steed", by Helen Scales. Here's her web address as well: http://helenscales.com/poseidons-steed/. I've learned a lot about sea horses from her! Plus the book cover is lovely, and looks great on my shelf ;)

Baby Socks

Today, I took my little girl to visit with a new friend. You know us parents, we gotta meet and get to know one another before we let our kiddos play together. So that was pretty successful, my little one had a great time with her friend and her family is really nice. They had their twin grandsons over there today, they will be a year old come February. I love babies! I wish my sister-in-law lived closer, she is also due in February with her first baby, a little boy. Here are the baby socks I made for him, same pattern as the adult socks in my other post only SMALLER (currently, these on their way to Okinawa):

First Day Back Blues

Ugh! Returning to work and school after a long break is tough on everyone. I'll be glad for the weekend!

Still working on the basket weave scarf too; I've been inspired by my friend Laura's blog to try something new, however. For my next trick: a handbag! Anyone with a great pattern, share the link! In the meantime, I'm cruising my usual yarn porn sites, like All Free Knitting Patterns, Knitty, and of course Ravelry. Love some of the ones I've found so far, especially the Noro yarn felted bags. So while I finish these two other things on the side I'm lusting for yarns and patterns. Sick, I know.

In other news, I may take up the old paintbrush again. Watercolor painting is very soothing, and there are some great tutorials out there too. We will see if I have room in my schedule for any more...between family, work, school, reading, exercise, and all things yarn, it looks pretty slim for Ol' Paint. Poor guy.