Book Prize, Bowling, Blogfest. Supper.

I won a bunch of books at Realms Faire a week ago, mostly ebooks, but today I got a review copy of Alex J. Cavenaugh’s Dragon of the Stars together with a few bookmarks, all marked with the Cassa books pictures. I have all these books already which is why I have got Dragon of the Stars. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be going to read this book shortly. Alex’s first three books were all excellent reads and I see no reason to suppose that this book won’t be the same. He tells us he is not going to write any more books, I and others like me, hope he will change his mind. His books fall under the classification of space opera and I personally enjoy space operas so it couldn’t be better as far as I am concerned.

Of course, it being Monday whilst I write, we went bowling today and I didn’t disgrace myself although my game was not one worth boasting about either. Matt, after his brilliant showing last Monday dropped back to normal play this week. Thursday we go to Elmira with the Travel League (weather permitting) and have lunch at the Crossroads. Long time readers may remember that I buy mincemeat tarts from this restaurant, they are excellent and I bought two last year, popping them in the freezer until Christmas. I have been touting them to others so I think I had better call and make sure they will have enough.

I was very flattered to be chosen, by L. Diane Wolfe, as one of the blogs she would miss in the Oh, How I Miss You Blogfest. The criteria was to choose three that have stopped blogging and three you would miss if they did so. Several people chose our beloved Tina Downey as one of the blogs they miss, we none of us can really accept that Tina is no longer with us. She was way too young to die. Tina loved sunflowers.

By the way, on Monday night I made the recipe for stuffed peppers which I posted last Friday. I changed it to use home made tomato sauce but other than that, it was the same. They were very good and we enjoyed them. Have two more for supper tonight.

L. Diane Wolfe talked about how she alters many of my recipes to make them vegan. Here is one I don’t think she will have to alter much if at all it is, after all, classified as vegan.

Apple Sweet Potato Bake

6 servings
WebMD Recipe

Sweet potatoes have all three of these antioxidants: vitamins A, C, and E. And they are the star ingredient in this side dish. You can make this recipe without peeling the sweet potatoes or the apples. Peel or don't peel, it's up to you.
Ingredients

• 5 cups sweet potatoes or yams, thinly sliced (1 1/2 sweet potatoes)
• 2 cups apples, such as pippin or Granny Smith, thinly sliced (2 small)
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
• 2 tablespoons reduced-calorie pancake syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup apple juice, or orange juice
• 1/4 cup walnut pieces, or chopped walnuts

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, toss the sweet potatoes, apple slices, and brown sugar together. Spoon into a 9x9-inch or similar-sized baking dish.
3. In a small bowl, blend syrup with cinnamon. Stir in the apple juice. Pour evenly over sweet potato mixture. Sprinkle walnuts over the top.
4. Cover baking dish with lid or foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake about 15 minutes longer (or until apple and sweet potatoes are cooked throughout).

Have a great day

Game of Thrones, Blogfest, Conserving the Seas.

Well, it turns out our son-in-law was right and I had somehow got hold of the wrong DVD for the series. Having discussed it with the librarian, I ended up getting the right DVD and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am now waiting for the next one. I’m not sure where in the series the one I did watch came, but it was obviously well on from the beginning. I am told some of the scenes I was looking for were certainly included. Once again, I am lauding the series. I absolutely love the music and must try and get a copy of it.

The Underrated Treasures Blogfest was fun yesterday. I was surprised at the people who did know my choice of movie, The Song of Bernadette. It is such an old film, I thought nobody would ever have heard of it. Other people had some very interesting books and films as well as bands and TV shows to recommend, some of which are no longer being aired. Thanks Alex J. Cavenaugh for hosting this blogfest.

As many of you know, I am very keen on conservation and was very disturbed to read the blog by Hilary Melton-Butcher yesterday - Sustainable Fishing and Marine Conservation Reserves ... The figures she quoted were horrifying. Although I
am aware of the damage we are doing to the waters of the world, I tend to concentrate a lot on land and animals when I talk of conservation, but, of course if we don’t protect the seas of the world we will end up in all kinds of trouble. Sustainable fishing must be implemented everywhere not just in a few countries. We are denuding the sea beds making it impossible for fish that used to live somewhere to continue to do so. The Monterey Bay Aquarium is very active on this side of the world in helping with marine conservation. They regularly publish a list of fish which are OK to be eaten because they are sustainable. A useful resource. They have done a lot to help sea otters and recently are nursing a pup which was found abandoned on the beach.

The following recipe I found through following a recipe on Yummly. It turns out to be from Smitten Kitchen and I thought it looked really good. It is a Russian recipe but as it’s made with apple I thought it would be a good recipe for Rosh Hashanah perhaps.


Apple Sharlotka

Adapted from Alex’s mother, who adapted it from her mother, and
so on…

Butter or nonstick spray, for greasing pan
6 large, tart apples, such as Granny Smiths
3 large eggs
1 cup (200 grams) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
Ground cinnamon, to finish
Powdered sugar, also to finish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper. Butter the paper and the sides of the pan. Peel, halve and core your apples, then chop them into medium-sized chunks. (I cut each half into four “strips” then sliced them fairly thinly — about 1/4-inch — in the other direction.) Pile the cut apples directly in the prepared pan. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, using an electric mixer or whisk, beat eggs with sugar until thick and ribbons form on the surface of the beaten eggs. Beat in vanilla, then stir in flour with a spoon until just combined. The batter will be very thick.
Pour over apples in pan, using a spoon or spatula to spread the batter so that it covers all exposed apples. (Updated to clarify: Spread the batter and press it down into the apple pile. The top of the batter should end up level with the top of the apples.) Bake in preheated oven for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a tester comes out free of batter. Cool in pan for 10 minutes on rack, then flip out onto another rack, peel off the parchment paper, and flip it back onto a serving platter. Dust lightly with ground cinnamon.
Serve warm or cooled, dusted with powdered sugar. Alex’s family eats it plain, but imagine it would be delicious with a dollop of barely sweetened whipped or sour cream.

Have a great day

Abdication, A to Z Challenge, Blackberry

Interesting, to me anyway, that Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has abdicated in favour of her son Crown-Prince Willem-Alexander after 33 years on the throne. Her mother, the previous queen, also abdicated, I didn’t remember that. The queen before that also abdicated. They are a much more relaxed family than the British royals, going amongst the people and living fairly ordinary lives I understand. This will be the first king on the Dutch throne for over 100 years. I am often asked why Queen Elizabeth doesn’t abdicate, I have been told its because the royal family consider the abdication of her Uncle was a disgrace which they don’t wish to repeat. This may be a load of ballyhoo, who knows.

As I said before, I have signed on for the 2013 A to Z Challenge which I took part in last year. There are a number of places where you can sign up, this is one of them. There are several hosts as described in their blogs and they are each carrying the Linky Link for someone to sign up. The A to Z Hosts are founder Arlee Bird at Tossing It Out, Damyanti Biswas at Amlokiblogs, Alex J. Cavanaugh, Tina Downey at Life is Good, D.L Hammons at Cruising Altitude 2.0, Jeremy Hawkins at Retro-Zombie, Shannon Lawrence at The Warrior Muse, Matthew MacNish at The QQQE, Konstanz Silverbow at No Thought 2 Small, Stephen Tremp at Breakthrough Blogs, Livia Peterson at Leave it to Livia, L. Diane Wolfe at Spunk on a Stick,and Nicole at The Madlab Post. Only trouble is, even though the blogfest doesn’t start til April 1, I am already lying in bed at night trying to think of recipes to use. It’s 2 months yet for goodness sake.

Also in the news was RIM’s introduction of the Blackberry 10 and that they are changing their name from RIM to Blackberry. They are hoping this new one will save their bacon. The company has been suffering badly from the competition recently and think this new Blackberry 10 may achieve a comeback. I hope so as they are a locally company and if they thrive it will be good for the area. I see my ISP is already offering it to their customers, not that I will be having one. We have one very basic cell phone as really that’s all we need, hardly ever use it anyway.

This recipe was posted on Facebook by a Portuguese friend of mine, in Portuguese. I asked for, and got, a translation and now am sharing it with you. The Portuguese catch and eat a lot of fish. Not sure about 2 1/2 people though.

Bacalhau à moda da Sogra (Mom’s Cod Recipe)

Ingredients (for 2 1/2 people)

2 cod loins

2 onions

3 cloves garlic

1 bay leaf

1 tsp paprika

½ cup white wine or to taste

Olive oil

Potato to accompany (while baking cod)

In a baking dish place the sliced ​​onion and garlic and bay leaf (reserve a clove of chopped garlic to sprinkle cod). Arrange the cod over the onions and place the potatoes (seasoned with salt) around it. Sprinkle with paprika. Perfume with wine and drizzle with olive oil. Bake at 200ºC for 50 minutes or until the potatoes are cooked.

Have a great day