M is for Murder

  

I am fortunate enough to be part of a book club every month. A group of 5-8 women all convene together from our respective cities once a month (or two) for good food, great wine, and (oh yeah) a book discussion! To be completely honest, our book club is typically 30% book discussion, 30% consuming delicious food and beverages, and 40% discussing (gossiping) about topics completely unrelated to the book. It is a true highlight of my entire month. 

The ladies and I take turns hosting, and January was my month.  This meant that not only did I get to play hostess, which I love, but I also got to choose this month's book. We had read a plethora of chick-lit style books in recent months, so I decided to mix things up a bit and choose a murder mystery novel.

The book was very unique as the protagonist was an 11 year old little girl with a love for chemistry, bothering her sisters, and solving mysteries.  For approximately the first 100 pages I had to read with a dictionary beside me because the words were so complicated and obscure.  This came as unexpected to me since I was reading about an 11 year old....and I was unable to comprehend what the heck she was saying at times. Some of the other women felt the same way which was reassuring. We always end book club with a discussion about what we rated the book on a scale of 1-10. I believe the average was about 6.5/10 for this particular book. We agreed that overall it was a good book but that because of the difficult start we couldn't justify any higher than that.

To go along with our murder mystery book, I hosted a murder mystery night.

We played An Evening of Murder: A Feast to Die For.

Each member of our book club was sent an invitation with the murder scene, the synopsis, and the character they were to play. Everyone came in costume and stayed in character while we played the game and discovered who the murderer was among us....it was so much fun!

Of course, no book club would be complete without food, and since it was a Feast to Die For theme, we had a full supper meal together and each of us contributed a dish.

The Menu included:

Angst-filled Appetizers - Deviled Eggs, Surprise Dip, Raw Veggies, and Hummus Dip



A Sinister Salad

Bloody Bread

Lawless (Vegetarian) Lasagne

Deadly Dessert:

NOT PICTURED. The dessert was eaten so fast I didn't end up getting a picture. However, I made these cookies which we ate along with the Oreo Cookie dessert. It was seriously deadly.

Corpse Cookies (Recipe Coming Soon)

It was a devilishly delicious evening of murder.

We are taking a book club break in February as one of our beautiful ladies is getting married next month.

Book Club in March will feature this book:

I CAN'T WAIT!


ADELLE

Musings from a Sick Bed

It has hit me. The dreaded flu. I had been hearing of it from others but thought I was immune to it, having been pre-disposed to most germs through my place of work.

I feel like a hockey player who is skating along the ice just trying to get where he is supposed to go when out of nowhere a 250lb guy comes out of nowhere and body slams the hockey player into the boards, leaving the hockey player laying on the ice in fetal position wondering what the hell just happened.  Well, I am that hockey player except instead of a 250lb jock, it is a virus that has body slammed me into fetal position on my bed.

I am trying to stay positive, so here are some reasons that being sick can be a good thing.

1. You can catch up on your (bad) tv. Mine consisted of one part talk shows, one part reruns, and a few parts cartoons (in case you are wondering...Shrek Forever After, Toy Story 3, and Despicable Me are really good movies). Positive.

2. You do not feel bad about missing a few days at the gym. Yesterday, while my BF was doing his crazy and intense P90X workout, I was excited to make it from the couch to the bed. Not only was I excited, I felt pretty good about myself. Positive.

3. You are forced to be on a liquid diet. There are people in this world who pay money to go on liquid diets to lose weight or detox, etc. and I was forced to be on one! Positive.

4. It is not procrastination when you are laying in bed instead of doing homework, cleaning, or working. It is taking care of yourself. Positive.

5. When it is -20 degrees and lower you can stay inside and laugh at the people all bundled up. Positive.

6. Naps during the day are not only acceptable they are encouraged. Positive.

7. You get to cuddle with your spoiled, self centered cats all day. When they feel like it. Positive.

8. Your boyfriend makes you soup, tea, and braves the weather to get you Gatorade. Positive.

9. You get a lot of alone time, because lets face it, no one wants to be around someone who has the flu. Positive (sort of).

10. You can stay in your pajamas all day and no one judges you. In fact, hypothetically you can stay in the same pajamas for two days and no one judges you. Hypothetically. And Positive.


Yes, if you think long and hard there are some positives to being sick. But now I have been sitting upright for far too long. Bed time.

Stay Healthy!


ADELLE

Be My Guest

Life has been busy busy busy, and with the start up of work, two university classes, and attempting to go to the gym my blogging has taken a back seat.

Thankfully, I got a reprieve from all of the above when one of my best girlfriends and her adorable kids came for a visit this weekend. It was a wonderful excuse to try some new recipes, have friends and family over, and play with babies. All things that I love.

Last night, I made Jenna's Chicken Parmesan with a twist.

Start with dipping your chicken in eggs/milk, followed by bread crumbs, then whole wheat flour.

Throw it in a fry pan until the chicken is browned on both sides and cooked through.

Throw these in a casserole dish with some marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni on top.  Sounds weird. Looks like this.

Served on whole grain spaghetti with a salad. We didn't like the pepperoni on it, but it was good chicken parmesan.

This morning, we started our morning with classic Green Monsters.

My friend had never tried a green drink so I blended away.

I gathered the ingredients.

Put them in a blender and blend until good and green.

It looks incredibly shady, but tastes delicious.

Served with whole grain toast and almond butter.

Tonight I had friends and family over and cooked for all of them. It has been forever since I had to opportunity to cook for a bunch of people and I loved it.

Supper was vegetarian lasagne.

Served with salad, veggies and jalapeno cheddar bread.



Dessert was chocolate vegan pudding with fresh fruit.

And hot chocolate and Baileys.

Have I mentioned how much I love to eat?!

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend!


ADELLE

Book Review 2010

As many of you know, I am a lover of the written word. Last year, I started keeping track of the books I read as well as a 'wish list' of books I want to read. I found that people often recommended books but I never remembered them so I recorded them and refer back to the list when I need a new read. I am a very list-oriented person. If it is not written down it is out of my mind.

For fun, I compiled a list of my favourite reads from the 19 books I read over the past year.

Here goes.

Favourite Read of 2010

This goes to The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

The book is very easy to read and addresses historical issues in a way that keeps even non-history buffs wanting to know more about the time period. I fell in love with all of Kathryn's characters and am waiting on pins and needles for her to author another book. Rumour has it that this book is being made into a movie sometime in the next year.

A very close second favourite book of the year was The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill.

This book took me nine months to read. It is historical fiction written in a very different way than the previous book. It is rip-your-heart-out devastating, very graphic and at times disturbing. I would read a bit, then put it away and read something 'lighter', then read a bit more, etc. That being said, this book is change your life good. It affected me the same way as The Kite Runner....it is a book that stays with you and resonates with you for weeks after you finish the final page.

Favourite Chick Lit/Romance 2010

This goes to the book One Day by David Nicholls.

In this book, two young people meet on July 15th in the 1980s. Nicholls then writes only about July 15th over the next 20 years and the reader is given snapshots of the young couples lives throughout the years. It is such a different way to write a love story. I heart this novel. It is being made into a movie sometime in 2011 and is said to star Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess (of Across the Universe fame). I literally can't wait  and will most likely re-read the book or force my book club to read along with me. 

Best Page Turner 2010

Hands-down The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.

A continuation of the journey of Robert Langdon. Not as good as the previous two, but I still had no semblance of a social life after reading the first few pages.

Favourite Series 2010

With absolutely no hesitation, it is the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.

The young adult series is futuristic, graphic, disturbing at times but very readable. I was shocked to find out that its target audience is adolescents as the book is very violent and the premise is essentially a fight-to-the-death of a country's youth. The series has all the ingredients for a delicious page turner and is a movie in the making. 

Favourite Book-to-Movie Adaptation 2010

I am torn between many. I am a sucker for movie adaptations of books. I narrowed my favs down to 3:

Eat, Pray, Love. I know, I know....so cliche. The book and movie are quite different and there are many parts (as in most book-to-movie-adaptations) that are left out. However. Julia Roberts? Good. Javier Bardem? Good. Watching a few hours of great food, beautiful scenery, and living vicariously through Ms. Roberts and her many gorgeous suitors? Worth the price of a movie ticket.

Another fav movie adaptation:

Each movie version of Stephanie Meyer's series keeps getting better and better....and the men keep getting hotter and hotter.

And finally, I loved this movie adaptation.

Again, the movie is different from the book as it eliminated a few parts and essentially re-wrote the ending, but the movie was great and the chemistry between the two characters was perfect (or maybe that was just my boyfriend Channing Tatum).

Most Unexpected Good Read 2010.

This goes to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

The title threw me off and I was incredibly skeptic of this book (for the sole reason of the crazy title). I was happy to discover that it was a very entertaining, very easy, very short read. Perfect for a quick plane ride.

Worst Book of the Year 2010

Sadly, this goes to a book that was picked in my book club. The book is called I Remember You by Harriet Evans.

The writing is not great, I had to keep looking back at characters as they were not well developed, and because they were not well developed....I just didn't care about them. The book club was unanimous on hating the book and a few of the book club members didn't even finish it because of their ambiguity towards to book. Give this one a miss.

Besides the last one, it was a great year for books!

Currently on my Shelf

This is January's Book Club pick and it was my choice this month! My choice was based on my want for an atypical murder mystery. The story is told from the viewpoint of an eleven year old girl; however, I feel like I have to read with a dictionary beside me as the words used are rather large and complex. Ill keep you posted!

What were your favourite books of 2010? Any recommendations?

Happy Reading!

ADELLE

Experimental Foodie

Back to work. Back to getting up early. Back to getting germs from kids and getting sick.

Perfect.

Today I spent the day at home ill, so not a lot of cooking went on. Unless you consider making dry toast cooking.

I got to catch up on a few of my shows which finally returned to new episodes after the hiatus over Christmas break. The Biggest Loser is back for another season and rumour is it's Jillian Michael's final season on the show. All my fav comedies were back: Cougar Town, Modern Family, Big Bang Theory, Mike and Molly. Yup...I watch em all. Plus my dramas...Grey's Anatomy....and that's all the tv shows I'm disclosing that I view. I can feel the judgement already.

This week I experimented with a few breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes.

For breakfast, I usually have toast and yogourt/fruit/granola. I keep hearing that oatmeal is filling and delicious but I have always had an aversion to it. I decided to give it another try. I bought triple berry oatmeal because it sounded ok...so I made some and added some fresh berries to it in the hopes that it would enhance the taste from pablem-like to sweet-and-delicious.

It tasted like mush with delicious fruit. Not only that, but I was hungry by about 10am.

Another dish I experimented with was a spinach salad as I had an abundance of spinach in the fridge that needed using. I made a Warm Spinach Feta and Whole Grain Rice Salad adapted from grouprecipes.com.

The salad turned out to be delicious but fairly strong-tasting. I had it as a meal, but next time I would eat it as a side instead of the full meal. It was definately better than the alternative meal served at my house that night.

My arteries hurt just looking at all the deep fried goodness.

The last dish I made this week was Balsamic Turkey Stir Fry with whole grain brown rice. I adapted the recipe from Jessica Seinfeld's Double Delicious cookbook. Her recipe was for Balsamic Chicken Ciabatta, but I didn't have any chicken or ciabattas. So I improvised.

First, heat up a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and 3 cloves of minced garlic.

Cut your chicken or turkey into cubes and salt and pepper them.

Place wax paper on the counter and sprinkle one cup of whole wheat flour onto it. Take your turkey cubes and toss them in the flour until all of the pieces are coated.

Throw them into the oil and garlic and let them cook until they are browned on the outside.

Add 6 tablespoons of brownsugar, 1/2cups balsamic vinegar, 1 tbsp olive oil, 1 cup low-fat reduced-sodium chicken broth.

Bring everything to a boil, then cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked.

At this point, the recipe calls for broccoli puree; however, because I decided to make a stir fry instead of a sandwhich I cut up broccoli and carrots and added them to the skillet.

Add the end result to a bed of whole grain rice.

This was the best dish I made in a while. I liked it so much I made it into a bagel sandwich the next day.



After all my foodie experimenting I had to treat myself.

After all the good (and mediocre) food I had this week, it all culminated into getting the flu today.

I am trying not to equate my new road to health with getting the flu...perhaps I need more deep fried wings in my diet.


ADELLE

My Return to Health....and to The Bachelor

The past few days have flown by and now here I sit on the eve before my holidays are over. They went so fast....I feel like I should have more to show for having close to two weeks off. Oh well, that's what holidays are for right? Since January 1st I have tried to act less like a sloth and attempt to get off my couch, put down the cookies, turn off the tv, and join the real world. I made a few meals from scratch (a big feat for me) and have made it to the gym for the past 3 days in a row. This is the most productive I have been over the entire Christmas holidays.

For my Return to Health kick, I have tried to limit my sugar intake, limit my diet cola drink intake, and eat tonnes of fruits, veggies, and whole grains. As it turns out, when you still have baking left over from The Great Bake Exchange it is very hard not to sneak a baked good here and there. What can I say...I have zero willpower.

I decided to try out one of my new cookbooks on Sunday night. The cookbook is called Double Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. I made Jessica's Turkey Meatballs with ground turkey, whole grain crackers, and plenty of different spices. I topped the meatballs off with a sweet and sour sauce I found in my old elementary school cookbook, and served the mixture over whole grain spaghetti.

I LOVED these meatballs. They were so much healthier than the traditional meatballs (which my BF made and I pointed out all of the meatball's unhealthy qualities...he really appreciated it). They were very flavourful, and the sauce had the perfect amount of sweetness. YUM!

I also made a salad with Jessica's home made caesar dressing. The dressing is made with a cauliflower puree base. I was very skeptical of this, but Jessica is known for using purees in her meals, so I rolled with it. There was something not quite right about the dressing...I must have done something wrong. It was thicker than I anticipated, and the taste was a bit off too. I may try making it again someday because I like the idea of non-dairy salad dressing.

We still have plenty of leftover in the fridge, primarily cheesy italien pizza wedges and chinese food. I by-passed those and made half a multi grain bagel veggie sandwich for lunch over the past 2 days. I served the half-bagels with fruit and veggies.

And made a blueberry-blackberry smoothie.

All this healthy eating makes me feel great; however, I am still averaging between 3-5 cookies/baked goods a day. Thank goodness I am getting back into gym-mode.

The other highlight of the past few days was the return of The Bachelor on ABC.

This season, the most controversial season of The Bachelor yet, former bachelor Brad Womack returns after having rejected every woman from his past season 3 years ago. People were up in arms about Brad`s decision not to pick either woman left at the end of the show; however, I respect his decision not to lead either woman on. Get over it world.

Hilarious.

Season 15 of the Bachelor should be a fantastic one.

First of all, we get to watch Brad every week for 2 hours.

Personally, I could think of worse things I could spend 2 hours looking at.

Second, my friend and I already have our fav female contenders picked out:

Emily is a southern belle....she has a little girl and she is a widower as her fiancee passed away 6 years ago. We have high hopes for her. First impression is that she is a very sweet woman. This usually changes when there are 30 women vying for the same man, but so far, she is one of our top picks.

Ashley S is a nanny and she received the 1st impression rose from Bachelor Brad last night. Ashley gives off a very genuine, sweet, girl-next-door vibe. We will see if the craziness of the show impacts that.

This is Ashley H. She is a dentist, has lots of energy, and we feel she is age-appropriate for Bachelor Brad.

So those are the top 3.

Of course, my friend and I also picked the top women that we dislike for our Bachelor Brad.

This chick was the first of the thirty women to meet Bachelor Brad. What better way to make a first impression than to slap your potential future partner across the face, saying ``this is for every woman in America``. Good first impression honey.

Michelle is age appropriate, clearly very beautiful, and we have dubbed her as the S$%T disturber. Possibly the second coming of Vienna for you bachelor fans out there. We predict she makes it a long way though.

This is Madison. This poor sweetheart is our least favourite. Girlfriend came on the bachelor wearing fangs.

Enough said.

Monday nights are sure to be 100% more interesting....except that I have night class so I will be watching my beloved show on Tuesday nights. I love reality tv. *sigh*.


Are you doing anything to `return to health` after the holidays...
Did you watch the Bachelor season premiere and if so....who did you pick as your favs so far....


ADELLE

A Brand New Year

A Brand New Year. A Fresh Start. A time for reflecting on the past year, looking ahead to the next year and setting new goals. Well....the first thing I did on New Years Day was go to MacDonald's which is the opposite of any of my New Years goals. Unfortunately, it was closed. So I went next door and had a nice healthy breakfast for my first meal of 2011.

Ok fine, I had the equivalent of a MacDonald's meal at A & W. I decided that New Years Day is not when you start all your resolutions. I gave myself the day to reflect, watch movies, clean up Christmas presents and eat whatever I want. Including two plates of leftover chinese.

I mean really...the most productive thing a lot of people did yesterday was nurse a hangover (no judgement if that's what your new years day consisted of).

Yesterday I got to play with all the toys I got for Christmas. Including this beautiful piece of machinery.

Isn't she beautiful? My new Kitchen Aid Classic Mixer. Onyx Black. 10 Speeds. Flour Power (sorry I couldn't resist).

I was looking for an excuse to bake with my new toy and I decided to make classic peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. It took me a while to figure out the attachments for my new kitchen aid (whom I secretly named Julia after Julia Child....don't tell anyone).

I put on my brand new apron and got to work.

I gathered up all the ingredients I needed and loaded them into my 4.3Litre mixer.

  
 I was really excited to press the ON button. Yes....it's the little things in life that make me happy.

Julia....erm....I mean my new mixer worked beautifully.

I also got to use my new cooke dough dropper,

And my new cooling rack.

All in all....a great day!

I also made my goals for this year. Here is a bit of a recap of my goals from last year.

1.  Run a half marathon. I ran in the Queen City Marathon with a time of 2:22:13.

2.  Apply to grad school. I applied (for the 2nd time) and was accepted! One class done...12 to go!

3. Travel. I went to Arizona, Vancouver, Victoria and Las Vegas this year!

4. Start a blog. Done.

5. Keep better in touch with friends who do not live here. Jill will tell you I need to work on this:)

Other Highlights: Numerous weddings and many little ones were born to friends and family. One of my best friends moved back to MJ where she and her family belong. My parents bought a Lake House where I spent time over the summer and throughout the fall and winter. My BF moved in!

2010 was a great year!


11 Goals for 2011

1. Run another half marathon and set a PR sub 2:22:13.

2. Take a cooking class.

3. Floss (I am terrible with this!)

4. Go on at least 1 trip.

5. Complete between 4-6 classes towards Masters degree.

6. Expand interest in photography!

7. Keep in touch with friends who live outside of Moose Jaw....and here in MJ for that matter!

8. Continue reading for enjoyment.

9. Try meditation to quiet my mind which never shuts off.

10. Go skydiving.

11. Continue blogging a few times per week!

There you have it. We will see how it goes!

I hope 2011 is off to a great start for all of you!


ADELLE