Of course it counts.... it's a classic! (52 Books #24)

So the 52 books has stalled again and it's going even slower than before. To be honest the life of an English teacher in foreign lands is not one that generally affords you long holidays and summer is often more busy rather than less, so less time available for reading (even less so with a visitor who's arrival is imminent but without and means of communication... men... typical!) But I have managed to read something - Little Women. 

This is one of my favourite books of all time and as it's been a ridiculously long time since I've read it I'm including it in my 52! There's not really much to say about this book that hasn't already been said... Louisa M. Alcott is one of my favourite authors, and I love her much underrated Eight Cousins! The people she writes about are real and likable and in the end I love that love wins through all that she writes, even when there are deaths. 

You'd have to be living under a rock not to know about the death of one of the four sisters in little women and it is one of the few books that makes me weep every time I read it, despite knowing what's coming and despite the tender care with which it is written!

I love this book, and the re-reading came at a perfect time - if you haven't read it, then find yourself a copy! 

Lazy Sunday Cookies

Sunday morning, lurgy free... what to do!? Naturally tidy the room, organise the wardrobe and bake! In my room tidying escapades I came upon yet another hat, so I've spent the day wondering round in black and looking very philosophical (no poetry spouting though).

So, with wooden spoon in hand, and nod to France oh so neatly placed (I didn't plan that one) in homage to my baking buddy having realised that this was the first time I had baked without her about, I was ready to go! I bring you an amazing baking brain-child:

Lazy Sunday Lemon Cookies

Ingredients:

6 oz Butter
2 oz Icing Sugar
1/2 lb Self-Raising Flour
1 decent sized Lemon
Icing sugar

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 190C/Gas 5.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together.
3. Grate the lemon zest into the sugar mixture and mix together.
4. Work the flour in with your fingers until it comes together in a ball.
5. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into rounds.
6. Put on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes till a pale golden brown.
7. Let them cool on a wire rack.

Now here is the really good bit...

8. In a small bowl/cup pour in a small amount of icing sugar, then squeeze in the lemon juice from the grated lemon. Mix well.
9. Keep adding icing sugar to this until you reach a consistency that is spreadable but not too runny. I was lucky that this made exactly enough icing for the number of cookies I had!
10. Spread your icing onto your cool biscuits, leave to set and then nom away!

Nothing beats a good ol' sing-song!

Friday 5:30pm - the time that one of my most challenging classes arrives. Imagine my surprise when this rowdy class of four boys were utterly enchanted and captivated by McFly's Love Is Easy and constantly requested to hear it again - they even remembered to say please! It just goes to show that nothing beats a good song! Oh all right I know I'm biased and that I have a deep love for McFly that has been firmly rooted since they appeared 10 years ago (10 years ago - cripes) but the point still stands, music is powerful!

After this revelation, I pootled off home to have an evening of chilled out cooking (and a fair bit of weeping as a mountain of onion was involved) and I stuck on an album from a band I wasn't familiar with but had been suggested to me by Amazon and Spotify. The album in question is Kodaline's In A Perfect World. This time it was my turn to be blown away.

I can't not love this cover - It reminds me of both my homes!

To anyone reading this in the UK, I realise I must be well behind the times! In my defence, it takes a fair wee while for music from the homeland to permeate over here, and I don't listen to the radio anymore (bar the odd Radio 4 program... yes... yes I did just admit to that!) To anyone not in the know, what I have discovered is that Kodaline are apparently a "Dublin-based Irish alternative rock quartet". Well that sounds grand to me!  Although it was Amazon that gave me the recommendation, I had iTunes pennies to use up, so hoisted myself over there for purchase and I am rather glad I did! My favourite track on the entire album (I ended up with the Deluxe version) is Latch. Love of the goosbump variety there, and it's not often I get that!

I find the whole alternative rock/ folk hybrid genre a difficult one. I want to love so much of the music, but some of it does nothing for me. I heard the Lumineers album and immediately thought of my sister and she loves it, but it doesn't light my fires in the same way. Kodaline have lit those fires and they're roaring away! What a delight!

As there was a request for more recipes on here, I will share with you what I was cooking as I made this magical musical discovery! There is no name for it really. Mum calls it a barbecue sauce, it could be called a sweet and sour sauce, but whatever it is it's very very yummy!

Random Saucy Goodness

Ingredients: 

3 decent-large sized onions
Olive oil
a small glass bottle of tomato ketchup (preferable Heinz)
White or cider vinegar
granulated sugar

Method:

1. Slice the onions. Now there IS a correct way to do this for this recipe. See the hast picture below and cut as indicated by the dotted red lines (I hope this makes sense!)

2. Splash some oil into a large saucepan or a wok and add the onions, breaking them up as you go. Drizzle a little extra oil over the top. 

3. Turn on the heat and cook the onions down till they are soft, stringy and opaque. Be careful not to burn them.

4. Add the tomato sauce, stir in, then fill the bottle with water, shake and add to the pan so you have all the tomato goodness and exactly the right amount of water! 

5. Let the mush simmer for a wee while, then add splashes of vinegar and spoons of sugar till is reaches a taste to your liking -  there are not instructions for how much to add. 

6. This can be eaten straight away or be kept for a good while in the fridge or frozen and it is always at its very best the day after it's made. 

Revamp...

There's been a bit of a revamp over at Short Stories as it's previous incarnation, pretty though it looked, it wasn't doing anything to persuade me add to my stories and as my little place for my imagination soup to have a more physical home it ought to be a place I want to put things, so this is what it now looks like: 

I'm much happier with this layout and hope to be adding more and more to it, at far smaller intervals, in the future! It's definitely been a slow burner of late, but the cogs are turning and I want to know where all these stories end up going... even I don't have a clue what's round the next corner! 

Comfort Cookies

One of the simplest of recipes and one that provides fantastic comfort in hours of need that I thought I'd better share all the cookie (although bear in mind they come out quite spongy) love!

Ingredients:

100g flour
50g sugar
60g butter/margarine
1 tsp vanilla essence (I promise that it's better with the stuff and I never normally bother with it!)
1 egg, beaten
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking powder, dissolved in hot water (though I always use self-raising flour anyway)
1 small bag M&M's (or smarties, or chocolate-chip, raisins...)


Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 175 C.
2. Cream the butter (or margerine) and sugar together.
3. Add the egg, vanilla essence, salt and baking powder and mix.
4. Add the flour and mix it in.
5. Throw in your M&Ms (or indeed whatever you fancy)
6. Bake for at least 10 minutes (use your judgement - I know all ovens are different and have their ticks)

These are best eaten the day they're made and are so deliciously comforting that you'll wish you made more (but be glad you didn't or you'd have scoffed the lot!) Luckily for me, this recipe is perfect for those with a wee oven and it makes five generous cookies (or if you accidently double the quantities like I did then you end up with five ma-hoo-sive cookies....).

Enjoy!

Lurgied up but battling on...

There is only one thing worse than being ill... Being ill and not being able to read. That happened to me on Monday, and it sucked! Endless time to read is usually the only saving grace of being under-the-weather, and the only thing that keeps you from the insanity that is illness related boredom. Sadly I am not in great danger of the latter. Although I have been struck down with tonsillitis, it's a mild bout and I am working through it (yet another astounding set of words to put on a page for those who know me, but in the past 14 months I've worked through nearly every illness thrown at me bar the occasion I was signed off by the doc!)

Even so, on Monday morning I was in my bed and all I could do was sleep. In fairness I needed it, but it was also my precious morning off... I was planning some epic reading time this week, and all of it has been nabbed from me in the name of recovery. There have, however, been a few inane things I have managed to do so far this week: 

• I Got Stamps...

 

Yes, yes I know this is sad (and I haven't divulged my full collection on here) but I just can't get enough of them, and being the snail mail aficionado it means I can create things like this:

Now come on, who doesn't want to receive a letter with waving robots adorning the paper and the envelope!  Sometimes I think that I should go into business, but then it wouldn't be so exciting would it! And besides, it wouldn't be nearly so much fun sending them then! 

• I've found great joy in eating dragon fruit out of the bowls given to me by a departed friend... now just look at how good that looks! 

• I started to write out a blog post in long-hand! What can I say, I'm old school like that! 

And the best bit, when I started feeling that bit better;

• I BAKED!! It's been a long time since my last baking outing and it's still as calm and therapeutic as ever (even if they did come out a little on the large side!)

Slowly, things seem to be on the up ill-wise! Naps have been my saviour and all the news of the Royal Baby has done wonders in passing on good feelings a-plenty. Here's to next week looking a little brighter, now I'm off for a cookie and a nap! 

Recommendations for a Friend #1 (52 Books #21, #22 and #23)

I was asked recently to make personal book recommendations to a friend - well who am I to refuse such a request! And so she (and she know's who she is) now has her very own set of posts for just this purpose!  I have also realised that, by some fortunate happy accident I'm remembering books I'd forgotten I'd read this year, so that's a few more to add to the 52 books list!

So, jumping in with Angelfall by Susan Ee.

This was one of those books that was first published digitally and received popularity through word of mouth. I picked it up on Amazon when it was going for a lowly 99p, and devoured it almost instantly. Angelfall is a shoe-in if you were a fan of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games,  following the similar theme of the older sister protecting the younger one. It will also appeal to Twilight fans, as it features a human/mythical romance, but as with both aforementioned it's all about the way the stories packaged and Angelfall, although being a familiar plot, was readable and different enough story. The sequel is coming out in mid-November, and I just hope it's worth the wait!

Another recent book I've read has been another Ngaoi Marsh, this time Death In a White Tie.

This one follows on directly from Artists in Crime and expanded on the characters beautifully. There's not much more I can say about these books that I didn't say here, but the same longing for a long-forgotten era is jolted when reading these books, especially as this one is set against the backdrop of the first "season" of the protagonist Roderick Alleyn's niece as she makes her entrance into society as a debutante.

The final book in this wee list of suggestions (and 52 books tally) is The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. I first bought this book when I was at uni, I'm going to hazard a guess at 2008, and read it after purchase. I remember thoroughly enjoying it, so I picked it up again to remind myself why.

I loved this book for two main reasons. One, it's an out and out mystery that surprised at every turn, and two, the novels two leading characters are an author and a bibliophile. It's a book persons story.  I am all about a good story, and a nice gothic mystery full of deep and dark family secrets makes a book you can really get into! Definitely one to give a whirl!