durhamonthecheap

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Book Review: Close Knit Killer by Maggie Sefton

Cozy mystery and Ponzi schemes usually do not go well together; too recent is the news of Madoff and others that defrauded so many out of their hard earned money. But Maggie Sefton has written an entertaining mystery story that has as its center the perpetrator of a Ponzi scheme being murdered. Maybe it is the unsavory character of Jared Rizzoli, who shows up in Fort Connor after having served his prison sentence for a Ponzi scheme that makes this murder not an obstacle to the cozy mystery which combines knitting a la Miss Marple with modern sleuthing by Kelly Flynn.

Everything could be so nice, Kelly’s good friend Mimi Shafer has had so much success with her knitting store called the House of Lambspun that she is looking into expanding. But then Rizzoli is found dead in a car outside of Mimi’s shop, Kelly must find out who really killed Rizzoli because she knows that Mimi, who is the prime suspect, did not do it. And there are plenty of candidates, who would have seen Rizzoli dead rather than alive. After all, several of Fort Connor’s residents lost money and sometimes more to is nasty Ponzi scheme.

Sefton has written a mystery that shows how the strength of friendship can overcome hardship and betrayal by others. The knitting group works together to lend each other support when Rizzoli turns up in town and then led by Kelly, the ladies start sleuthing to solve the mystery as to who killed Rizzoli because the police, as so often, is on the wrong track. And regarding the Ponzi scheme hurting so many people, do not feel bad if in the end you almost feel sorry for the murderer, I hoped for an understanding judge as well because Rizzoli was just that kind of unsavory character.

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Book Review and upcoming movie notice: The Mortal Instruments - City of Bones

Through Crowdtap.com I received a book from the The Mortal Instruments series. City of Bones is the first book in the series and describes how the heroine, 15-yeard old Clary Fray, gets introduced to the Shadowhunters. The series is aimed at young adults, but even adults can enjoy the series. Because let's face it that too many of us pretended to read Harry Potter since our kids wanted them, but we secretly enjoyed them as well. It is no different with the fight that the Shadowhunters wage for the survival of the humans, who they must continuously protect against demons.

available on amazon.com here

And this book starts off with the bang. Outside a night club in New York City, Clary Fray witnesses as the Shadowhunters, more specifically Jace Wayland, kill what looks like a wild teenage boy. It is only when the boy is dying that the reader and Clary realize that he is not quite as human as he initially seemed. From the darkly colored blood that covers his body to the hissing threat voiced against Jace, we realize that the accusations by the Shadowhunters were true. While Clary was initially defending the boy against Jace and still is shocked by the brutal killking she witnessed, she is soon drawn deeper into the mystery involving the fight against demons. Her mother disappears the next day and Clary herself is almost killed by a creature that she realize is as demonic as the teenage boy killed by Jace.

The rest of the book delves into the secret that Clary was harboring and that explains why Clary is all of a sudden attracting the attention of the demons and also why she has the ability to see the Shadowhunters. Maybe Clary and her mother are not as mundanely human as initially thought? Clary joins forces with the half-angel warriors Shadowhunters and immerses herself into Downworld, an almost parallel New York that is filled with demons, including vampires, werewolves and warlocks.

Set in contemporary New York City,

Crowdtap provided the book to me and a digital party kit because at the end of August the movie version of the first book is coming out. City of Bones is premiering August 21, 2013 and has an all star cast including Aidan Turner (from The Hobbit) as Luke Garroway, Jonathan Thys Meyers (The Tudors) as Valentine Morgenstern, Jamie Campbell Bower (Twilight Saga and Harry Potter) as Jace Wayland, and Lena Heady (Games of Thrones) as Jocelyn Fray. Clary is played by relative newcomer Lily Collins, who American viewers may remember from the TV series 90210.

So if you like fantasy stories, especially vampire-based mysteries, this movie should be perfect for you. With the actors listed, you can anticipate the acting should be superb and the book is truly action packed. You can also sense some similarities to Harry Potter. Another human, who realizes through interaction with a special group of individuals protecting earth that they are not really human - see the first book in the Harry Potter series. But unlike Harry Potter, this series is a lot darker and geared towards older children, such as teenagers. This also makes it easier for us adults to justify reading this book, whereas with Harry Potter is seemed a little bit more difficult.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book and a digital party kit through Crowdtap in exchange for an honest review and hosting a party with friends to discuss the book and the upcoming movie. The opinions expressed in this post are solely my own and have not been influenced by any third party.

Fun Shapes Baking Cups - a great way to liven up plain cakes and make them fun for kids to eat!

Kids often demand frosting to eat plain cakes because a simple cake is not fun enough and I try to bake healthy, often substituting applesauce in lieu of oil to reduce the fat content and add some more vitamins.

But Reynolds used to make Fun Shapes, which were aluminum foil baking cups that came in a variety of shapes. Shapes available have included ghosts, which are perfect for Halloween parties. But you could also by stars, which work yearround, or hearts, which are perfect around Valentine's Day. The price was usually around $10 for a set of 24 cups. I hate to use the past tense because I do not believe that Reynolds is making them anymore, which is a real shame because I used to use them all the time for parties to generate individual cakes of adult portions. The seasonal ones were great for holiday parties. Now I have been using regular baking forms out of metal to generate individual cakes, but the Fun Shapes were in my opinion better because you could leave the cake in the form and simply serve it like you serve a cupcake.

I have some of the Reynolds Fun Shapes at home and so yesterday for a party I decided to splurge and tap into my precious reservoir of Fun Shapes. I used the star shapes to make a plain lemon cake more exciting for a party and people were commenting on the fun idea to make individual cakes for get-togethers. The baking time is identical to regular cupcakes or muffin pans. It is just recommended that you put the Fun Shapes on a baking sheet because they are regular foil and so not very sturdy. But I loved using them for parties because it was nice to serve individual cakes and the Fun Shapes were a nice change from the usual cupcakes, plus gave a more adult portion to serve. So I hope Reynolds reconsiders and will come up with a substitute for these Fun Shapes because the star shaped cake looks so much better than simple cupcake or a slice of lemon cake.

another week of peppers and tomatoes - now the sweet peppers come in all shapes and colors

We finally had rain last night and even though it rained on our neighborhood party, I was glad to see some much needed rain for my garden. I have currently a lot of tomatoes and peppers ripen and so the rain will help since I am trying to cut back on watering my garden.

Today I had a few cherry tomatoes and a regular sized tomato ready as well as a bunch of sweet peppers in all colors from yellow to red in my garden. The cherry tomatoes are like candy and usually get eaten like candy without cutting or adding any spices - just pop them in your mouth and enjoy! I have already a few regular tomatoes in my fridge, so I will make a tomato salad and will serve some plain tomato sandwiches for lunch this week. The tomatoes from the garden are so much better in flavor and you have never eaten a good tomato sandwich unless you have used tomatoes from your garden.

Here is a sample of a tomato sandwich from Pinterest that contains the staples of bacon and real mayo.

recipe from here

If you do not have your own garden and really cannot or want not start one, consider splurging ever so often on organic tomatoes or visit a Farmer's Market to get some real flavorful tomatoes and treat your family to an old-fashioned tomato sandwich!

For the sweet peppers I found another easy recipe that I will try since Aldi now carries regularly Mozarella.

recipe from here

In the recipe they used mozzarella string cheese, but I will use the regular mozzarella that comes in round shapes because it is softer and to me complements with its even milder flavor the sweetness of the peppers better than packaged string cheese. Good thing I have another Aldi trip coming up soon, so I can put mozzarella on my shopping list and use my plentiful sweet peppers as a snack that is both healthy and flavorful.

shout out to my neighbors who participated in the The Grill Master Competition at West 94th St. Pub (Woodcroft Shopping Center)

At our block party last night, my neighbors arrived with a cooler full of cole slaw, all perfectly portioned in little plastic containers. I asked why go through all the trouble of pre-portioning the slaw. No one has ever gone through that much trouble for a side dish at our block party. I found out about a benefit event in my neighborhood that I would have never heard about, if I had not asked my neighbors about their slaw.

Turned out my neighbors decided to participate in the Grill Master Competition at West 94th St. Pub in the Woodcroft Shopping Center. The benefit event was intended to raise money for the Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC and involved volunteers showcasing their best grill recipes. My neighbor decided to participate out of competition by supplying what I can only presume was a much needed side dish to go with all the grill recipes that involved, as can be expected, mostly meat.

The competition started at Noon and free public tasting started at 3PM with a donation of five non perishable food items to benefit the Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC. I am sad I missed the event and wished for better publicity to go with this event. Kudos to my neighbors for providing the side dish.

It tasted wonderful for lunch today. The slaw had some kick to it, which I was assured was a secret recipe. So it shall remain a secret, but let's hope for more publicity next year or whenever West 94th St. Pub has more such wonderful benefit events going on.

Saturday, July 27, 2013

Goodies box from July 2013 - a couple of my favorite items + a big thank you to their customer service

I have previously reviewed the Goodies boxes that I receive each month and this month was no different. But for the first time I had a hick up in the box. The initial box that I received was missing some items. I initially only received three items instead of the five items planned for this box. Bot no worries, I contacted their customer support and also posted on their Facebook page and within a few minutes I had received a response and an assurance that the missing items would be shipped to me soon. No kidding, I had both missing items on my door step within a couple of days and so a big thank you to the customer service at Goodies for doing things right!

Because the box for July appeared in stages, I will post a review of a couple of items instead doing the full box review as usual. What I will present is the beverage included this month, which was a sparkling orange mango flavored water, as well as a bag of jelly beans-type candy that contained a variety of cherry-flavored candy which contained real cherry juice.

The fruit water was awesome. It really tasted like the perfect combination of orange soda and mango flavor and, best of all, it contained no calories. I loved the little sparkle that was added and made it fizzy. The water was refreshing and tasted great. I added lots of ice to keep the beverage cold because despite the zero calories, the soda was quite sweet. But the flavor was intense enough that you could add lots of ice and still maintain a very flavorful beverage.

The next item I will review was the cherry-flavored candy that was made with real cherry juice and contained lots of vitamin C. The bag contained cherry candy in 9 flavors including cherry vanilla, chocolate cherry, Bing cherry, cherry kiwi and cherry daiquiri. While I was not too fond of the cherry daiquiri, I loved all the other flavors and it was certainly a gourmet-type treat that could be enjoyed as a little snack in between meals.

In addition to these two items, I received the following three items:

Jalapeño and Sea Salt Chips by Sugar Foods
Grain Crisps Sea Salt by Crunchmaster
Cinnamon Crunch by Cosmo Creations

All three items were excellent. My favorite was probably the Cinnamon Crunch, which were little corn puffs sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. A very light, but flavorful treat.

Overall, for $7 a month I still believe that Goodies is a reasonable priced treat. We do not go to the movies and really for less than the price of one admission to the movie theater, you get a little treat box that you can enjoy and that exposes you to new products each month. Very little risk for the money involved and ever so often you find a product that you really fall in love with and then you can order a regular size product from Goodies. Goodies currently runs a special on many of their products, which makes them cheaper sometimes than Amazon since Goodies also offers free shipping from time to time.

Disclaimer: I received the items in the Goodies box by paying a $7 subscription fee and all opinions expressed in the blog post are solely my own and have not been influenced by any third party.

Aldi recipe: Spaetzle prepared like a carbonara dish with egg, ham and vegetables.

I made one new recipe with all Aldi products because I love comfort food that does not cost a lot. As a regular Aldi shopper, I was able to get a hold of some of the Spaetzle they had on sale during a German week some time ago and felt like cooking a comfort-type pasta dish with them. Spaetzle are associated with German cooking and usually come as a side dish to an entree that has gravy with it. But in Germany, we use Spaetzle like regular pasta and enjoy them because they taste like eggs and give a simple pasta dish a richer flavor.

So I decided to prepare the Spaetzle as usual by boiling them in salt water. Then I added some vegetables from Aldi. I chose the Prince Edward Blend consisting of green and yellow beans and carrots that Aldi had as a weekly special. I quickly sauteed the vegetables in some oil - you do not need a lot to thaw the vegetables and I try to keep the beans crispy. I then cut some Honey Ham into small pieces, added the precooked pasta and heated everything thoroughly. To make the dish a little bit richer since I planned to use it as an entree, I added a scrambled egg that I simply scrambled in the pan. I then portioned out the dish into bowls, added a little bit of shredded cheese and ended up with a quick dinner that was filling, but provided a nice change from the usual pasta dishes that contain lots of tomato sauce.

Best of all, all the ingredients came from Aldi and so the total cost of the dish was a bargain. I like the Prince Edward Blend because it adds some color to the dish, but you can certainly add peas and carrots or any other vegetable that your kids enjoy.