The Perfect Egg

Buy Here

Let me just start by saying that this cookbook is awesome. Every recipe I made tasted great, even if I landed messing up a few steps. The beginning part of this book is great because it educates the reader about eggs and the different types as well as different ways to cook them, how to decode the carton, it even gives you a picture of the anatomy of an egg (they have a lot more to them than you would think). So, in total I made 4 recipes which were: 

1. Green Onion Fried Black Rice

2. Avgolemono Soup

3. Pasta Carbonara

4. Garlic and Green Onion Noodle Kugel

 The Green Onion Fried Black Rice was super delicious.
I had never had black rice before so it was nice to try it and I
have to say I liked the taste. There was egg mixed into the rice and that with the fried egg on top made the combo of
flavors fantastic. The green onion sprinkled on top added another dimension of fresh flavor.

As you can see from the picture, this is the mighty Kugel. I'm sure it was far from healthy, but it tasted amazing. To make it a bit more hardy I added shredded chicken to it which actually made the dish better to my taste. This dish also used three cheeses: cottage, mozzarella, and parmesan. When mixed together they made a very savory, comfort food kind of dish. This meal is great for cold weather days!














The Avgolemono Soup was a flavor combination I had never tried before. It's main ingredients are eggs and lemon with orzo pasta to add more texture and substance. The combo of the lemon and eggs was delicious. It was thick and creamy, the only thing I forgot was some good bread to go along with it.




Pasta Carbonara is one of those dishes you always see on a menu, but for some reason I never tried it. I did accidentally over cook the pancetta, BUT the final product was still really yummy. I'll probably be making more of the recipes in the nearby future, so I shall try and update this post when I do to let you know how some of the other recipes turn out.




I would like to thank Blogging For Books for supplying me with this awesome cookbook. If you guys have any comments or questions please feel free to leave them! And as always if you would like to subscribe and receive emails as to when I post you can sign up in the top right hand corner.

You Put What in Your Mouth????

    So the title of this post is probably making you wonder what the heck I'm talking about, right? Well ladies and gentlemen do not worry I didn't read some steamy romance book. In fact, this book was far from it. This is What You Just Put In Your Mouth? is filled with information on foods and non food items that we eat or use in our everyday lives. The author speaks about the ingredients of everyday products from coffee to play-doh.
    This book is split into two parts, the first being strictly items that go into your mouth, the second are things you really should not be putting in your mouth. Each "chapter" of the book is titled with the item and a description of each ingredient and what its role is within the product. Some of the products spoken of also have a backstory where the author tells us his story about the pain in the butt process to get the information he needed as well the testing of the product and his results.
    The information I learned from this book is crazy! For example, I am never going to use fabric softener like ever, well at least not the Downy brand. Basically the product contains rendered fat from cattle, sheep, or horses-ingredient name: Dihydrogenated Tallow Dimethyl Ammonium Chloride. This fat, when mixed with ammonium, then in turn layers your clothes in a thin layer of the fat, therefore, blocking absorbency.  So let's say you bought some towels to use for your hands and body. You dry them with the fabric softener after washing and bam! your towels are no longer as absorbent as when you bought them and defeating their purpose. So, the next time you pick up that fabric softener, maybe check the ingredients first before you considering purchasing.
    Cool Whip was another product whose ingredients baffled me. Polysorbate 60 is probably something you've never even heard of unless you actually pay attention to the label on the Cool Whip package and oh, maybe sexual lubricants as well. Shocking right? I thought so too.
    Egg Nog was another big one with a lot of drama behind it. If you're a big eggnog drinker or are someone whose only just seen it in a glass, you know it's yellow in color. Yellow though is not its natural color. The author goes into a deep backstory about how eggnog was not supposed to contain any ingredients such as turmeric, yellow #5, or annatto to add to its coloring. The eggs themselves are not near the sufficient amount to give the color. Supposedly those three ingredients could lead to breaking the law. Crazy right? In the end we found out that this law is not really relevant anymore, if you want to know why I would suggest picking up the book and reading that chapter because it's pretty long, but still very interesting.

    This book is definitely an entertaining and interesting read. I would like to thank bloggingforbooks.com for supplying me with it as well! If you're interested in my blog and would like to receive notification for when i post you can enter your email address on the top right hand side of this page. Any questions or comments? Please leave them below! Thanks everyone and have fun reading!

Buy Here or Here

Clean Slate Cookbook

I really love this cookbook. Let me start by saying the pictures in it are gorgeously done. The colors and presentation of the food are amazing! The food its self, from the couple of recipes I tried, is delicious. I'm trying to eat healthier food and this cookbook has helped with that. Some of the dishes are very simple so there's room for changing them like adding different ingredients to change up the taste. For example there s a cauliflower soup recipe which I added paprika before serving and it gave it a nice kick. There are also different drinks that you can make either in a juicer or a blender and they really make me want to get a juicer because they look so yummy!

I would recommend this to anyone who wants to try healthy foods and drinks. 

Buy Here or Here

I would like to thank http://www.bloggingforbooks.org  for supplying me with this amazing book!

The Casual Vacancy

Where do I begin with this book. It shocked me that I didn't like this book at all. I started reading it and from the beginning I was bored. There wasn't any crazy action going on until the very end of the book so I was never drawn in with major interest.
You do have to keep in mind that this book was her move away from children's literature and into the adult realm, so that could be why the writing was a bit on the dull side. The book is split into 7 parts with narratives from different characters. It focuses on the death of a local parish councillor and how different men in the community are fighting for the position and how that affects their families and other people around them.
The parish council also has a website which is hacked and rumors about people start appearing and creating major chaos throughout the town. These rumors in my opinion are what kept the book going. If it wasn't for them I think I would've put the book down waaaay towards the beginning.
For anyone who is a J.K. Rowling fan I would say give this book a go. She definitely did something very different with this book.

2015 January Makeup Favorites

A new year means new makeup!! Super exciting stuff girls (and guys too if you're into that kinda thing). I have a lot more favorites that are not in this picture, but to keep this post from being too long i decided to cut them out. So, here are my January favs...

Covergirl's Flamed Out Mascara has been one of my favorite go-to mascaras for a long time. It does a good job at adding volume as well as lengthening.

The BareMinerals Complexion Rescue was a new release this month from the company and I LOVE it. Its a gel based tinted moisturizer that does a great job at keeping my face hydrated as well as evening out my skin tone. It's a lighter coverage so concealer is still needed.

Rimmel Match Perfection 3 in 1 concealer has been in my routine for the past 2 months and I really like it. It does a good job at covering redness and spots and the application is easy because it has a brush head rather than a doe-foot.

My perfume I've been wearing constantly is Nest's scent in Bamboo. Oh my gosh it's amazing. It smells like summer in a bottle. More specifically though fresh grass or something along those lines. Winter sucks so this smell makes me look forward to warmer months.

The best under eye concealer I have found is the Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Brightener. This stuff does a great job at adding brightness to under my eyes and it doesn't settle into fine lines.

Cargo's blush in Bali is a really nice light pink color with a tiny bit of sparkle to it that adds a lovely tint to the cheeks like you've just been outside. This blush blends very well and you can build it up for a darker pink.

A pretty good eyeliner I have found for doing winged out looks has been the Laura Geller Eye Calligraphy liquid liner pen. The tip is the perfect firmness for creating sharp lines.

The Physicians Formula shimmer strips in Riviera has been a great highlighter. I use the top two colors to give my cheekbones a slight golden shimmer that looks really pretty when the light hits them. I use the bottom colors once in a while as eyeshadow, but I'm not a huge fan of glittery eyeshadows.

And last but not least is the Lorac travel size palette in Vintage Vixen. This is a great matte neutral palette for everyday looks. Plus, I can take it with me everywhere because its small and has a mirror!

Well, that's it until next month!

Bad Heir Day

     Man did this book get a ton of bad reviews. Most people said it was boring and very one dimensional, too many characters, not a chic lit, and there were many other reasons to go along with that list. I didn't think it was that bad. Sure, there were points in the book where I wanted to skip ahead, but I made myself read through. 

   The book is told from two points of view, being Anna and Cassandra, the protagonists of the novel. Anna is a not so well off aspiring writer who becomes nanny to Cassandra, the famous romance writer's, son Zak. Zak, by the way, is portrayed as the worst child ever with extremely bad manners and a foul mouth. He definitely adds a bit of humor to the novel. Anna eventually finds a slightly better "position" for herself when she is proposed to by a man she only just met and had a few dates with. From there it's a whirlwind of bad drama which she eventually figures out. 

    I would recommend this book to anyone who understands British humor and enjoys a two sided story. I found it to be a pretty easy and fast read, but I would agree it's not really true chic lit because it isn't filled with a ton of cheesy romance. 

Bad Heir Day by Wendy Holden

A Female King?

    We all learn about ancient Egypt whether it be in school, a tv show, or a book or magazine. Egypt and  the Egyptian way of life has fascinated me since I was young. I can't remember when it started but it could have been brought on by the Disney movie The Prince of Egypt or even the movie that was always on tv called Moses. Egyptians always were portrayed as a society of glamour (at least in the case of the elites, the lower classes did not have it as good) and I wanted to learn more.
    I chose this particular book to read because it was about a powerful woman in Egyptian time that I knew very little about. Most kids' brains are ingrained with learning about Cleopatra and King Tut.  I wanted to learn about Hatshepsut. Her life was one of luxury and comfort but at the same time there was loss and heartache. What a lot of people don't realize is that just because you're royalty doesn't mean that there is any safety from disease or malfunctions of the body. The palace was always plagued with those kinds of issues because of diet and sanitation. She grew up experiencing and learning many things that children would never learn at such a young age. Lifespan for them was shorter therefore more precious, so education started at a very young age, usually 4 or 5 years old.
    What surprised me the most in this book was the fact that women reigned Egypt for a very very long time. Not as the pharaoh but through him as a regent. A regent rules beside the "king" because he is far to young to make any diplomatic decisions himself. As regent to Thutmose III, Hatshepsut taught him the ways of the court and how to deal with managing all the affairs of courtly life. This regent role went on for many years because when a king died his son was usually still to young or inexperienced to rule whereas his wife was not. Many woman were the ones who taught the future king all he knew.
    Many scholars who studied Hatshepsut believed that she schemed her way to the crown because if she didn't she would lose all her power. She took the thrown for herself even though there was clearly a heir to it that was male (Thutmose III). It seems she partly did it because the heir would not reach ruling age and maturity for at least another 7 years which for the Egyptians the lifespan/health issue made things very precarious. This of course went against the way things normally went and is seen as a great accomplishment. There were only a couple of female rulers who successfully ruled before her. Hatshepsut came to be one of the greatest woman pharaohs.
    This book is full of detailed history of this woman pharaohs life and lessons. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about her or about Egyptian ways of ruling.

I would like to thank BloggingForBooks.org  for supplying me with this book!

Buy Here