Snickerdoddles

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

Cream together butter, shortening, 1 1/2 cups sugar, the eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.

Mix the 2 tablespoons sugar and the cinnamon. Roll balls of dough in mixture. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake 8 to 10 minutes, or until set but not too hard. Remove immediately from baking sheets.

** I generally use only butter and no shortening and the last few times I've used Land O Lakes Light butter.....hmmm.....they taste sooo much better. But very sticky, let them sit before you roll them. **

Chocolate Chocolate and Toffee Chip Cookies

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips
3/4 cup toffee chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

In large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy. combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir into the butter mixture until well blended. Mix in the chocolate chips and toffee chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or just until set. cool slightly on the cookie sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Tortellini Primavera with Ham

Prep: 5 min
Cook: 12 min
Servings: 6

2 packages (9 ounces each) refrigerated cheese-filled tortellini
1 jar (24-28 ounces) fat-free spaghetti sauce
1 bag (16 ounces) frozen broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, thawed
1 ½ cups cubed fully cooked fat-free ham
1/3 cup finely shredded Parmesan cheese

Cook and drain tortellini as directed on package; keep warm

Heat spaghetti sauce, vegetables and ham to boiling in same saucepan, stirring occasionally. Stir in tortellini and cheese; heat through.

Another favorite. Guess we like tomato stuff. This makes a ton of food, but it's easy and re-heats well.

Wagon Wheel Chili

1 can tomato soup
1 can beef broth
1 can vegetarian beans in tomato sauce
1 cup wagon wheel pasta
1/2 pound ground beef

Cook beef until brown. Drain. Combine rest of ingredients, bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until pasta is tender and soup has thickened.

I love this recipe. It is so easy and tastes so good. But, of course, I'm a sucker for almost anything with beans. :-)

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson

Genre: Non-fiction, adventure
Pages: 390
Duration: March 5-9, 2007, half listened to, half read.

Description: This book tells the story of two men who live to deep sea dive. Off the tip of a fisherman, they go to investigate a mass in the ocean. Upon diving the first time, they discover it is a U-boat from World War II. The book tells the story of the divers lives for the next six years as they try to learn the identity of the mysterious U-boat.

Review: I have to admit, I was a skeptic. I didn't really think I'd enjoy a book about deep sea diving. I mean, I've never had any interest in any way shape or form. But let me tell you, I couldn't put this book down, hence one of the reasons I listened to it. As with any true story, their have been others who have criticized the information in the book as false, but Kurson does a wonderful job of making this story come to live, and my guess is that the most important facts and the feeling associated with these two divers are correct. I would recommended this to almost everyone....in fact, I pretty much already have. :-)

The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

Genre: Fiction
Pages: 200?
Duration: About 3 days, end of Feb 2007, listen to on CD

Description: A new journalist in a small coastal town learns from two old-timers. The two tell her of a man who was found dead on the beach 20 years earlier. The two tell her the story and revel details in the same order that they learned them. In the end, they decide "the Colorado Kid" was murdered.

Review: If I had been reading this book instead of listening, I would have put it down. Definitely a slow book and not what I've come to expect from Stephen King. The entire time I was waiting for it to pick up or get to a twist or something interesting, but that never happened. I wouldn't really recommend this to anyone.

Garlic and Soy Grilled Pork Chops

4 boneless center-cut pork loin chops, trimmed of all visible fat
1 TBS light soy sauce
2 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Sprinkle the pork chops all over with soy sauce, garlic, paprika, salt, and pepper, Cover and refrigerate at least 20 minutes or up to 2 hours.

Coat a grill rack or broiler-pan rack with cooking spray. Preheat the grill or broiler.

Cook the pork chops 4" from the heat, turning once halfway through cooking time, for 10 to 12 minutes, or until a thermometer insterted in the center of a chop registers 155 degrees F and the juices run clear.

Makes 4 servings.

Notes: This is one of my favorite recipes. We found it in the South Beach Diet Cookbook and love it. We've had it man time and it's always good. We substitute the pork chops for a pork loin, mainly because it's easier to buy. I also typically throw everything in to a gallon plastic bag and shake it around.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niggenegger

Genre: Fiction with a science fiction twist
Pages: 530
Duration: January 1, 2007 into the wee hours of January 2

Description: How to describe this book? A man has a genetic disorder that causes him to time travel. This causes him to suddenly disappear from rooms, leaving his clothes behind and reappearing suddenly in a different time period, typically in the past, but occasionally in the future. The story mainly follows the wife, Clare, and her journey thorough meeting her husband when she is six to having their daughter who is also a time traveler.

Review: This book was amazing. Obviously it caught my attention and I couldn't put it down. I think it might be a record that I read a book over 500 pages in a day. The way Niggenegger weaves the story around the two main characters and shares with the readers both of their views, keeps the story intriguing and interesting. The idea of time travel is always an interesting one and that thought alone keeps the reader pondering the bigger pictures. I would definitely recommend this book to almost anyone, although it might be a little on the romancey side for some.

TTYL by Lauren Myracle

Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 234
Duration: a few days in December 2006

Description: TTYL is a book written complete in Instant Messages. The messages are between three best friends and follow their lives as sophomores. As readers, we are brought into the world of high school girls: the boys, the girls, the parties, etc.

Review: This book was surprisingly fun to read. The girls go off on tangents that have nothing to do with the story, but it keeps the book real. You really feel like the girls are real and you are reading their secret messages. I would recommend mainly to my high school girls. Boys would probably find the girl-based book boring.

Are You Afraid of the Dark? by Sidney Sheldon

Genre: Fiction

Pages: 416

Duration: June 23-June 25

Description:
Two gorgeous widows go up against a nefarious multinational think tank in this airbrushed but goofily entertaining thriller by perennial bestseller Sheldon (The Sky Is Falling; Tell Me Your Dreams; etc.). Four scientists working for the New York–based Kingsley International Group have died or disappeared within 24 hours. Wolfish top boss Tanner Kingsley vows to find the perpetrator; meanwhile, stunning artist Diane Stevens, wife of a just-murdered KIG scientist, and supermodel Kelly Harris, whose husband has likewise been killed, find themselves under attack by mysterious strangers. Diane and Kelly form an uneasy alliance, though both spend most of their time ruminating on their wonderful (now dead) husbands: "I want to feel you stroking my breast.... I want to imagine that I can hear your voice saying that I make the best paella in the world...." The plot is straightforward: people are killed, women are in peril and an evil CEO (Tanner, gasp!) has a plot to take over the world. His technique involves controlling the weather, and in an intriguing short afterword, Sheldon explains the very real possibilities of just such a scenario. The on-the-lam ladies, Kelly and Diane, escape every assassination attempt with ridiculous ease, and other characters appear and disappear simply in order to get the author out of one plot pickle after another. Still, despite (or because of) Sheldon's blithe unconcern for logic and his just-add-water relationships, this is a breezily pleasing read.

Review:
So, I just read Are You Afraid of the Dark? by Sidney Sheldon, and I got a bit frustrated along the way. I'd never read any of his books, but I was bored at work on Friday so I went to the Denver Public Library Online to check out an e-book. I was browsing through the fiction and ran across this book. Since my mother-in-law likes him, I decided to give it a try. The book was pretty easy to read and intrigueing, but he trys to make a big point about the government controlling the weather. But I got lost in the small details that he seemed to just take for granted and now I find it hard to believe his "research." First, he made reference to Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus in the United States. Since I work for TransUnion, another of the three, I know quite a lot about the business. He states in the book that the "bad guy" is able to go into Experian's database and get the characters bank account number, this is not possible, back account information is not reported to the bureaus. He then says that the "bad guy" cancels all the characters credit cards, this is also not possible, the credit card companies would have to do that. Experian just records the data that the credit card companies send in. Then he goes on to say that the "bad guy" does these same things for another character who has all her account in France, forgetting that Experian may have branchs all over the world, but the databases are kept completely separate. So that was the first thing that got me. Second, was the fact that one of the settings was Denver. That actually peeked my interest, but if you are going to have your setting be Denver, you might actually want to research Denver. Sheldon had an airplane flying into DIA, this plane was supposidly two miles away from the airport when it slammed into the side of the mountain. Hello.....there aren't any mountains within two miles of DIA.....maybe he should have had him flying into Aspen, then it would have been more believable. Then, one of the airport traffic controllers lives in a "nice stucco house, six miles from the airport." What? There is nothing for like nine miles. Hmm.....maybe he was thinking of Stapleton. :-) Also, this book was written in 2005, but Sheldon seemed to have forgotten all the 9-11 related airport policies. Okay, enough, I'm done. :-) I don't typically pick on books so much, but this one irked me a bit.

Burned Alive by Souad

Genre: Autobiography

Pages: 260

Time to complete: 2 days

Description:
The first true account ever published by a victim of an "honor crime," this shocking, moving, and harrowing tale has already become an international sensation.

Souad was a 17-year-old girl living in a small village in Jordan when she had the misfortune of falling in love--an emotion that would lead to an unspeakable act of violence and a lifetime of exile from her homeland. With a childhood marked by hard labor and physical abuse at the hands of her father, who is humiliated by the birth of many daughters and only one son, Souad is desperate to leave home. Enticed into a relationship with a handsome neighbor, her short-lived romance leaves her pregnant. Forbidden to marry until her older sisters find husbands and having brought shame to her family, Souad faces the only acceptable punishment: death. How her family plots to kill her, her harrowing struggle to survive burns over 90% of her body after her brother-in-law douses her with gasoline and sets her on fire, her dramatic escape from Jordan, and her resolve to build a new life for herself is a tale of heartbreaking drama and remarkable courage.

Review:
I've read a few reviews regarding this book, many state that the book is a work or fiction. I personally don't believe that, but I have no proof that it is true. Either way, the book is amazing to read. I started it, expecting to read the first chapter, put it down for a few days and come back, read another chapter, etc. But this was not the case, I couldn't put the book down (well, actually, I read the e-version, so I couldn't leave the computer.) The story is written in a way that makes it easy to read an understand. It is not the writing of a college scholar, but more of a child - simple and clear.

Trying it out

So I've decided to start a new random blog.....two isn't enough.....I need more! :-)