Weekly Update

It's been a week of quick meals, crazy schedules and yet I've managed to create a few recipes to share.

{Janssen's granola and photo}

I've been meaning to make Janssen's granola recipe for quite awhile now and when the last few clusters of my TJ's ginger mix landed in my morning yogurt the opportune moment was upon me.  It took me 3 days to gather ingredients and find a space of time to make and bake it.  It's delicous!  Just because it's my nature I will play with it next time. This time I did add in some mixed nuts (cashews + pecans) because they were sitting in our nut jar and some chopped dried mango.

Last night I hosted book club and I gave the granola away in little cloth giveaway bags (that I made from white cotton squares).  It was a combination Earth Day/May Day gift from me to all my book club friends.  Hopefully it brightened their morning yogurt.

I also whipped up a jug of ginger beer this weekend.  Jenny from Dinner; A love story introduced me to the Dark and Stormy and ginger beer is a major ingredient.  I don't like the jacked-up expensive price of ginger beer ($10 for 4 bottles) so I thought it would be worth it to make my own.  Now I know why it's not cheap...it's hard to make.  I chopped up two large roots and then squeezed it through my mesh strainer to just barely produce 3 tablespoons.  I rinsed cold water through the pulp to eek out 1 more tablespoon.   I thought with the added yeast in this Epicurious recipe that it would be fizzy but it is not.  It does have ginger flavor though and I will use it. Maybe this weekend I will test run it with a Moscow Mule.  I will probably have to add club soda though to give it that extra POP and zing.

I planned to make Dark and Stormys (we've had rain + the last time I hosted we had a tornado warning) for book club but I changed plans when I wasn't happy with my fizz-less mixture.  Luckily we had plenty of wine.  And delicious food.  My favorite was Katinka's Greek salad.

What I'm reading:

Book club:  Orphan Train by Christine Baker Kline  ( I read this months ago so didn't have much to contribute)
School: The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Groovy Girl: Nest by Esther Ehrlich

Next up: Swamplandia by Karen Russell