It’s been quite a month, starting with wrapping up the Scholastic Book Fair at my school, attending The Nutcracker at the Academy of Music, celebrating Hanukkah, and cancelling all our vacation plans because COVID finally caught us (well, two out of three of us). Fortunately, we didn’t feel sick (thank you, vaccines!), and some enforced extra time at home to read, do art, build Lego, catch up on cleaning, and watch movies wasn’t the worst thing.
What we’ve read
The kiddo has been zipping through the Phoebe and Her Unicorn series of graphic novels by Dana Simpson, as well as The 13-Story Treehouse books by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton. She also received Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch by Julie Abe as a Hanukkah present, and we got the sequel from the library.
As for me, I’ve been reading all the Heavy Medal (Mock Newbery) titles that I hadn’t already read, and discovered some excellent titles I might have missed otherwise. I’ve also been keeping up with Betsy Bird’s “31 Days, 31 Lists” all month, and my to-read list is, of course, growing.
What we’ve made in the kitchen
I, too, received a book for Hanukkah…the new Smitten Kitchen book, Keepers. We’ve already made five recipes from it, and they’ve all been…wait for it…keepers!
Savory
- Vegetarian chili
- Baked macaroni and cheese
- Cornbread
- Green pasta casserole (spinach, cheddar-gruyere, pecorino romano)
- Pizza star bread (Junior Baking Show)
- Butternut Squash soup (Smitten Kitchen Keepers)
- Orzo with artichoke hearts (Smitten Kitchen Keepers)
- “Angry Grandma” pizza (but not angry) (Smitten Kitchen Keepers)
- Potato, onion, and cheese pierogies with scallions
- Sweet potato fries (Smitten Kitchen Keepers)
Sweet
- Lemon Poppyseed cake (Sweet)
- Chocolate vanilla marbled cookies (Rage Baking)
- Snickerdoodle cookies (Flour)
- Oatmeal chocolate chip cookie cake (Snacking Cakes)
- Baked French Toast (Smitten Kitchen Keepers)
- Gingerbread cookies (Mary Berry)
- Banana bread muffins (Flour’s banana bread recipe in muffin form)
- Lemon lavender scones (from a mix we received as a gift)
- Bûche de noël (Flour, Too)
- Cranberry orange scones (America’s Test Kitchen)
It's Okay, I Have A Book 