Abby: Slow Cooker, Hungry Planet, Maya, Jessica Seinfeld, Reading

Rae/Lulu, I will be most interested to hear how that turns out! I'm going to go look that book up at our library. When Heidi was born I had three dinners I had made in advance that helped out. With Esther I just didn't even bother. But I'm intrigued by this idea. Similar, but different. And although I'm not expecting like your friend Camille, I think it'd be helpful on those busy days - like you said. :)

Lynness, I'm curious about the Maya Angelou book now! I think I'll go look it up. My pick for the month is a book I checked out a couple of months ago. The recipe is also one we used at that time but I've been craving it ever since. When Eric's laptop died we lost the recipe so I thought I could sort of cheat and count the book since I checked it out again and have been skimming through it. It's called Hungry Planet: What the World Eats by Peter Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. The main purpose of the book is to look at several countries in depth to see how they eat from week to week and compare the amount of money they spend on food. But there are a lot recipes as well. We have always loved Eric's mom's recipe for German Rouladen and found a new recipe in this book. I'll post the recipe soon.

And oh - Deceptively Delicious? I've tried several of the recipes (a few months ago) and think it's a really fun idea! Eric did say that he would prefer that we just do one or two a week instead of the crazy amount I was trying. :) Although you can't really taste the additions, they do change the texture and as adults -- we know something's different. The girls didn't seem to mind at all! My favorites and the ones that I think are the most successful at disguising it were the breakfast recipes, bread recipes, and desserts. I especially remember a lemon cupcake with raspberry filling that I made. It had cauliflower added to the cupcake and beets to the raspberry filling. We couldn't taste it at all.

And oh, my April read - The Wheel on the School - is still sitting on my shelf. I've read the first chapter. I'll finish and get back to everyone on that. This past month I read A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan and Opera: What's All the Screaming About? by Roger Englander. Now I am reading The Joy of Music by Leonard Bernstein and Piano Lessons by Noah Adams. I thoroughly enjoyed my books last month and am already enjoying this months books. :) Oh, how I love to read.

On a side note, I am so engrossed in the story of The Wheel of Time - the series I am currently reading by Robert Jordan. It is so amazing to me how authors create worlds and wonderful characters with such depth! Because I've been so into these lately, my spring cleaning hasn't been moving along as quickly as I'd like. So I made myself a promise last Sunday that I wouldn't read the next book in the series until I had done my spring cleaning (decluttering, reorganizing). I even told Eric so that I wouldn't be tempted to renig. BUT...all week I've been reading two other books, both non-fiction. And both books I wasn't exactly sure I'd enjoy. And I've been reading JUST as much as I was before. Apparently, it's not the story alone -- it seems to also be the reading time that I need. Soooo....I picked up the next book in the series at the library today and will just be working extra hard to budget my time a little better understanding that reading is my hobby and that I need reading time as well as cleaning time (and playing with girls time, and cooking time, and hubby time, and reading to girls time).

Love you all!
Abby