Watery Glue.

Here they are again- soft pretzels!! Made these again, so good. I made up a batch of Bulk Dry Uncheeze Mix (note, don't make this in the blender unless you want cashew butter) and turned some of that into soup and then had good reason to make pretzels again. Is is so weird that I think pretzels and cheeze soup go together?!? I think not.

This time there was a sort of inadvertent 2nd rise due to baby sleeping issues and I think that this made these even better, so fluffy chewy and crispy on the outside. Also, I was out of baking powder for when you drop them in the boiling water and so I subbed 1 t baking powder = 1/2 t baking soda and 1/4 t cream of tartar... worked juuust fine.



And here was another sucessful supper- another repeat. Spicy TVP and black beans. This time I used 1 t ancho chile powder instead of the regular chili powder and whoa was that good! This supper was sort of strange in that I served it over rice and really, it should have been served with tortillas or something, but we shall ignore that and just call it 'dirty rice' or summat.

I am becoming entirely too dependent on my blender. I whizzed up the can of tomatoes (much to the happiness of the tomato hatah in residence) along with half of a super big can of black beans plus everything else, here, let me write it up for you...

1 large can of black beans, undrained, divided
1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
4 cloves garlic
1 T oil
1 t ancho chile powder
1 t cumin
1 t onion powder
1 t oregano
1 t salt
***
1/2 C TVP

Blend everything in the first bunch - only dump in half of the can of beans. Reconstitute the TVP in 2 C boiling water (I nuke it for 5 m in the microwave in my handy dandy Pyrex 2 Cup measuring cup). Careful adding the TVP so it doesn't bubble over... add some salt in there...

Pour all the blended stuff into a big pot. Add the second half of the beans and the TVP. Simmer until thick.

Eat. Yum.
Okay, so the book gods answered my cries for rescue from Brisingr and I got an email from my library saying that "The Graveyard Book" was on hold for me! Oh, goodie!

I had seriously thought that I would not see this book until September or something... I was 47 on the hold list, I believe. Hm. Some peoples read fast or lots of people failed to get this or I don't know what happened, but WHO CARES! I got it!

I had started listening to the book here, which was wonderful. I highly recommend it. In fact, while reading the book I realized that I had enjoyed it much, much more listening to it. I just did not have the time... ah well. The reading went so much more quickly and this is a book you should linger over if at all possible. I cried at the end. Wow.

So now back to Brisingr. I am dogged, if nothing else. I realized what is so strange about this book is that the glue that holds the narrative together is very, very watery glue. It's like the author just thought up all the coolest scenarios/happenings/incidents and plopped them one after another, like beads on a string. I mean SPOILER the war I guess is the thing that "holds" (and I use that term v. loosely) it all together, but sheesh. Anyway, that's what is so strange about this book. I could put it down at any time and never return to it again and it wouldn't really bother me. Entertaining while you're reading it, but not gripping.