Must. Try. Soon.

The problem with challenges like the Whip Up Something New challenge and with constantly scouring newly-disovered gluten-free and dairy-free recipe blogs is that you end up with yet more recipes that simply have to be tried. And soon. I don't have any bright ideas for keeping up with the interesting things I want to try, so I'll try listing them in a post once in a while.

Here are the yummy things I discovered this week and want to try soon:

• This egg-free, dairy-free, grain-free chocolate decadence cake from Lexie's Kitchen - that photo is amazing, I want a slice of this beauty right now. I mean it.
• This raw nacho cheese sauce, which is both vegan and dairy-free, also from Lexie's Kitchen. Hmmm, have I discovered a gem in the blogosphere?
• Zucchini Fries from Dixie Chik Cooks - I actually have zucchini at home and I ALWAYS have tortilla chips so...
• Zucchini Brownies from And Love it Too - I think I need more zucchini! :-)

Any more ideas for me to try? If you've made something new recently, don't forget to submit it to the Whip up Something New challenge, July's edition of which is hosted by Margot (if you don't know what this means, go here).

Make-your-own summer pasta dinner

Before I went gluten-free and dairy-free, one of my favorite comfort foods was a bowl of pasta with olive oil, garlic and chillies. But I could also eat other comfort foods - pizza, chinese takeaways etc. Now, my choices are much more limited so I tend to get ridiculously happy when I end up with a meal that is incredibly tasty and easy. And you can't get any easier than this pasta dish.

Put your pasta on. In a pan, heat some olive oil (enough to coat all your pasta) and add garlic slices and chilli flakes, both to taste. I tend to use a lot of garlic. :-) Serve each person a plate of pasta coated in the olive oil mixture. Also set out - torn pieces of parma ham, olives, diced fresh tomatoes, dried or semi-dried tomatoes, roquette salad leaves, toasted pine nuts and torn fresh basil. Any anything else you want - my husband added grated parmesan to his dish last night. 

The beauty of this is that everyone takes whatever they want. All the flavors are fresh and work well together but if someone doesn't like one ingredient (or likes a lot of one of the flavors) it's not a problem. A super tasty summer dish, perfect for entertaining. We liked it so much that we're having it again tonight! :-)

This is my entry for the Whip up Something New challenge - July's edition is hosted by Margot, visit her linky post to add your recipe and check out the other entries.

Mini Reviews - I'm on vacation!

I'm spending the week in Poland with my parents. As always, it's great to hang out with them and great to see them take so much pleasure out of playing with Shane. Joe is coming to join us later this week and I can't wait. I am lucky to have such a lovely family.

I'm not doing anything interesting - eating, drinking, reading a bit. I've been avoiding the computer, but am now ready to sit down and write something, even if only something simple.

With such a backlog, I think it's time for some mini-reviews.

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
I read this as part of the challenge I'm doing with Alex. This was the shortest book on the list she gave me so I guess it's no wonder that it got read first. Tuck Everlasting is a fairytale for adults, about a family who have discovered the secret of eternal youth. I liked the story idea, the characters and the message behind it all. But my romantic nature would have like the ending to be slightly different. ;-) Oh, and the frog? What's up with that? What a waste! That bit kind of pissed me off! I still enjoyed it though and hope that the rest of the books Alex wants me to read this year are just as good. :-)

Fables 3: Storybook Love by Bill Willingham
So many bloggers (like Alex and Larissa) love this series of comics about a part of New York that's inhabited by characters from fables and fairy tales. This is the third installment and it's still fun to read about the wolf, Snow White, Prince Charming and many others trying to make it in a world that's so unlike the fairy tale world they knew.

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

I love books about Ireland and I love stories about immigrants in New York, so this one was a good fit. I thought it was a strange book. It was realistic, in the sense that I could really see the realities both of the Irish countryside and of immigrant New York. But I didn't like the main character much. I wanted her to do things that she clearly wasn't ready to do. I suppose that's just a difference in personalities, but in this particular book I found it hard to deal with. Brooklyn qualifies as one of my books about New York for the One, Two, Theme! challenge.

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson
I listened to this as an audiobook and it was fantastic. The narrator, Jenna Lamia, was fabulous and made the strange future world of the story really come to life for me. Jenna Fox is a 17-year-old girl who wakes up after a year-long coma and doesn't remember anything about her life. When she starts to remember, she ends up with more questions than answers and nobody wants to tell her the truth. What are the secrets that her parents are so intent on keeping? One of my favorite audiobooks and definitely on my list of favorite books read this year. Creepy but realistic.