Heather Balog's Blog, page 7

Mississippi Mud Pie

As I mentioned in my post about Mississippi River Roast, I also made Mississippi Mud Pie for our Mississippi meal. (Is it just me, or were there too many Mississippis in that sentence? One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi…) Anyhoo, about that Mississippi Mud Pie. This is a chocolate lover’s DREAM…so rich and creamy and pretty simple to make. You will have to resist the urge to make it every weekend.

How Simple is It?

***By the way, my blog may contain affiliate links which means I may receive a commission, at no cost to you if you click on a link and make a purchase.*** This one is chock full of all the best items in my kitchen…the ones that I can’t live without!

The original recipe for this Mississippi Mud pie includes making your own crust. Well, ain’t nobody got time for that in this house…I’m a working mom with two kids, a blog, an itchy dog that requires special meals, and a tendency to screw up in the kitchen. The recipe also said you can use a pre-made Oreo pie crust (grudgingly, because I have a feeling this particular Betty Crocker mom even makes homemade peanut butter). Sold! At least an hour was shaved off this recipe time.

I Like the Sound of That…

So even though I kind of cheated with the pie crust, the filling isn’t too difficult either. The best part is it allowed me to use my lovely Kitchen-Aid mixer. I wish I made more desserts so I could use it more often.

I used the Kitchen-Aid mixer to cream together the butter and brown sugar with the paddle attachment. Then I added the eggs one at a time.

I got to use my favorite Pampered Chef product—Pampered Chef Measure-All Cup —to measure out the chocolate chips. I have to confess, I kind of overfilled the cup on purpose. I melted those chips in the microwave in another favorite, Pampered Chef Prep Bowls and then I flipped over the Measure-All Cup to measure the heavy cream. Listen, I hate dirty dishes with a passion, and when I can use an item multiple times instead of using multiple items…well that’s a win for me.

 

I added the melted chocolate chips, the heavy cream, and 4 TBSP of unsweetened cocoa powder into the mixing bowl. Then, I poured the mixture into the crust. Leave about a half inch from the top because the mixture WILL bubble up and you don’t want it to run over the sides of the pie.

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Side Note:

If you’ll recall, the original Mississippi Mud Pie recipe that I was following called for us to make our own crust (how silly…). The homemade crust can apparently hold twice as much pie filling, so I had enough for two pies. Now as good as this is, I don’t know if you want two pies (you’d probably have to live on the treadmill for a week). So if you only want ONE, half the recipe ingredients.

Bake at 325 for 30 Minutes

Since my oven is craptastic, that’s impossible. I used the Cuisinart air fryer/ convection oven that I LOVE.

I seriously think EVERYONE needs this machine.

Anyhoo…the original recipe also did not specify what consistency the middle of the pie should be, causing me a ridiculous amount of stress and neurotic staring at the pie as it cooked (which I can do with the air fryer because it has a light…which my horrible oven does not). Based on the picture, I determined it needed to be a pudding-ish consistency.

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Ignore the cracks in the top because once you add the whipped topping no one sees the cracks anyway. And believe me, no one cares…it’s that good.

Before you eat though, cool the pie for about an hour and then stick it in the fridge for another hour or two. Yes, I know, this is very difficult to wait for. My kids had trouble waiting, even though we had just eaten a full meal. (I got three texts from my son asking if it was pie time…he was sitting next to me on the couch.)

Finally, It WAS Mississippi Mud Pie Time

I added the whipped topping and shredded a piece of chocolate over the top. Sorry, I’m no good at chocolate curls.

 

A word of caution…this is pretty rich…cut a SMALL slice. You won’t be able to finish much more than that (you can always come back later). And of course, pie goes really good with a glass of milk.

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Print Yum

Mississippi Mud Pie

Ingredients

Pre-made Oreo pie crust
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 c. brown sugar
4 eggs
3/4 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/4 c. heavy cream
4 TBSP unsweetened cocoa powder
8 oz whipped topping
Piece of chocolate for chocolate curls

Instructions

Cream together the butter and brown sugar with the paddle attachment of a stand mixer.
Add the eggs one at a time and mix.
Melt chocolate chips in a microwavable bowl, stirring every 45 seconds or so.
Add the melted chocolate chips, the heavy cream, and 4 TBSP of unsweetened cocoa powder into the mixing bowl and mix.
Then, pour the mixture into the crust. Leave about a half inch from the top because the mixture WILL bubble up as it cooks and you don't want it to run over the sides of the pie.
Bake in 325 degree oven for 30 minutes or until the consistency of the pie is pudding-like.
Allow pie to cool for about an hour before putting in fridge till you are ready to serve.
Add whipped topping and chocolate shavings right before serving. Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by Yummly Rich Recipes0.1https://thebadmommydiaries.com/mississippi-mud-pie/[image error]

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Mississippi River Roast

***By the way, my blog may contain affiliate links which means I may receive a commission, at no cost to you if you click on a link and make a purchase.***

I swear, just when I think things are going to go back to normal around here, a monkey wrench always gets thrown into the works. Even with my new planner it’s tough to get organized enough to get a meal on the table every night. But finally we are back to school and hopefully on our way back to normal. Which means back to our USA state cuisine tour and onto our 39th state on the tour…Mississippi.

Full Disclosure…I’ve Made Mississippi River Roast Before

Okay, maybe it’s cheating a little (which is why I decided to also make the Mississippi Mud Pie to go with it), but this Mississippi River Roast is hands down my family’s favorite meal. Or at least their favorite meal that I make consistently well and don’t burn down the kitchen while cooking.

And like I’ve mentioned in the past, any meal that is EASY and pretty much idiot proof is one I want to pass on to you.

Sunday is FUNday…and Crockpot Day

My family usually vegs out in front of the TV and watches football all day on Sunday. Which is relaxing and all that, but for some reason football seems to make everyone hungry and someone has to provide the ravenous armchair quarterbacks with food. That someone is 99% of the time me.

I like to relax as much as they do, which is why I like this recipe. It is so simple and I don’t need to miss out on much of FUNday.

(This is me trying to take a selfie with my new Sunday Funday shirt. As you can see, I’m awful at selfies.)

That’s my beloved slow cooker in the background. His name is Francois and he is the love of my life. Okay, maybe not quite, but I definitely LOVE this slow cooker. It is one of my favorite kitchen tools and it imperative to this meal…and me getting back to all the Sunday relaxing as quickly as possible.

Step One

Set up slow cooker.

Step Two

Add ingredients pictured below:

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Here’s the order I usually put them in the crock pot to further assist you in this criminally easy recipe:

Meat, Ranch seasoning, Au Jus seasoning, 1/2 stick of butter, and as much Pepperocini as you can handle. You can find the Pepperocini in the aisle with olives and pickles. I am very liberal with my use of the Pepperocini (6 oz or so) and I tend to dump a lot of the juice in the crock pot.

Step Three

Set to low and go. Seriously.

Step Four

Come back in 4-5 hours and all you need to do is shred the meat with two forks. Be careful to take your Sunday Funday shirt off if you do…some of the juice splatter on the front of my shirt while I was doing this. Now my Sunday Funday shirt is a cooking shirt.

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I usually make mashed potatoes with the Mississippi River Roast because it’s great for sopping up the excess gravy but Hubby requested something different so I went with garlic “smashed” red skin potatoes.

Cut 4-5 potatoes into cubes (I did one potato per person). Throw into a large sauce pot on LOW. Add about 1/2 a stick of butter (cut into smaller slices) and garlic, salt, and pepper. Cook for about an hour (right before the meat is done), stirring occasionally and making sure the potatoes don’t stick to the bottom of the pot. They will start to get mushy and you can further mash them if you’d like.

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Oh my…it’s SO good. I’m drooling just looking at it. I could eat it every week. Try it…I bet it’ll be a family favorite.

 

Print Yum

Mississippi River Roast

Ingredients

2.5 lbs chuck roast
1 packet of Ranch seasoning
1 packet of Au Jus seasoning
1/2 stick butter
6 oz Pepperocini

Instructions

Add all items to crock pot (including some juice from the Pepperocini jar).
Turn crock pot on low for 4-5 hrs (crock pot times will vary).
Shred meat with a fork.
Enjoy!Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by Yummly Rich Recipes0.1https://thebadmommydiaries.com/mississippi-river-roast/[image error]

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The Perfect Couple

***My blog may contain affiliate links which means I may receive a commission, at no cost to you, if you click on a link and make a purchase.***

I read one book by Elin Hilderbrand, years ago. I’m pretty sure it was A Summer Affair, and while I don’t remember anything about the book, I do recall that I liked her writing style. I’m not really sure why I didn’t pick up another one of her books until now…but I’m glad I did. The Perfect Couple was the perfect reintroduction to this fine writer.

The Perfect Couple. Hmmm, does that even exist? According to the events in this book the answer to that question is a resounding NO. The concept of a perfect couple is an illusion…just like many of the perfect couples in this book.

The book starts off with a body being found in the ocean on the morning of Celeste and Benji’s wedding in Nantucket. The body is that of the maid of honor…found, unfortunately by the bride herself. This discovery sends the bride to the hospital in distress and sets up a plethora of questions that need answering by the police. How did she die? Was she murdered or was this an unfortunate accident of horrendously poor timing? Or even suicide? Whatever the cause of death, it’s a recipe for chaos on the day of the impending nuptials.

The author creatively introduces us to the main players of this drama, both as it unfolds on the day of the wedding, and through flashbacks in the past. This novel is both plot driven and character driven, with a well fleshed out cast of characters full of secrets. There’s the bride who isn’t sure she should get married. There’s the bride’s mother, dying of breast cancer. The groom’s mother, a world renowned mystery writer who is slowly uncovering some mysteries about her family that she may need to lie about. The groom’s father, a charming playboy. The best man who disappears upon the discovery of the body. And of course, the maid of honor herself who is definitely not innocent, although, unfortunately, she is the only one with a secret who is dead. With each passing chapter another secret is divulged, making this quite a page turner, despite its 465 page heft. (I finished it in 3 days.)

Throughout the book, the reader can easily piece things together after each new reveal, but it wasn’t till about the 75% mark that I figured out what happened and why. Plus along the way there were quite a few red herrings—I thought the book was going in a direction that it wasn’t a few times. And even after my assumption was proved correct, I didn’t feel cheated out of the end of the book, the big “twist”, as I so often feel like I am with other suspenseful novels. That was the beauty of The Perfect Couple. It wasn’t like other novels because it wasn’t just about the plot…it was about the characters. Flawed and morally questionable characters who are far from perfect, but you find yourself caring about them anyway.

I definitely recommend picking up this book. Reserve it at the library IMMEDIATELY or you will have to wait an interminably long time to get a copy. Or better yet, pick up a copy on Amazon and you can read it next weekend.

***By the way, the author is a breast cancer survivor and it is evident that her characterization of Karen, the bride’s mother, is based on a lot of her own experiences as a mother facing a devastating and debilitating illness. At the end of the novel she shares her support of the The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. If you enjoy this novel, please consider making a donation to the foundation.

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A Letter to My Son 17 Years After September 11th

Dear Son;

Today marks 17 years since the world tilted on its axis and life as we knew it slid off into space. A few years ago, when you were 9 or 10, you asked me where I was when I heard about 9/11. It was then that I tried to explain to you that I  didn’t “hear” about it—it wasn’t like in 2009 when I “heard” Michael Jackson died or in 1999 when I “heard” Columbine happened. I, like everyone who was alive and over the age of 10, LIVED 9/11 through a series of fearful events, glued to my TV and radio, trembling with trepidation and wondering how the world fell apart and if it would ever be put back together again. I couldn’t explain it to you then—I didn’t have the words, so you skipped off to play Playstation. I didn’t want to tell you about 9/11. I didn’t want you to really understand…it was too painful, too fresh. But now, I think it’s something you should understand.

You were exactly 6 weeks old 9/11/01. It was the first time you had slept through the night. I remember vividly waking up in a cold sweat at 5:30 in the morning, wondering why you hadn’t cried during the night. I tiptoed over to you bassinet, still set up in our bedroom because I was a neurotic nut whose irrational fear of SIDS would later have me putting you to sleep in your car seat so you couldn’t roll over on your stomach (hence your flat head…sorry). My heart thudded loudly in my ears—I was certain this would be the worst day of my life and I would find you smothered by an nonexistent blanket or pillow in your bassinet.

Imagine my relief when I saw your little chest rising and falling, your fists balled tight, your face in perfect baby contentment. I sighed with relief—this would not be a bad day. In fact, it would be a wonderful day…the first full night sleep I had experienced since before you were born. Instead of wandering around in fog all day, I would be relaxed and well rested for once.

You must have sensed me staring at you then—you began to whimper and stir, fussing for the bottle you usually got three hours earlier at 2:30 am. I didn’t care, though, as I scooped you up before you could wake your father who needed to be up in a half hour’s time. I took you downstairs and gave you a bottle while watching the news. It was a Primary election day in New York City. All the local news stations were set up outside polls. I can’t remember who was running. Even now I wonder what they did about the election. It had to be redone in light of what happened, right?

You fell back asleep and when your father went to work an hour later, I crawled back into bed, too, with you in the crook of my arm, even though I swore I would never let you sleep in our bed (my how that changed quickly…). Nearly two months of sleep deprivation could never be made up for in one night of sleep. When I fell asleep, I think that was the last moment our lives were “normal”. I had never anticipated how scary our world was about to become.

The ringing of the phone on the night stand jolted me awake about two hours later, 8:50 to be exact. It was your father who was working as a mailman in Bayonne at the time, across the river from The World Trade Center.

“Hello?” I had groggily answered the phone. Cell phones, although not new at the time, were generally still reserved for emergency calls—text messaging would not even come into popularity until a little while later (at least not for your technophobe parents). If he was calling from his cell phone less than a few hours after leaving the house, something was wrong.

“Hey,” he said. “Can you go turn on the news? I think they bombed the World Trade Center again. There’s smoking coming from that direction.” By again, he was referring to the attacks in February of 1993 when we were only juniors in high school—this particular attack hadn’t had too much effect on us—6 people were killed and the building was hardly ruined.

“Um, sure,” I had replied, picking you up. You were sleeping soundly, but I wasn’t going to leave you lying on an unattended bed while I went all the way downstairs to turn the TV on. You could have rolled off the bed! Little did I know that would be the least of my fears shortly.

I hung up the phone, promising to call your father back, not realizing that would be the last time I spoke to him for a good 12 hours. I turned on the TV and was immediately assaulted with the results of the attack. A reporter stood in front of the North Tower, the camera angled up so we at home could see the burning hole where, as the reporter soon informed us, a plane had gone into the side of the building.

“Well, that’s terrible,” I said, placing you down in your pack and play. At the time, I was still sleepy, and in my mind, it was just horrible bad luck, pilot error…really BAD error. I said a quick prayer for the people in the building and headed into the kitchen to turn the coffee machine on for my morning coffee. Before you were born I never drank coffee, by the way. Now I couldn’t even function without it. A few minutes later, I had returned to the TV, waiting patiently for my drip brew. It was a little after 9:00 am and I grabbed the cordless phone to call your father back and explain what I knew. As I dialed, I heard shouting from the TV and looked up. What I initially thought was a replay of the plane hitting the North Tower was actually another plane hitting the South Tower.

That’s when time stopped. At least for me. That’s the moment that I realized “holy crap, someone did this on purpose”. It took me a few minutes to process this—I watched in disbelief as the scene of terror in New York City began to unfold before my very eyes, live and unedited for the world.

The phone was still in my hand and I tried to call your father back—no luck. All I got was a busy signal, the same busy signal I would get for the next 10 hours…everyone and their cousin trying to get a hold of loved one.

Suddenly terrified on this deceivingly gorgeous day (seriously, I couldn’t have been a more perfect fall day—every time we have weather like that now, I get chills), I felt compelled not only to watch TV and soak up everything I could about what was going on, I turned on the radio, too. My favorite radio, WPLJ was on—morning hosts Scott and Todd. It took me a second, but I realized they were talking to someone trapped in the elevator in one of the towers. The guy had managed to get through on his cell phone before everyone in the world tried to make a phone call.

I listened intently as this man calmly explained what was going on in the elevator. In his head, in my head, in the radio hosts heads, this was a terrible situation, but the guy was nowhere near the burning floors and it would only be a matter of time before firefighters would be able to get the elevator open and rescue him. He would be okay.

Just then, the conversation got cut short—the radio hosts were reporting updated news. A plane had hit the Pentagon!

That’s when the horror really hit me. The Pentagon? In Washington? What the hell was happening? I had no idea where Hubby was or if he was safe. Sure, this was miles from where he was, but all of a sudden, anything seemed possible. What if the area he was in was another target? What if there were bombs dropped on the city, bombs dropped on the whole try state area?

I tried to call Daddy again, still to no avail. I glanced over at you, peacefully slumbering in your pack and play, oblivious to the world falling apart around you. I continued to watch the mayhem unfold in front of me on TV. People running and pointing up, dodging falling debris. Fire coming from these massive buildings… people hanging off those very buildings. And then…people jumping from those buildings. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It couldn’t be real. Someone needed to tell me it wasn’t real, it wasn’t as bad as it looked, this wasn’t happening a mere 25 miles away from where I stood in my pjs. EMS and police and firefighters rushing toward the buildings, everyone else running away. At least people would be getting help soon. This didn’t have to be a worse tragedy than it already was. I was shaking from fear, but seeing those people, those brave people going to help others, convinced me that things would be okay…people would be saved.

The phone rang in my hand, my mother worried about pretty much everything. My father was working in Newark at the time and he had managed to contact her, telling her that he watched the plane go into the North Tower from his job. He was coming home immediately. She wanted to know if Hubby was coming home, but I told her I couldn’t reach him. I had no idea if he was or not. This was becoming all too real. She wanted me to get dressed immediately and come to her house with you. For some reason she was under the impression that we would only be safe if we were all together. Being a frantic new mother who couldn’t get a hold of her husband, I agreed. I put you in your car seat so I could shower and you woke up, smiling as you normally did. For one split second, I forgot about the horror we were all experiencing. For one split second, I realized you were the most important thing in my world and you were here…I could touch your baby cheek, hold your baby hand, and everything would be okay.

I was ready to hang up the phone and dash up to the shower when my mother gasped. I turned to the TV, the only explanation for her distress. The South Tower had fallen, crumbled into a pile of rubble right before our very eyes. I stared, unable to move, unable to hang up to phone, unable to make sense of the scene in front of me. It was like something out of the Twilight Zone, something I could have never even dreamed into reality. Not long after, the North Tower fell, dust coating the city, news cameras only capturing white haze and screams of terror.

I couldn’t watch any more—I hung up the phone on my frantic mother, turned away from the TV. Numbly, I stumbled up into the shower, car seat in tow. The only thing I could think of was All those people are dead. The guy on the radio. The people trying to get out. The firefighters. The cops. Everyone in those buildings…gone. Hundreds of people got up for work this morning, probably when I was getting up to give you a bottle…and now they’re all GONE.

I sobbed in the shower, thankful that although you were awake, you were content to gurgle and coo, unaware that this day would go down in history as the worst terror attack on US soil. You see, you were alive when 9/11 happened, but you will never know how life was before that day, the day that really changed life as we knew it. I don’t think I can ever truly explain how much changed that day because you never knew how it was before. Only those who lived through 9/11 can really understand how our lives have become Before and After.

Before was when the biggest fear you had flying on a plane was a plane crash. When you didn’t have evacuation drills and active shooter drills in school, just plain old fire drills. When you didn’t check out exit plans whenever you went into a building. When you didn’t eye people suspiciously. When you were on constant alert for celebrity sightings in the City, not terrorist sightings. When you didn’t think people were out to harm you for no reason other than their own agenda. When you believed that people were really good deep down.

I hope you will never in your lifetime experience what we did that day. I hope you will never know the eerie sound of a silent sky for days, devoid of any planes overhead. I hope you will never watch a black cloud of smoke hovering across the river, marring the otherwise perfect blue sky. I hope you will never know the uncertainty of not knowing where your spouse is—and not being able to reach them for hours on end. I hope you will never hold your 6 week old newborn to your chest and sob as you witness devastation of epic proportions unfold in front of you and wonder what kind of world you have brought him into.

As terrible as the terrorist attacks were, there’s something else you don’t know about life in those days surrounding 9/11. In the weeks that followed 9/11, we had fear, but we also experienced a glimmer of hope. People came together in ways I had never seen before—neighbors helping neighbors, strangers helping strangers. Flags flying proudly, volunteers at Ground Zero. People reaching out to friends and family they hadn’t spoken to in years, people appreciating their lives. A brief second in time where everything was put into perspective.

The people left behind in the aftermath of this terrorist attack were forever changed. When 9/11 robbed us of our innocence, it also gave us back our humility. I think the one thing I can never explain to you, not if you haven’t lived through something like 9/11, is how precious every moment is, how fragile it is…how it can turn in an instant. Always tell people you love them. Never go to bed angry. Always kiss your loved ones good-bye. And never, ever forget.

Photo by Aaron Schwartz from Pexels

The post A Letter to My Son 17 Years After September 11th appeared first on Author Heather Balog.

Shrimp Pasta with Red Pepper Sauce

***This post includes affiliate links, which means that I may receive commission, at no cost to you, if you should click these links and make a purchase.

So you guys know if I share a recipe with you—outside of our 50 state challenge—it’s gotta be good, right? Criteria for a good recipe in my book are as follows:

It’s EASY…I cannot mess it up…or at least, it’s difficult for me to mess it up.
It’s quick. I don’t have time to spend hours making a meal. I’ve got books to read and wine to drink.
The family will eat it and not complain.

This shrimp pasta recipe has all three. Yah! If you like penne a la vodka sauce, you should definitely try this recipe. It’s similar in consistency and taste except you use red peppers instead of tomato as the base.

I made this a few months ago after seeing a pin on Pinterest (of course). I’m beginning to think I need a 12 step program to halt my Pinterest dependency. Hehe.

The first time I made this shrimp pasta with red pepper sauce (originally from a recipe on Cooktoria), I followed the directions carefully, and although the family liked it, I realized it could use some tweaks specific to our needs.

I Felt a Little Bit Like Goldilocks….

For me, the sauce was a bit too peppery the first time. I found myself snuggling up with a bottle of Tums the rest of the night, the peppery undertones replaying in my esophagus. I counteracted that the next time I made the recipe by adding more half and half and decreasing the actual amount of peppers (but leaving the pepper juice the same). This time, no repeat of the meal in my throat, but the sauce was too watery, and Hubby said it needed more “heat”. (Sure, he doesn’t have a Tums addiction…)

The third time, it was “just right”. I went with the same amount of peppers and didn’t use the pepper “juice” in the bottle. I added more paprika and crushed red pepper. I also added fresh basil for the hell of it. It was soooooo good. In fact, I am currently warming up the little bit of leftover shrimp and sauce we had and having it for lunch as we speak. Or as I type.

Hubby’s New Favorite Sauce

It has to be a really good meal for Hubby to compliment my cooking (I think he’s under the impression that it depreciates his value if I actually start cooking well or something…). So when he tells me that this is “A very tasty sauce” that basically means he’s in love with the sauce and wants to marry it. Twenty one years of slaving over the stove on Sundays making pasta sauce for hours on end and he’s NEVER said anything like that. In fact one time I think he might have said something along the lines of “You’re getting better, this one is actually edible.”

Prep the Ingredients First

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(The wine is not part of the cooking…it’s part of the cooking process…)

I Whipped it Up in Less Time Than it Took Him to Watch an Episode of The Office

No more being chained to the stove to make sauce. The actual cooking process is so quick that I was barely able to boil the water and cook the pasta in the time it took to make the sauce. My advice, make the pasta first. If you don’t like fettuccine, penne or rigatoni would work just as well.

While the water is boiling, puree the red peppers in the blender or whatever blendy thing you have. We currently have the Ninja (which I won at a tricky tray earlier this year) and I highly recommend it. It’s so convenient for jobs like this and it doesn’t take up a lot of room on the counter.

 

Then heat up your skillet and add butter. When butter melts, add shrimp, garlic, paprika,  and crushed red pepper. Cook on medium high heat until shrimp is pink.

Reduce the heat and remove the shrimp. Add the pureed red pepper and stir often for about 10 minutes. Throw in some fresh basil if you’d like. Then add half & half and grated Parmesan cheese. Cook for another 3 minutes.

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Turn off heat and add shrimp back to the pan. Toss in the fettuccine and mix well. Voila! Your meal is done. Yes, that quickly!

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Print Yum

Shrimp Fettuccine with Red Pepper Sauce

Ingredients

16 oz Fettuccine
2 lbs shrimp
4 TBSP butter
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 TBSP paprika
1 TBSP crushed red pepper
12 oz. jar of roasted red peppers
1 c. half & half (or light cream)
3/4 c. Parmesan cheese, grated
fresh basil (optional)

Instructions

Boil water for pasta.
While pasta is cooking, puree red peppers.
Heat up your skillet and add butter.
When butter melts, add shrimp, garlic, paprika,  and crushed red pepper.
Cook on medium high heat until shrimp is pink.
Reduce the heat and remove the shrimp.
Add the pureed red pepper and stir often for about 10 minutes. (Throw in some fresh basil if you'd like.)
Then add half & half and grated Parmesan cheese. Cook for another 3 minutes.
Turn off heat and add shrimp back to the pan. Toss in the fettuccine and mix well.
Grate additional Parmesan over the top and serve.Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by Yummly Rich Recipes0.1https://thebadmommydiaries.com/shrimp-pasta-with-red-pepper-sauce/[image error]

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The 5 Best Books of Summer 2018

Well unfortunately summer of 2018 is winding down. For me, that means back to school and back to work…and less time to read. From the first day of school on, my TBR pile starts to grow at an exponential rate. The days of relaxing on the beach with a good book have come to an end. No more lazy afternoons floating in the pool while reading. No more hanging out in the hammock in the evening with a book…oh, wait, I don’t have a hammock anymore…the kids broke it.

Despite the fact that summer is almost gone, it’s not too late to revisit some of what I consider to be the Best Books of Summer 2018. At least they were for me. There are other lists of “the best books of summer 2018”, and some of the books I put on my list may be on there, but mostly this list is based on personal preference and experience. I am picky with my star rating. I don’t often give out 5 stars, so a 5 star rating for me is a great book.

Here they are, in no particular order, the 5 books I gave 5 stars to in the last few months (and one 4.5 star book). (It’s so rare for me to give a book 5 stars that I had to include this one as well.)

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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jenkins Reid) *****

That certainly didn’t go the way I expected it to! After reading a few of Reid’s previous novels, I’m beginning to think that she may be one of the most underrated authors of the last few years. Seriously, this book, like her others, ropes you in with the pretense of being a fluffy, mindless novel, and it turns out to be nothing of the sort. What it ACTUALLY is, is a study in human nature and how people will go to incredible lengths for self preservation, even when in means hard sacrifices. It’s about the complexities of love and how things are not always black and white, nor are people easily definable.

Evelyn Hugo is a self made, rags to riches starlet whose work spans the decades from the 40s all the way to the end of the 20th century. She has also been married seven times. When she is in her late seventies, she contacts Vivant magazine, under the guise of giving them a cover story on her upcoming charity auction of her gowns. She requests writer Monique Grant, who is by her own accounts, no one special. Evelyn has no intention of doing a cover story…she has an ulterior motive. She wants Monique to write her life story. And thus begins the interweaving of Evelyn Hugo’s life in the past, with Evelyn Hugo’s (and Monique’s) life now.

I highly recommend this captivating, and sometimes heart wrenching read. Get it here:

Still Me (JoJo Moyes) *****

I finished this book with tears. A little bit of good tears and a little bit of sad tears mixed all together. Louisa Clark of Me Before You and After You fame is back. Now she’s living in New York City as a carer to the wife of a rich man, Leonard Gopnik. Agnes is a woman who does not have any physical disabilities, but can be, at times, quite emotionally unstable. Louisa came upon this job on a recommendation from Nathan who was Will Traynor’s nurse. Nathan also works for the Gopniks as Mr. Gopnik’s physical therapist.

As per the usual Louisa Clark style, things do not go as planned. She encounters an unusual cast of characters during her time in New York, and seriously, by the end of the book I didn’t think I could possibly love her anymore than I already do. What a marvelous literary character she is! In fact, I think that Still Me was my favorite of the trilogy. Check it out yourself. Seriously, you WANT to read this.

The Home For Unwanted Girls (Joanna Goodman) *****

In 1950, Maggie, a 15 year old French Canadian girl gets pregnant. Her parents, of course, are furious. The baby’s father is a French boy that her parents seriously disapprove of. The baby, Elodie, is supposed to be adopted, but because she is born a month early and is sickly, she gets sent to an orphanage run by nuns. What transpires is the twenty-something year search for them to find each other, foiled many times by the very nuns that were supposed to be taking care of the orphans.

Although this was not a “True story”, it was based on many other true stories from this time period. That fact alone had me furious. The idea that such an abomination could have happened, to CHILDREN nonetheless, is so infuriating that at times I wanted to shake some of the characters in the novel. Yes, I know this was a different time. I get that things aren’t like they are today. But to keep mothers away from their children is beyond cruel to both the mother and child.

Check out this book if you are looking for one to hit you with a gamut of emotions. Be forewarned though, it is a little slow going in the very beginning.

Final Girls (Riley Sager) *****

Yikes. This book held me hostage from beginning to end—I seriously could not put it down and ended up reading it in less than 24 hours.

Quincy Carpenter is a “Final Girl”, the term given to the last woman or girl alive in a horror film. Quincy lived her own horror film back in college when she went on vacation with five friends and was the only one left alive. She’s trying to get her life back on track with the help of another “final girl” that she never actually meets, Lisa, who survived a deadly sorority house massacre, her boyfriend Jeff, and Cooper, the cop who found her in the woods on the night of the deadly attack. And she probably would be on track had Lisa not been discovered dead in her bathtub with her wrists slit. Suicide or murder?

Enter Sam, another “final girl”, a survivor of another massacre. Like Lisa, Quincy never met Sam, but now that Lisa is dead, Sam is the only person who truly understands the horror that Quincy has been through. And the current horror—what if someone is targeting “Final girls” in order to finish them off?

Thus ensues a crazy series of event that has you questioning everyone in Quincy’s life and their motives. In the end…nothing is really what it seems.

If you like thrillers, this is THE THRILLER to read this year.

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows (Balli Kaur Jaswal) ****

This is the book I gave 4.5 stars too. And the only reason I gave it 4.5 stars is because I ended up skimming some of the “Erotic stories” and I think to get 5 stars a book needs to captivate me completely. However, I did love this book so much that I wrote an extensive review of it on my blog which you can read here. 

Of course, these aren’t the only great books I read this summer. If you’d like to see more, check out my Goodreads Profile.

Photo Credit

The post The 5 Best Books of Summer 2018 appeared first on Author Heather Balog.

My Organized Chaos

(My blog posts may include affiliate links, which means that I may receive commission, at no cost to you, if you should click these links and make a purchase.)

I’m incredibly disorganized lately. Once upon a time, I used to be a highly organized person, back in high school, back in college, back when I started working as a nurse, back when I got married, back when I had one kid. I was even pretty organized when Kid #2 graced us with her presence. I had to be—I was working full time and Kid #1 was involved in every sport known to man. (Okay, definitely an exaggeration…it was just football, baseball, and basketball, and a brief, but nerve wracking foray into wrestling.) Hubby had frequent meetings and classes, Kid #2 tried her hand at some activities, and I took an occasional exercise class. Even the dogs had appointments. Our calendar looked like a rainbow with my color coded plans for the whole family.

I had so much going on that I need constant reminders—the calendar wasn’t good enough. To further keep it together, I resorted to sticky notes. Sticky notes in my purse and on my desk and on the already full calendar, reminding me to make the grocery list, reminding me to make doctors’ appointments, reminding me to empty the dishwasher, edit two chapters of my manuscript, and write a blog post. My family mocked my sticky note addiction unmercifully. But I didn’t think I could survive without them (the notes, that is). It was a frantic and stressful existence, but I was organized. I didn’t forget things—I did everything I was supposed to…albeit with exhaustion. I wasn’t too bad of a mommy…yet.

And Now…

Like I said, now I’m a mess. It’s like I did a total 180. I’m not so sure when I lost it…all I know is that it’s gone. It started slowly. Ironically, I think it began when our schedule actually started to lighten up and we had less to do instead of more. One day I didn’t write out my To-Do list on my sticky note and the freedom from a tight schedule was intoxicating. The next day, I would get it together, chastising myself for slipping up. But then it would happen again because I saw that my world didn’t fall apart like I thought it would. One day without a list or a schedule would turn into two…and then a week…and then I found myself going months without planning out the days. And that’s when I really became a bad mommy. (At least in my eyes.)

It Was a Slippery Slope

I told myself that I was relaxing, living my life, but I believe it was just an excuse to be lazy after so many years of constantly being on top of things. I didn’t organize the kids’ rooms anymore, trying to put that chore on them (didn’t work…they really don’t care if they live in a pig-sty). At first, I got on them about not doing their chores, but after awhile, it became easier just to do it myself. And then, it became easier not to do it at all.

Without my lists, I started to forget things all the time. We ate out too much because I couldn’t get it together and remember everything we needed at the grocery store for a meal. I stopped scheduling things because it was too much work. Writing became difficult—I was too far behind with my goals as it was—why bother now? The prospect of getting my life back on track became overwhelming, so it was easier to slip into laid back Heather mode.

It’s Not What I Thought It Would Be

There’s hasn’t been much on the calendar these days, yet I’m waking up daily, flying by the seat of my pants, not organized at all. In some ways, it’s good. I did need to relax. I was way too uptight and anal retentive in the past, not wanting to veer from my already planned out schedule, terrified of the fallout from being spontaneous.

Still, I feel untethered and out of control by not being more organized…like I should be doing something and I’m not doing it (probably because I can’t remember what it is I should be doing in the first place). The house is not nearly as clean as I’d like it to be, I’ve gained unnecessary weight (yes, I’m blaming this on being disorganized), my cabinets are devoid of food worth cooking, and I haven’t published a book in nearly a year. As much as I was overorganized in the past and that wasn’t good for me, this new me isn’t best for my mental well-being (or raising kids for that matter), either.

There Needs to Be a Happy Medium

Today is the day before school begins, the teacher/school nurse equivalent to New Year’s Day. It’s time to take stock of how the previous year went and make resolutions for the next year that will hopefully last past the second week of school. I hate the way I feel about my disorganized existence, so I for this school year, I’m going to put a stop to it. In the words of my thirteen year old, “I’ve got to get my life together.”

How Does One Get Your Life Together?

Well, what I could really use is a day that’s longer than 24 hours, but until that’s a reality (who do I talk to about that???), I bought a planner. It’s rose gold (totally in right now) and pretty and has lots of spaces for me to write in. There’s a spot for things to do and places to pencil in appointments, as well as dedicated pages to my goals. It has pages to jot down ideas and notes, and lines to prioritize your goals and To-Do lists. It even has lines at the end of each month to evaluate how it went, spots to plug in how much money you’ve spent, how many hours you’ve exercised, how many books you’ve read. There are even stickers for important reminders…who doesn’t love stickers?

Since I have a lot of goals for this year—exercise more, save money, cook at home more, write more, publish more—and this planner has everything I could possibly want in order to achieve that.

The day my planner came, I became highly motivated. Immediately I sat down and mapped out what we were having for dinner all of next week. Then I came up with a color coding system for my To-Do list and spent hours considering my “mission statement” (Not to screw up my kids’ any more than I already have and cut myself some slack as a parent…). After that, I plotted out blog posts and an exercise plan for the next month. I even wrote in daily goals for the next few weeks. For the first time in forever, I felt like myself. I felt like I could really get it together again and I wasn’t the lost cause I thought I was. In other words, this planner is amazing. It’s a game changer.

It’s a Start to Being Organized

My Organization Project is in its infancy…chaos of sorts right now. Accountability will the key to my success. I have this planner to hold me accountable, my readers to remind me when I’ve strayed and I haven’t published a blog post, when I haven’t written anything in months. I’ve got Hubby to remind me to make grocery lists and say “hey, we already ate out this week…how about we cook?”. I’ve got the kids to remind me that I need to be organized for them…so bye, bye Bad Mommy…for now.

Working moms and dads…how do YOU manage to stay on top of things during the school years? All tips are welcome!

The post My Organized Chaos appeared first on Author Heather Balog.

Montana Huckleberry Pie

Exactly a month ago we cooked our last state meal. I know, I know…I’m really slacking here. But I have an excuse for why it took so long…sort of.

When we cooked our Connecticut meal, you may remember that we had guests for that meal, our friends who were trapped at our house during an intense thunderstorm. Well, after we ate, we had our friends’ eight year old son pick the next state out of the hat for us and he picked…Montana.

We’re Getting to the End Here

It was inevitable that we would be left with a lot of states with cuisine that we have made already. Montana’s state foods include elk steaks,  bison burgers and pasties, all of which we made for other states. The good news for Montana is that its most iconic food, the Huckleberry, was not among the already made foods list. And the list of recipes for huckleberries was a mile long.

Side note:

I’ll probably end up getting a phone call from my brother about this, but I can’t pass up the opportunity to mention that before he was born, my sister and I took to calling our brother “Huckleberry” in utero, “Huckle” for short. It had something to do with the Richard Scarry books. Cute for a baby bump, but unfortunately for my kid brother, this nickname has stuck like glue through his entire life, even though he has a nice normal regular name. He has been trying to ditch the nickname for over twenty years—it worked with his friends and his wife, but in our family, it’s too hard to call him by his “real” name. The poor guy literally has to beg my kids and my sister’s kids not to call him Uncle Huckle in person. And of course they get perverse joy in ignoring him. So when we found out that we were going to need huckleberries for Montana, we had a chuckle. (A Huckle Chuckle..sorry, Huck.)

The Bad News…

Huckleberries, popular in Montana and states nearby, are practically non-existent in New Jersey. No, scratch that…they ARE non-existent in New Jersey. After several days of trying to locate huckleberries in nearby grocery stores and farmers’ markets, I started to scour the internet for huckleberries.

And I found them. For something like $35 a pound. Yikes.

There was no way I was buying them.

After a few more searches, I was able to locate a place called Huckleberry Haven that shipped huckleberry pie filling. The pie filling was much cheaper than the fresh huckleberries that I would have to use practically the second they arrived on my doorstep, but it was still $10 to ship. (Where is Prime when I need it???)

They May Have Been Sent Via Horseback…or Conestoga Wagon

Montana is a ways away apparently. I ordered the filling on the 8th and it didn’t arrive until the 21st…when we were on vacation. Hence my excuse of why it took a month to make our Montana meal. Once I had everything together, though, this was the easiest of all our state meals to make. Or rather, the easiest dessert to make.

As much as I wanted to try some huckleberry buckle (crumb cake with huckleberries in it) or huckleberry cheesecake, all of those recipes required fresh huckleberries. Since the pie filling already had sugar and other ingredients in it, I didn’t know how it would taste or how to adjust the recipe if I used it.

I Settled For a Huckleberry Pie

Literally TWO ingredients:

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It’s pretty self explanatory, so I’ll let the pictures do the work:

I was a little disappointed that the pie filling definitely did NOT fill the bottom crust. I’m pretty sure it’s the pie plate since I had this same problem when I made an apple pie. Maybe the pie plate I’m using is exceptionally large? At any rate, I had to push the sides down a bit, but this may have affected the finished product.

Since the pie was so simple to make, I figured I’d put some effort into the pie and try my hand at a lattice crust.

I baked the pie in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. It didn’t come out half bad:

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Then came time to cut it. What a disaster. The pie piece came out flat and the filling seeped out—I’ve got to figure out what I’m doing wrong here. It’s probably the damn oven.

Still, it doesn’t matter how it looks, right? All that matters is the taste.

So what did we think of our first taste of huckleberries?

Not what I was expecting! Wow, was that sweet! It tasted like a pie crust with grape jelly in it. Too much for me…and apparently Kid #2 as well. Hubby took a lick off the fork and turned his nose up at it as well and Kid #1 refused to even try it.

There goes a month of planning and $25 to make a pie down the drain. The only saving grace is that it was simple to make. Oh well. Fingers crossed that our next state meal will be a success…we’re getting down to the last few states out of 50.

The post Montana Huckleberry Pie appeared first on Author Heather Balog.

Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows

*****4.5 stars for this unexpected delight of a story. I don’t read erotic books. I don’t read stories with pictures of half-naked men on the cover. I steer clear of anything that seems to be mainly about sex. It’s not that I’m a prude, it’s the fact that a certain ridiculously popular book for middle aged women featuring an abusive man that everyone swooned over because he was rich kind of ruined my view of any erotic books.

Still, this was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick and I love most of what the book club picks. I was hesitant that the book would be all erotic stories, but I was pleasantly surprised. There was not too many and for the most part, they were tastefully done. (There was one or two that I completely skimmed over…mostly because I was on the beach and the kids were trying to read over my shoulder.) This book was also informative and thought provoking. In addition, I learned a lot about a culture of people that I have often come in contact with in my own job, but knew very little about.

Nikki is a young Indian woman living in London. Her parents were not tremendously traditional, but her mother still has qualms about her moving out and living on her own after her father dies unexpectedly following an argument with her about dropping out of law school. Her sister is looking for an arranged marriage at the same time (which seemed more like eHarmony or one of those other dating sites rather than what I had thought was an arranged marriage, but what do I know…) and her mother’s emotions range from fearful for Nikki’s safety, to guilting Nikki for “abandoning” her on a regular basis (almost like an Italian mother…there’s constants in every culture it seems).

Needless to say, Nikki is feeling conflicted about her life and her future, guilt featuring prominently in her thoughts. In the process of hanging a flyer on an arranged marriage board in the Indian temple for her sister, she finds a job (and a man, but he is more of a secondary story in this book). Nikki meets Kulwinder who is running the classes. Kulwinder instantly dislikes Nikki, but it’s slim pickings for a teacher for the class so she hires her. Nikki thinks she will be teaching Punjabi widows how to pen their memoirs, but it turns out, these widows can’t even read or write English except for one who is in her thirties. She tries to teach them basic English, but it’s an abysmal failure. Instead, they resort to telling stories…stories that make Nikki blush…stories that fill a void in the lives of these widows. No one thinks of older women as being sensual or having any needs besides basic ones, but these widows knocked that theory right out of the park.

The way they have lived their lives, sometimes downright oppressively, angered me. Why should they be deprived of what men consider their right? Why shouldn’t they experience everything they can? They lived vicariously through the stories they tell (and some experiences that they were too afraid to admit they had), but the class can have serious repercussions for them in the Pujabi community, as Nikki soon discovers.

There are many restrictions on these widows and many secrets in their community that the class indirectly threatens to expose, putting Nikki and some of the other women in grave danger.

If you’re looking for a book that engages your mind and your heart at the same time, I would highly recommend “Erotic Stories for Pujabi Widows”. Just don’t leave the book on the coffee table or you’ll find your 13 year old thumbing through it with wide eyes…not that I know for experience or anything…

The post Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows appeared first on Author Heather Balog.

Why Summer Reading Is the Worst

Summer is winding down…only three weeks to go. I just finished Round 5 of “do your summer reading project before I take away your phone, your make-up, your other books, and everything else you hold near and dear to your heart” with Child #2.

This battle is getting really old

I thought about it the other day and I realized, not only have I been arguing with my kids about this for years, I’ve been fighting this battle since Hubby was in high school. Yes, you read that correctly. I distinctly remember fighting with him the summer before our senior year about his summer reading assignment procrastination. I, of course, had mine done the first week we were off in June, and he had yet to crack the book open three days before school started. I realize now that this should have been a warning sign to me and that any offspring of his were likely to carry the “summer reading project avoidance” gene. Lucky me, both offspring are recipients of this gene.

In all fairness, Child #2 isn’t usually THIS bad with reading avoidance—in fact, when she went into middle school, all sixth graders had to read Wonder. Not only did she read the book in record time (allowing me to read it, too), she used her birthday money to buy the next book in the series. It was a poignant, entertaining, heart-warming, and altogether WONDER-ful book. The kids were excited about reading that year, and I thought it was precedent for things to come. Finally, no outdated bore-fest…just fun and relevant reads for the kids to have them thinking even when school is out. After all, isn’t that why they DO summer reading anyway? To keep the kids’ minds engaged?

I Was Wrong

The summer reading project is apparently NOT going the way of the updated, modern novel. Nope. This year, she and her classmates have to read Animal Farm and compare it to the Russian Revolution…using quotes by dead literary guys. Yup. What a freaking buzzkill on summer.

She begged me the other day to help her with the assignment and I hated to admit to her that the summer reading book and assignment were crap. Me, the person who got excited when the teacher said to take out our silent reading books. Me, who read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in fifth grade. Me, who understands and appreciates how important reading and education really is.

Seriously, I was left scratching my head after I read the assignment, unable to offer her any sage advice. Which is another reason summer reading projects and assignments are crap. The kids have to rely solely on their parents and friends for deciphering the assignment—there’s no teacher to talk to or help you when you don’t understand it.

Seriously, we can’t find better books for these kids???

I mean, Animal Farm was written seventy years ago. I get it, we need to study history or we’re doomed to repeat it and all that jazz, but maybe couldn’t we put the heavy topics on the back burner for the summer? Yes, the kids need to engage their minds and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but aren’t there more books like Wonder that the kids actually love? I mean, NOT ONE OF HER FRIENDS HAVE FINISHED THIS BOOK. And you’re talking those honors kids that, like me, usually have it done in June.

It’s hanging over their heads and they are avoiding it like they avoid changing for gym. Seriously, this summer reading book has brought a blight on summer. It’s always there, taunting them. And taunting me, too. I mean, I’m the one who has to scream and yell and threaten. And why? Why do we have to do this? I’m pretty sure the choices of engaging, relevant reads for teens are endless.

Here’s a few GOOD summer reading suggestions

What about something by John Green? The Fault in Our Stars had me sobbing (quite like Wonder). Rainbow Rowell is another YA writer with great stories to tell. Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone? AMAZING. You want something “old”? How about The Outsiders? Dicey’s Song? The Westing Game? Virtually anything by Judy Blume.

There are literally THOUSANDS of books that teens will enjoy AND get something out of. But no. Let’s assign them a seventy-two year old book that’s really NOT for 12 and 13 year olds.

You’re never going to make everyone happy

I know this…believe me, I know this. I should have this tattooed to my forehead and walk around with a mirror, just to remind myself of this.

But maybe if we TRY to branch out beyond the dusty old bookshelf in the back of the now defunct school library and ask the kids what they’re reading, what they would like to read, and discuss come the first week of September…like a book club or something. Maybe then we’ll make summer fun again, like it was meant to be.

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