Mandy DeGeit's Blog, page 2

Review: On The Lips Of Children by Mark Matthews

I do most of my reading during daily exercise on the treadmill. As I got into the story, I realized that the main characters are also runners. There are a few minor differences however, they run outside, where I prefer the indoors, and they run, where I’m more along the lines of jogging/walking. (It’s difficult to read when you’re running.)

“Meet Macon. Tattoo artist. Athlete. Family man. He’s planning to run a marathon, but the event becomes something terrible. During a warm-up run, Macon fal...

Review: Things Slip Through by Kevin Lucia

When I first started reading Kevin Lucia’s book, I was extremely happy to have a new collection in my hands. Little did I know how sneaky Lucia was in putting together his book. As I approached the end of the first “story”, I thought to myself, Holy crap it’s a story within a story… How ingenious is this?As I kept reading, I realized it was a collection of stories, embedded into another story, which in turn makes it a novel. A very well written novel at that.

Story after story are laid out amo...

Review: Eulogies II – Tales From The Cellar

At 371 pages, Eulogies II (edited by Christopher Jones, Nanci Kalanta and Tony Tremblay),is a hefty tome. However, buried within it’s pages are amazing stories that will keep you reading right until the very end.*(I did receive my copy awhile ago, but I lost the book halfway through reading it, to my boyfriend who suffers from intermittent insomnia. He started it one night and was hooked, so I let him finish it before I took it back for myself.)

The stories in the anthology cover a wide variet...

Recipe: ABC (Apple, Beet and Carrot) Salad with Lime & Ginger Dressing

The last trip to the grocery store resulted in me buying a 10 lb bag of beets. While I love pickled beets, I’ve already got a huge jar of picked beets in the fridge, thanks to Costco. I was looking for other things to make with the beets and I thought, “Hey, salad.” I’ve made a roasted beet salad before, which turned out most excellent, but this time I decided to do a raw salad. The colours are super bright and I’m sure this would make a fantastic addition to any meal.

ABC Salad

Ingredients:
1 p...

Recipe: Mandy’s Three Meat Chilli

I’m a fan of one pot meals, from stews to soups to chilli, I’ve made them all. I tend to overdo them at times, size wise anyways. I always set out to make a normal sized chilli, but then I end up with enough to feed an army. While this isn’t always (if ever) a bad thing, as long as you have room in your fridge or friends to feed it. The nice thing about chilli is that they are pretty much fool proof. You can add or remove whatever you want.

Here’s the recipe for the most recent chilli I made....

Sub Call: Fur & Fang – Horrotica Anthology

Do you have a penchant for horror mashed with eroticism? Are you finding it “hard” to place some of your racier stories? Well, I may have the answer for you.

I’ve been named editor for Fur & Fang, the upcoming horrotica anthology from Apokrupha.

Make it sexy and make it different. Apokrupha is monster agnostic.

Check out the sub call here and send me your story!

*(Well don’t send them to me, follow the instructions for the sub call.)

http://apokrupha.com/2013/09/21/fur-fang-subs/

Good Luck!

MDG

Good Eats: Lemon/Basil Roast Chicken with Root Veg

Ah chicken, the ultimate food. It goes with almost anything, aside from dessert (there are some lines I just won’t cross), and there’s nothing I love more than roasting a whole chicken. I used to shy away, thinking it was difficult to get it right, but it really isn’t. I’ve accumulated a few tricks up my sleeve over the course of learning how to rock the roast chicken and I’d be more than happy to share a few of them with you.

But Mandy, why the hell would I not just buy chicken breasts, they...

Recipe: Blueberry Peach Bread

Thanks to Mom and Dad, being the avid blueberry pickers they are, my freezer is filled with bags of the yummy, little, purple tastebombs. I put them on cereal, in my yogurt, have made blueberry scones and blueberry banana bread, but still the berries are taking over my freezer. Having a full freezer is a good thing at times, how else am I supposed to decide what to eat for dinner? The game I play now is whatever the freezer spits out (usually smashing onto my toes) is the winner.

Yes, I allow...

Recipe: Thai Chilli and Old Cheddar Bread

This is my second attempt at making bread, and surprisingly, they’ve both turned out quite well. Now, I have an issue with bread… I am a breadophile. If there’s bread in the house, it’s not safe from my snacking. I have found a way around this, and that’s keeping it in the freezer. Only cause then I have to think of bread in advance and it can’t be a last minute snack idea. I’m not one for buying bread from the store, but I really enjoy making it. My first attempt at bread was a simple white...

Recipe: Guinness Jelly

I stumbled across the recipe for Guinness jelly while I was flitting around on the internet. For the past week, I’ve called it Guinness Jelly, Guinness Jam, Guinness Bread Stuff but all in all, it should just be called Awesomeness on bread.To shed a little light on what this substance might be classified as, I’ve taken the liberty to search out the definitions of certain bread spreads.

Jam:A sweet spread or preserve made from fruit and sugar boiled to a thick consistency

Jelly:A sweet, clear, s...