Books read in July

The busy-ness of this past month is reflected in less books read and more just perused.  Lots going on here... with me (mainly as the chief gardener, cook, and bottle washer) but also as supportive wife and mother.  Christopher is in his summer finals week and preparing to move onto campus for the "fall" semester, hubby has been very busy with his own projects.

So... I'll continue to have a combination of Real Time posts and re-posting some old favorites for a couple more weeks. 

Books Read in July


Betty Crocker's Kitchen Gardens
I bought this book used with Amazon credit (thank you!) for just a few dollars..  It's a wonderful little book... small in size but packed full of information... for growing herbs and basic kitchen foods.   I closely read parts of the book and then perused those which were not immediately helpful

The illustrations are in black and white with a few color pages thrown in... all by Tasha Tudor.  If you like to grow herbs and veggies, you will enjoy this book.  I learned a great deal in my first perusal that I could use in my herb garden this year.

A Merry Heart and Looking For a Miracle by Wanda Brunstetter
These are the first two books (of four) in the Brides of Lancaster County series.  Both are simple romance novels based on the lives of Amish young women (in this case, the main characters of the two books are related).

The glimpse they show of those values we do appreciate in the Amish make for lighthearted summer reading.  Both the main characters in the books have to deal with bitterness and unhappy circumstances and the way they learn to accept God's will in their life to eventually become a "bride of Lancaster County" makes for good reading... if not very deep (I save deep for the cold, dark, winter months).

Flight to Heaven by Capt. Dale Black

Subtitled: A plane Crash... A Lone Survivor... A Journey to Heaven... and Back.
I will actually review this next month since I wasn't able to finish the book in July.  I can tell you it is a fascinating story.

It was recommended by a friend   whose opinion I trust and then I saw the author being interviewed on a Canadian Christian program.  His story was so riveting, I used July's Amazon credit to purchase the book... yes, I actually paid full (Amazon) price.  Of course, it is a paperback so it wasn't expensive.  :)

Library Books Perused

Small Batch Preserving by Ellie Topp & Margaret Howard
I'd heard a lot about this book and as I read through it, I realized why it was so popular.  It offers a lot of recipes for jams, jellies, and other foods which can be preserved using small amounts of fruits and veggies.  They also give recommendations when you can use frozen fruit when fresh is not available.

Country Beans by Rita Bingham
I owned this book at one time and sent it to a friend of mine who actually cooked with beans.  Now that Christopher is moving out, I'm researching bean recipes again.

This book is well known for giving instructions for making "bean flour" by running beans through your grain mill.  Recipes for using the bean flour are also given.  (If you do not own a grain mill, Bob's Red Mill sells bean flours.)

Mr. Food Cooks Pasta by Art Ginsburg
I really liked this Mr. Food book!  Of all the pasta cookbooks I brought home, this was my favorite.  Art G. provides lots of family friendly pasta recipes using various pasta shapes.  Most are "from scratch" and very economical to make.

You Don't Have to Be a Diabetic to Love This Cookbook by Tom Valenti
This is both a cookbook and and a book about cooking for a person with diabetes, written by a chef who became a Type 2 diabetic a number of years ago.

I'm rather sceptical of most diabetes cookbooks as they have tended to be all about sugar free products and the recipes are not all that appealing.  This book looked different when I perused it in the library and proved to be an excellent resource when I had time to read it further.

The recipes are quite good (although I haven't actually cooked any, yet) but the general information about cooking and eating for the diabetic diet is among the best I've ever read in my 10+ years of Type 1 diabetes.  The title says it all... it is the kind of cookbook a family can use for healthy cooking in general.

Betty Crocker's Pasta Cookbook

Frankly, I liked the other pasta cookbooks a lot more.  In spite of being a Betty Crocker cookbook, I found the recipes to be more complicated than I am willing to cook right now.  It's not a bad cookbook... just not where I am right now in my kitchen.