Awesome recipe

I had friends over the other day and I tried this new appetizer recipe: Prosciutto Asparagus Spirals. They’re awesome. They look amazing and are super tasty. Plus, you can make them ahead of time and left them in the fridge, covered with a plastic wrap, until it’s time to cook them. Very convenient. They are so good I decided to share the recipe with you.

Prosciutto Asparagus Spirals

Ingredients

1 pkg. (17.3 ounces) Puff Pastry Sheets, thawed

6 tbsp. garlic & herb spreadable cheese, softened

8 slices prosciutto or thinly sliced deli ham

30 medium asparagus spears, trimmed

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 400°F. Unfold the pastry sheets on a lightly floured surface. Spread 3 tablespoons cheese on each pastry sheet. Top each with 4 slices prosciutto. Cut each into 15 strips crosswise, making 30 in all.

2. Tightly wrap 1 pastry strip around each asparagus spear, prosciutto-side in. Place the pastries seam-side down onto 2 baking sheets.

3. Bake for 15 minutes or until the pastries are golden brown.

Happy Easter to Everybunny!

Spring cleaning and other nonsense

I don’t enjoy household chores. At all! I tolerate dusting, but hate vacuuming. Each year I dread having to clean the kitchen cabinets, fridge and blinds. They are the worst! Then again, I can’t stand a dirty, disorderly house. I can’t think when it’s messy. So I won’t be at peace until it’s done. Now the perfect time to tackle spring cleaning though, because I’m waiting on two manuscripts: one is at my agent the other with my beat readers. Plus we’re having people over this weekend. Although I don’t like cleaning, I love, LOVE cooking, baking and entertaining. Here's the menu for the evening:


Appetizers: Scotch quail eggs (it’s Easter) with aioli dip and prosciutto wrapped asparagus. We’ll be sipping martinis with this.

Starter: Shrimp cocktails. Red and white wine will be served with the meal.

Entre: Roast beef with Celery roots and potato mash; pan fried carrots and Brussels sprouts, Yorkshire pudding, Greek salad and to top it all off (and make sure our arteries are completely clogged) a bourguignon sauce.

Dessert: St-Honore served with shooters of chocolate grappa.

Nightcap: Coffee with bailey’s and chocolate truffles. (Again, it’s Easter.)

I can’t wait to do all that stuff…but for now back to the cleaning. :-/

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Parody

I love a good parody. This one also had a catchy song. Bonus! Happy listening.  =)

“Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.”—Vladimir Nabokov.

Revision angst

                                'Nough said! =/

Bitching...

Working hard or hardly working….

This is one of those weeks where nothing seems to be happening when in fact there is a lot happening. Funny enough, it’s internal and external at the same time. Okay, I’ll explain myself better.

External: one novel is at my agent, being checked before resubmission, while another one is being shipped to beta-readers/critics.

Internal: First, I’m sketching a major rewrite of one of my novel. It’s going well. I’ve figured out most of the changes. I think I’ll have to add at least two chapters to the manuscript though. Second, I’m plotting a new story. Right now, it’s still all in my head, floating about. Imagine a giant Rubik’s cube with different scenes all around it instead of colored squares. Once I have enough scenes figured out (I don’t need to fill the entire cube, but I absolutely need the beginning and the end.) then I can solve the puzzle and write my outline. Sounds weird, but it works for me. ;-)