When I started a blog, I always told myself I wouldn't be one of those bloggers who abandons the blog for a spell and then comes sheepishly back to it several months later with an apologetic "It's been a while" posts. The beauty of doing these monthly review posts is that, even in stretches when I am feeling either thoroughly uninspired or utterly swamped with work, I have at least some small thing to talk about, and have thus been able to avoid the dreaded "It's been a while."
As you might guess from the "What I Read" list this month, I have been spending quite a bit of time on my master's thesis, which will focus on how to teach To Kill a Mockingbird. I am nearing the end of the proposal process, which means I am nearing the beginning of writing the actual thesis, which means I need to finish getting my research together so I can feel like I am actually prepared to do this. I know I will be thrilled beyond words to finish; it's just the starting it and the doing it that I'm dreading at the moment.
Seeing as I've been spending all day reading and transcribing criticism of To Kill a Mockingbird, my brain is not in any kind of shape to come up with a remotely clever segue, so here's what I read, cooked, and created in the month of April.
What I Read
The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho (★★★★)
To Kill a Mockingbird: Threatening Boundaries, Claudia Durst Johnson (★★★★)––reread
Punching the Air, Ibi Zoboi (★★★)
Inherently Unequal: The Betrayal of Equal Rights by the Supreme Court, 1865-1903, Lawrence Goldstone (★★★)
Scout, Atticus, and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of To Kill a Mockingbird, Mary McDonagh Murphy (★★★★)––reread
Teaching Mockingbird, Facing History and Ourselves (★★★★★)
Separate Pasts: Growing Up White in the Segregated South, Melton A. McLaurin (★★★★)
How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi (★★★)
Happily Ever Afters, Elise Bryant (★★★)
If you want to hear the rationale behind my rating, head to my Goodreads for full reviews.
What I Cooked
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen this on my story. The recipe came to my attention when I visited a friend last month and she served this delicious soup. As you know, soup is my favorite food group, so obviously I had to recreate it in my own kitchen. Although I made minor tweaks (adding 1/2 tsp of rosemary; subbing kale for the spinach), I was pleased to discover that it was exactly as good as I remembered it. It also earned high praise from Mitchell, who ate two bowls and commented that next time he was sick, I should make this soup. I definitely won't be waiting that long, though.
In the original Half Baked Harvest cookbook (which is not as good as her second cookbook, Super Simple), there is a recipe for chocolate oatmeal cookies that can be made in bar form (and, in my opinion, should be made in bar form). They are fabulous, because most baked goods made with oats are. I figured that, with the addition of the gooey caramel layer, these would be even more fabulous.
In all honesty, I was underwhelmed. Even though I followed the directions, my caramel was more grainy than gooey, so every time you got a bite of the caramel it was like hitting a maple candy (if you know, you know) in the middle of a chocolate oatmeal bar. It wasn't terrible, but I wouldn't say it was worth the extra effort.
There is a certain if-you-give-a-pig-a-pancake principle operating in my kitchen. I try Recipe A, which requires Ingredient 1; therefore, I must try recipe B so I can use up some more of Ingredient 1, but I must also buy Ingredients 2, 3, 4, and 5, for which I must eventually find more new recipes. It's a vicious cycle. Since I had red curry paste left over from the khao soi chicken noodle soup I made last month, I decided to give these noodles a shot. They looked good on Instagram, after all.
Happily, Instagram did not lie to me this time. I did enjoy the noodles. They were easy enough to make, and the spicy, gingery zucchini was truly inspired (although I think 1 small zucchini would have been sufficient). I was concerned that the crispy topping was just a dumb extraneous add-on (I love me some Half Baked Harvest, but she has been known to overdo it on her garnishes), but it actually did add to the overall experience. Mitchell wasn't crazy about it since he's not a big fan of Asian-inspired cuisine, but I thought it was quite good.
I love few things as much as a good sheet pan meal, and I'm also a sucker for anything that gives me an excuse to purchase fresh mozzarella in any form. This was every bit as good as you would expect from something with gnocchi, cherry tomatoes, and gooey melted cheese, and it was stupidly, gloriously simple.
For years, this recipe has languished on my Pinterest board of recipes to try. As I was planning what to serve with the aforementioned red curry noodles, I had a flash of inspiration––why not pair them with the roasted bok choy?
Well, as it turns out, there are many reasons why this is not a good thing to do. It's a rookie mistake to serve an unfamiliar side with an unfamiliar main dish, one I should have known better to avoid. The second reason is that roasted bok choy just is not good. The morning I was scheduled to make this meal, a blogger I follow on Instagram who cooks through cookbooks and reviews the recipes mentioned she had made a roasted bok choy recipe, and she described the results as "fibrous and slimy."
She was not wrong.
My mother didn't raise me to be a wasteful person, but the leftover bok choy did not make it into my fridge.
Uncharacteristically, my brothers, their wives, and our family all neglected to make Easter plans, so we decided literally at 8:00 the night before to get together for lunch. Since I always get in the mood for carrot cake in the spring, I decided to make these.
I do love a good small-batch recipe for this stage in my life, and these were a classic carrot cupcake. The coconut added some nice texture. I didn't make the frosting because, frankly, I already have found my favorite cream cheese frosting and I can't imagine there being a better one in existence, so why bother? I would 100% make these again.
What I Created
Does my thesis proposal count?
Seeing as May is one of my favorite months, I am eager to for the month to get underway. The month is already full of plans: spending Mother's Day weekend with my family to celebrate my brother's college graduation, defending my thesis proposal, getting together with my childhood best friends over Memorial Day weekend, spending my last few weeks with my precious ninth graders, and furiously writing every Saturday I have free. One of these days, maybe I'll be able to write something fun.