TV Therapy

I’ve always turned to books as a vehicle of choice for escape.  In fact, my husband and I are such avid readers that when we moved into our house 10 years ago, we made a conscious decision not to hook up the cable.  We do have a TV with a DVD/VCR combo to watch movies–which we rarely do–but beyond that, it’s books, comics, and magazines for us.

Two weeks ago, in an instant (as the cliche goes), our lives turned upside down with a phone call.  Circumstances made it necessary for me to relocate to my sister’s house temporarily, and the situation was so stressful that when trying to read before bed, I couldn’t even get through a single sentence.

I tried desperately to focus–I had reviews to write–but couldn’t give the books my full attention.  I abandoned them and dashed off apologetic emails to the publicists, requesting extensions.  Thankfully, everyone was very understanding, and I was able to put reading (and blogging) on the back burner.

And that’s how I (temporarily) crossed over to the dark side.  I turned on the television and watched one of three soothing-to-me channels: Food Network, HGTV, and The History Channel.  The minute I put my nephew down for a nap each afternoon it was all about Giada, Paula Deen, Ina Garten, Rachel Ray, and Bobby Flay.

At night, instead of reaching for a book, I reached for the remote control.  (I would have scarfed a fistful of Valium but have never taken pills in my life and feared waking up in a foreign country, wearing a toga, beauty pageant sash, and sporting a tattoo on my face.)  I snuggled up with Pawn Stars, American Pickers, Hoarders, Chopped, Property Virgins, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, and Dinner: Impossible.  For someone who has had little exposure to television in ten years, the choices were mind boggling.

Television did get me through the first two weeks of what promises to be a long and arduous journey.  I’m thankful that it was so distracting but was happy to come home and sleep in my own bed.  Drifting off to sleep last night, I wondered what I was missing on Food Network…but only for a second.  The delicious pile of TBRs on my nightstand pushed all thoughts of television right out of my head.

I’ve made (and posted about) these cream puffs before–they are always a crowd pleaser.  Though a bit time consuming (baking the shells, cooling the shells, piping in the filling), they are worth the effort.  In a fresh twist for my nephew’s birthday yesterday, I made a chocolate ganache (chocolate mixed with heavy cream) to cover some of the puffs and powder sugared the rest.

I found the recipe for the shells in a cozy mystery–Cream Puff Murder by Joanne Fluke–and am sharing it in conjunction with Candace’s Weekend Cooking Challenge at Beth Fish Reads.  Enjoy!

Cream Puff Shells

(from Joanne Fluke’s Cream Puff Murder)

  • 1 cup of water
  • 1 tablespoon white granulated sugar
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 stick (8 tablespoons) UNSALTED butter
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 cup flour, packed down
  • 4 eggs, room temperature

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.

On medium heat in a small pot or sauce pan, pour in water.  Chop butter into pieces and put into water.  Let it melt.  Add salt and sugar.  Bring to a boil.

In a bowl, mix flour and baking powder.  Once water mixture is boiling, turn heat down to low and dump in flour/baking powder mixture.  Stir quickly for about 30 seconds–mixture will form a dough ball.  Remove from heat and let the dough cool for about 20 minutes on the counter.

Once dough is cool, break one egg and mix it into the dough until smooth.  Repeat with remaining eggs, one at a time until mixture has a smooth, taffy-like consistency–about 3-5 minutes with mixer.  Don’t overmix.

For mini-cream puffs, drop a teaspoon of batter per puff on to the parchment-lined cookie sheet.  You can fit 12-15 per sheet–don’t crowd them.  Cook them for about 25-40 minutes depending on size; when you take them out of the oven, pierce the sides with sharp knife to prevent collapses.  If you’d like to make large puffs, cook them for about 55 minutes.  Let the puff shells cool away from drafts.  Yield 25-50 mini puffs or 10-14 large ones.

When they are cool, cut the top 1/3 off and remove any stringy dough.  Fill with custard or the simple filling I use.

Easy Cream Puff Filling

  • 1 3.5 oz box of Jell-O INSTANT vanilla pudding
  • 2 cups heavy cream

Pour heavy cream and instant pudding mix into a bowl.  Whip with a whisk or mix master until it’s the consistency of whipped cream–light and fluffy.

Scoop filling into a quart-sized Ziplock bag.  Cut off the bottom right corner of the bag.  Pipe filling into shells.  Add lids.  Sift powdered sugar on top of cream puffs or dip them in chocolate ganache.  Watch them disappear.

Chocolate Ganache

There are many variations of this recipe but all you really need is some heavy cream and good chocolate.  I used a bit less than half of a 12 oz. bag of Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chips and half a cup of heavy cream.

  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 4 oz. chocolate (chips, chopped bar, etc)

Chop chocolate (if using a bar) and place in heat-proof bowl; set aside.  Over medium heat, bring saucepan of heavy cream to a boil.  Remove from heat and pour over chocolate.  Whisk until smooth.  (You can add additional chocolate if the ganache is too watery.)

Enjoy!

What’s In a Name?

A year ago, I began toying with the idea of starting a book blog.  I had been life blogging for two years and had made several book blogger friends who introduced me to the world that is book blogging.

I started visiting book blogs and drew up a game plan for my new venture.  I used Wordpress to design a layout, Photoshop to create a header, and began reviewing books in a journal so I had some material to start with.

The only thing I was missing was a catchy name.

For an entire weekend I brainstormed to find the perfect balance–something catchy, easy to remember, no weird spellings, with a literary pun or reference.  I came up with two that I liked–A Novel Idea and All Booked Up–but both names were already being used on Wordpress.  Back to the drawing board I went.

I kept coming back to finding “a HOOK” for my title…and came up with Get Hooked on Books (also taken).  I was doodling pictures in my journal–the image of me sitting on a stack of books with the fishing pole on my sidebar was born that day* when the phrase ’she fell for it hook, line, and sinker’ popped into my head.  My voila! moment was changing hook to book, and that’s how my blog’s name was born.

I registered the name with Wordpress but eventually wanted to self-host my blog.  Someone was sitting on the domain name booklineandsinker.com and it wouldn’t be up for renewal until July.  The renewal date came and went and the domain owner had another 60 days to renew.  The second I was able to, I snagged the domain, uploaded all my Wordpress stuff, created a new header, ditched my training wheels, and never looked back!

Is there significance behind your blog’s name?  Did you have another idea that was already taken?  Tell me all about it!

*The image on my sidebar was reworked by my very talented sister-in-law who makes her living as an artist.  (She does some cartooning and caricatures on the side.)

© N.A.M., 2009-2010. Theft and/or duplication of my ramblings, reviews, or photos without permission is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to me. Poachers will be shot. Thank you.