Friday Favorites from Cooking for Keeps, Half Baked Harvest, Little Sugar Snaps and More

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Good morning! How was your week? Are you ready for another stormy weekend? I think the winter weather offers a great opportunity to relax, stay home, read, relax, maybe bake, make a pot of soup and spend time with your family. I hope you enjoy my finds from this week.

Food

This Spinach and Feta Cheese Stuffed Chicken from Cooking for Keeps looks like the perfect comfort food for a cold evening. 

Or how about this Roasted Garlic Butter Sheet Pan Chicken from Half Baked Harvest?

Vegan Carrot and Lentil Soup from Little Sugar Snaps looks easy and delicious. 

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To be honest, kale is not my favorite green, but this Kale Apple and Pancetta Salad from Once Upon a Chef makes me want to give it another try. 

If you like spaghetti squash like I do you might want to try one or more of these 50 Spaghetti Squash Recipes to Try This Winter.

A cup or two of Chocolate Atole with or without the rum is sure to keep you warm and cosy.

Articles

I heard about The Photo Ark, an amazing and ambitious project conceived by Joe Satore, check it out, you will be amazed. 

A Man Decides to Film a Tree in the Woods for a Year. What the Camera Captured in Breathtaking.

A Family Decides to Honor Grandmother By Displaying All of Her Quilts at Her Funeral.

9 Things It is Not to Late to Start Doing For Yourself

Fruits to Eat to Get Rid of Inflammation

Books

The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

wo lives. Two loves. One impossible choice. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club Pick One Day in December. . .

“I read The Two Lives of Lydia Bird in a single sitting. What a beautiful, emotional gift Josie Silver has given us.”—Jodi Picoult

Written with Josie Silver’s trademark warmth and wit, The Two Lives of Lydia Bird is a powerful and thrilling love story about the what-ifs that arise at life’s crossroads, and what happens when one woman is given a miraculous chance to answer them.

Lydia and Freddie. Freddie and Lydia. They’d been together for more than a decade and Lydia thought their love was indestructible. But she was wrong. On Lydia’s twenty-eighth birthday, Freddie died in a car accident.

So now it’s just Lydia, and all she wants is to hide indoors and sob until her eyes fall out. But Lydia knows that Freddie would want her to try to live fully, happily, even without him. So, enlisting the help of his best friend, Jonah, and her sister, Elle, she takes her first tentative steps into the world, open to life—and perhaps even love—again.

But then something inexplicable happens that gives her another chance at her old life with Freddie. A life where none of the tragic events of the past few months have happened.

Lydia is pulled again and again through the doorway to her past, living two lives, impossibly, at once. But there’s an emotional toll to returning to a world where Freddie, alive, still owns her heart. Because there’s someone in her new life, her real life, who wants her to stay.

In A Field of Blue (Free with First Reads) 

England 1922. It’s been four years since Rudy’s brother Edgar went missing in war-torn France. Still deep in mourning and grappling with unanswered questions, Rudy and his mother struggle to move on. When the enigmatic Mariette arrives unexpectedly at the family’s manor claiming to be Edgar’s widow, and the mother of his child, Rudy urges her to stay, hoping she’ll shed light on the missing pieces.

Captivated by Mariette, Rudy finds that their mutual loss and grief bind them…as does the possibility of new love. But Mariette’s revelations bring more questions than answers about Edgar’s death. Suspicions threaten to divide Rudy’s already fractured family, setting him on a quest for the truth that takes him from England to France and beyond.

In his search, Rudy is forced to confront the tragedies of war and the realities of the brother he’s lost and the woman he’s found. Will the truth set him free to find peace, or will it forever shadow his future?

I just purchased Midwest Made: Big, Bold Baking from the Heartland and I cannot wait to start baking and revisiting treats from my childhood. 

When it comes to defining what we know as all-American baking, everything from Bundt cakes to brownies have roots that can be traced to the great Midwest. German, Scandinavian, Polish, French, and Italian immigrant families baked their way to the American Midwest, instilling in it pies, breads, cookies, and pastries that manage to feel distinctly home-grown.

After more than a decade of living in California, author Shauna Sever rediscovered the storied, simple pleasures of home baking in her Midwestern kitchen. This unique collection of more than 125 recipes includes refreshed favorites and new treats:

• Rhubarb and Raspberry Swedish Flop
• Danish Kringle
• Secret-Ingredient Cherry Slab Pie
• German Lebkuchen
• Scotch-a-Roos
• Smoky Cheddar-Crusted Cornish Pasties

. . . and more, which will make any kitchen feel like a Midwestern home. 

Beatrix Potter: The Ultimate Collection

This is a great book to have on your kindle to read with kids, and grandkids and it is only .99 cents!

Finds

This week I found lots of clothes that I liked from Halogen at Nordstrom’s and Nordstrom’s Rack so I make a collage.

I hope that you have a happy and safe weekend. As always please share your favorite finds from this week, recipes, books, podcast, movies or whatever else you enjoyed.