From Our Recipe Box to Yours....Sweets for the sweet and an event you won't want to miss!

I follow several blogs, some for fun, some for family and friends, some for photography, and some for food!! One blog that I love and covers just about everything is http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/
Have you ever heard of the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond? She's been on the Food Network and several talk shows. She's a city girl turned ranch wife that lives in the middle of Oklahoma far away from civilization and in 2006 she started a blog. That blog has become huge over the past few years and she has won numerous awards for her writing, photography and cooking. She wrote a cookbook of all the recipes she uses and creates and most recently she has written a novel and a children's book about her life and ranch life in general. She's been on Throw Down with Bobby Flay and won! She's zany and down to earth and smart and entertaining!! If you have a minute or two or ten, stop by her website, check out her cookbook here at the library, but most definitely make this chocolate cake!!!


The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever.


Added by Ree on July 31, 2009 in Cakes, Desserts
Prep Time 20 Minutes


Cook Time 20 Minutes Servings 24 Difficulty Easy
Ingredients


FOR THE CAKE:


2 cups Flour


2 cups Sugar


¼ teaspoons Salt


4 Tablespoons (heaping) Cocoa


2 sticks Butter


1 cup Boiling Water


½ cups Buttermilk


2 whole Beaten Eggs


1 teaspoon Baking Soda


1 teaspoon Vanilla


_____


FOR FROSTING:


½ cups Finely Chopped Pecans


1-¾ stick Butter


4 Tablespoons (heaping) Cocoa


6 Tablespoons Milk


1 teaspoon Vanilla


1 pound (minus 1/2 Cup) Powdered Sugar


Preparation Instructions:


In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt.
In a saucepan, melt butter. Add cocoa. Stir together.
Add boiling water, allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds, then turn off heat. Pour over flour mixture, and stir lightly to cool.
In a measuring cup, pour the buttermilk and add beaten eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir buttermilk mixture into butter/chocolate mixture. Pour into sheet cake pan and bake at 350-degrees for 20 minutes.
While cake is baking, make the icing. Chop pecans finely. Melt butter in a saucepan. Add cocoa, stir to combine, then turn off heat. Add the milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Stir together. Add the pecans, stir together, and pour over warm cake.


Cut into squares, eat, and totally wig out over the fact that you’ve just made the best chocolate sheet cake. Ever.


Coming soon! The Spectacular Friends Sponsored Chocolate Buffet!! Friday, February 25, from 7-8:00 p.m. join us at the library for a chocolate extravaganza!! For just $5 you can sample all the chocolate you can imagine! From chocolate fountains to pies to cakes to candies...the selection is endless!! All proceeds go to our Friends group. Friends members eat free and there will be a sign up at the door. Plus!! Our own Jon Wolfe and friends will be playing for your listening pleasure! Come and enjoy this special treat with your sweetheart from us to you!

What's in Your Library Bag Wednesday??

     What's in Your Library Bag this Wednesday Reading Friends? I'd like to know...Let's talk...

     Do you ever make yourself read a book just because you think you should? A co-worker of mine was telling me about a book she was reading the other day that she wasn't really enjoying. She said it was taking her forever to finish. When I asked her why she was still reading it, she told me that her husband wanted her to read it and tell him what she thought of it. He loved it and couldn't wait to hear her opinion. So, she muddled through and today still tells me it was just wierd. I imagine she and her husband ended up having a spirited discussion as a result, which is worth something, even if she didn't particularly enjoy the story herself. Talking about books you are reading always adds another level of enjoyment, I think.
     As for myself, you know, I don't usually spend a lot of time in this endeavor. There are too many good books out there to read to waste time reading something I don't like, but sometimes I wonder if there are books I should read. You know, to say I did, to be part of that club. Like, the other day I was getting a book from the shelves for a patron, Jane Eyre, and not for the first time wondered if I should read it. In general, I haven't spent much time reading classics. I remember in high school, I had a class called "Great Books" where we read classic type literature and discussed it. It seems to me that it was easier then. I didn't really have a choice if I wanted to do well, hence my motivation to read them. And read them I did. I remember poring over Dante's Faust and Geoffrey Chaucer's middle english, and The Great Gatsby, to name a few. I even had to shut myself in the bedroom and read out loud to myself to make some of it sink in! Nowadays, it seems that if I think I should read something, it becomes more of a chore to read it, more of a challenge.What do you think? How do you read? Do you read some books so that you can say you've read them, or do you just read what you feel like?
   

What's in Your Library Bag Wednesday??? A Movie and some music

     For this week's edition of What's in Your Library Bag Wednesday, I thought I'd do a little review of a movie I watched recently.Temple Grandin is about a young woman with Autism and how she overcomes lots of odds stacked against her and learns to cope with her condition so that she can go to school and learn to help animals; specifically cows. The  movie begins with Temple going to visit her aunt's cattle ranch out West. A cool thing the movie does right from the beginning is show us with pictures and diagrams how Temple's mind with Autism works. For example, as they are pulling into her aunt's ranch, she gets out to swing the gate open and her mind is working through the angles the gate goes through to open. A little later in the film, Temple actually builds a self opener for the gate from these angles and images she sees in her head. There is another scene in school where the teacher asks Temple to read a page in the book. She looks at it and says, "Read it." The teacher doesn't believe her, and takes the book asking her to tell him what it says and she proceeds to read the page verbatim from the picture in her mind. Interspersed throughout the movie are flashbacks to when she was first diagnosed, how her mother dealt with it, kids in school, changing schools, and a teacher that had a great impact on her life.
    Not only does Temple need to overcome the obstacle of Autism, she must also overcome male chauvanism in her chosen field of study. Temple was born in the 1960s and went to college to study animal husbandry, more specifically cows. She visited feed lots and wrote her thesis on 'mooing'.She believed that cows were only raised for us so we should treat them with respect and not scare them all the time even if they are going to slaughter. The men in charge don't think that she belongs there and they do all they can to intimidate her. But, she stands tall for what she believes in and keeps coming back. The movie portrays her difficulties quite well, and I am sure we can all relate to a situation where someone felt they were superior to us, be it a man or just another person.
     This movie is actually based on the real life of Temple Grandin. Over 50 percent of the slaughterhouses in the United States today follow her design and she is also a professor that lectures worldwide on Autism. She beat the odds and shows us that Autism means "Different, but not less."



And Now for Some Music...

2nd Annual Beat the Blues Event
Friday, January 28th
6:30-8:30 p.m.
Music is free to all with pie/ice cream available for purchase. Proceeds going to support libraries in Haiti.

So, if you are feelin' "blue" this winter, come on in to the library and enjoy some good old fashioned blues music and company!

From Our Recipe Box to yours...and a Reminder.

Impossibly Easy Cheeseburger Pie

1 lb. hamburger, fried
1 onion, diced
Salt and Pepper to taste
1/2 C. Bisquick
2 eggs
1 C. milk
1 C. shredded Cheddar Cheese

Fry hamburger and onion; add salt and pepper to taste. Spray 9" pie pan and put hamburger in bottom. Cover with 1 cup of shredded Cheddar cheese. Mix Bisquick, milk and eggs. Pour over top. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Serve with ketchup, mustard and pickles as desired.

Very quick and easy and even fussy kids like mine love it!!!


DON'T FORGET TO BRING IN YOUR MOUNTED 8X10 PHOTOS FOR OUR 3RD ANNUAL PHOTOGRAPHY CONTEST!!! SUBMISSIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED UNTIL JANUARY 21, 2011 BY 5 P.M.!!!

Photos may be black and white or color; they may be matted or not, your choice; only 3 per person. There will be 6 prizes awarded:1 for youth from a professional and 1 youth people's choice, 1 adult color professional and 1 adult color people's choice, 1 adult black and white professional, and 1 adult black and white people's choice. People's choice voting begins the week of January 24th. Dig out your best and bring 'em in!!! We can't wait to see them!

What's in Your Library Bag Wednesday??...

     This week in What's in Your Library Bag Wednesday, I have a confession to make. You all probably realize by now that I don't like to wait on books. This is why I didn't read series for the longest time: I didn't like waiting for the next book because inevitably there would be a slower reader ahead of me and I would have to wait for the next book in the series. Yes, it's true, I could always read another book in between while I waited, but that's not what I want to do. I get a bit obsessive, I must admit.

     Back to what I want to confess. The other thing I've been a bit obsessive about (where reading is concerned) is wanting to read the book. I don't want to listen to the story, I don't want to read it on the computer, ipod, kindle, nook, whatever. I want to touch, feel, and smell the book. That's it. So, what I want to confess is that I finally broke down last week and put the kindle app on my itouch in order to buy the 2nd book in Jeaniene Frost's Night Huntress series that I talked about here on the blog last week. I gave in to technology just so that I could get that book without waiting...

     Now, as you can probably guess would happen, I am hooked! It was so convenient to lay down next to my children when they went to bed and read without having a light on to disturb them or trying to hold a flashlight while I turned pages. If I dozed off, the itouch saved my place for me. Getting it on my itouch was easy and instantaneous. Wonderful! Of course, I have to pay for it, but actually the library has a program called NEIBORS which offers books for checkout to read on your portable reading device. Now, the Kindle doesn't work the easiest for these books, but itunes does offer an overdrive app, the program necessary check out books,  so that you wouldn't have to buy all of the books you wanted to read. But, really, what easier way to take books with you on a long car ride, or plane ride, or vacation, or to a basketball tournament....the list goes on.

    
    If you haven't jumped head first into this century like me, maybe you should check out your options in conjunction with the free books we have to offer. You might decide you like the convenience, too. You might even be able to read from your phone. I bet you can. Check it out!

What's in Your Library Bag Wednesday??...

Welcome to this week's edition of What's in Your Library Bag Wednesday?!!...

     I have found a new author and all of you vampire/romance lovers should try her!! Her name is Jeaniene Frost and the first in her series is Halfway to the Grave: A Night Huntress Novel.

     The main character, Catherine Crawfield is the product of her mother's date rape by a vampire, so she is essentially half vampire; with a lot of the vampiric powers, but no drinking blood. All the pluses and no real downsides unless you count the fact that she is inherently different and her classmates always made fun of her growing up and her mother forever hates vampires and everything about them, etc., etc...Actually, once her mother figures out that Catherine, a.k.a. Cat,  has vampire powers in her, she encourages her to hunt and kill other vampires because she hates them so much. This leads to her meeting the other main character in the story, master vampire, Bones. These two form an unlikely team and proceed to go after the big fish in the vampire world.

     Cat, is a brave and fiesty half vampire heroine. She's got personality and spunk. All are definite prerequisites for me. The idea of her being half vampire was a little iffy, kind of making her another species, but I went with it and fell in love with her character. The vampires in this novel have some human characteristics and quirks as they were all "made" vampires and I like that too.
  
     In the end, Cat is made an offer she can't refuse...Will true love win in the end??? We don't know, but you MUST pick up the next novel to find out; which incidentally is on order as we speak, in case you were wondering...

Until next time, riends...Happy Reading!!!