Weekly Wanderings

Weekly Wanderings: What I Found While Wandering Around the Blogsphere

I had a minor pomegranate disaster getting ready for Christmas Eve brunch.  This tutorial would have been very helpful.  At least I know now!

Still having trouble with bread baking?  Are my tips, tricks, and FAQs not helping?  Check out The Frugal Girl’s suggestions.

Cate is embarking on a spending fast in January.  I’m really intrigued by the idea, and I think that I may need to do the same thing come February, when things settle down a little bit.

Lately, I’ve been building my to-be-read (TBR) pile based on reviews.  It’s rare that a review not only makes me want to read the book, but makes me want to go buy it right this minute, curl up, and not stop reading until I’ve finished.  This review from Dear Author not only made me want to do just that, it also had some very interesting things to say about contemporary category romances in general.  PS: this book is Smart Bitch Sarah’s Sizzling Book Club selection for January, so if you want to read it and join us for the chat, be sure to purchase the book at 50% off from All Romance Ebooks.

I thought these top 10 lists from Nielsen were super interesting.  I love lists and I like seeing what people are watching/buying/doing.  These sorts of things say such interesting things about our society, don’t you think?

A List

Once I wrote about random attacks of OCD and my need to make long lists.  Today is very clearly one of those days.  So instead of writing multiple blog post on different things, I thought I would make you a nice list to let you know all the things that are going on in my life.

1.      I got a Nook for Christmas.  I love it (except for the part where the servers crashed on Christmas day and stayed down on the 26^th).  Currently on my Nook are The Lost Hero, Stranger, and The Lady Most Likely.  What else should I add?

2.      I’m still working on my reading list.  I’m currently focusing on reading all the Judith McNaught and Susan Elizabeth Phillips books on the list.  I’m not a huge fan of McNaught (so far), but I really like SEP so that’s helping to balance it out.

3.      I’m also reading this book.  It’s changing my life so I highly recommend it.

4.      I’m thinking of joining Wendy the Super Librarian’s TBR challenge for 2011 so that I can make some progress on my TBR pile.  It’s starting to overwhelm me so I should probably do something about it.

5.      My best friend is engaged!  She’s getting married in December 2011. 

6.      As I type this, I just got a shipment of books for the library.  I’m so excited about cataloging them that I’m a little concerned.  Medical attention may be needed…I’ll keep you posted.

7.      I’m trying to learn how to budget.  Anyone have any good recommendations on books/websites with good budgeting worksheets or advice on how to set up a good one on Excel?

8.      I’m thinking of moving to a self-hosted WordPress blog in January and start advertising.  I clearly need all the advice/thoughts/opinions you can muster.  And I need a web designer (a cheap one) who can make it cute and navigable.  Any suggestions?

9.      I bought a couch yesterday.  Why did I buy a couch when I still live at home, you may ask???

10.  Oh, that’s right, I haven’t told you yet.  I BOUGHT A HOUSE!

Counting Down to 2011

Can you believe that 2011 is 4 days away?  This year has simply flown by.  I’ve had a HUGE year.  Highlights of my year include

-Going to England, getting stuck in London, and almost missing the BCS championship

-Alabama actually winning the national championship – ROLL TIDE!

-Being unemployed

-Starting this blog – what an amazing journey this has been!

-Getting my first real job

-My cousin having her third baby

-My best friend from high school getting married

-Moving my library

-Two of my best friends getting engaged

-Making a huge life decision (check back tomorrow for more details!)

Food has also played a huge role in my 2010.  From cooking for my parents to baking my own bread to eliminating food waste, food has consumed a great deal of my time. 

That said, SnoWhite of Finding Joy in My Kitchen is hosting a blog roundup this week highlighting her favorite recipes from 2010 and has invited her fellow bloggers to join her.  I’ve been linking up all week, but in case you missed it, I’m also going to share my favorite recipes of 2010. 

Breakfasts:

Blueberry Almond Coffee Cake

Buttermilk Banana Bread

Breads:

Wheat Sandwich Bread

Applesauce Bread

Golden Butter Pull-Apart Rolls (I didn’t link these up because I haven’t blogged about them yet, but they are my absolute number one favorite food discovery of 2010!!)

Soups and Stews:

Beef Stew

Chicken Provencal Soup

Meatless Main Dishes:

Mushroom and Spinach Pasta

Pasta and Vegetables in Lemon-Parmesan Sauce

Main Dishes:

Horseradish Meatloaf

Roasted Chicken

Desserts:

Chocolate Bon-Bon Drops

Pumpkin Cobbler

Don’t forget to jump over to Finding Joy in Kitchen check out everyone else’s favorite recipes.  There sure are some great ones!  And as always, you can also check out my recipe index for my full list of recipes.

Was your 2010 a big year?  What are some of your favorite recipes from 2010?

Menu Plan Monday

After all the build-up and all the stress, Christmas was over in a flash. How was your holiday? Did you get everything you asked for? Have any major drama? I'm a yes on both accounts. Yes, I got everything I asked for (including my new Nook!) and yes, we had drama. A family with elderly grandparents and 6 kids 9 and under does not equal a quiet holiday.

It also snowed. Which I'm still in disbelief about. It never snows here. Never. And we've seen snow three times this December. This weather confuses me.

But still it was an excellent Christmas all in all, and now it's over. Which I also can't believe. How are we already counting down the days until 2011? Wasn't it just 2009? Where does the time go?

Clearly, my time was not spent on menu planning this week, as we are having very basic meals. My mom is off work this week, so I'm (gratefully) turning the kitchen over to her. I shared our Christmas menu last week, so be sure to check that out if you are so inclined. We attempted to work our way through the leftovers on Sunday, but there is still a ridiculous amount of ham and a good amount of other things left.

Monday: Shrimp and Pasta (a family favorite), salad, rolls

Tuesday: Leftovers

Wednesday: Broccoli and Ham casserole

Thursday: Beef Tips and Rice, Peas

Friday: undecided – either roast turkey and dressing or some sort of elegant beef (maybe this tenderloin, or something else?). I do know, that this awe-inspiring potato gratin will be served and potentially this salad. And either a chocolate turtle cake (oh my) or spiced cranberry bread puddings.

Clearly, my New Year's Eve dinner menu needs help. Any suggestions?

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday.

Merry Christmas!

I will be taking this weekend off from blogging to celebrate Christmas with my family. I'll be spending the next few days with my family, opening gifts, eating (and eating again!), and generally celebrating the miracle that is our Savior's birth.

Whatever you are celebrating this weekend, I wish you a safe and blessed holiday. Merry Christmas! 

Our Tree!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Okay, I know I promised to have the 12 Days of Christmas Cookies finished by now, but I was hoping I would get around to making these before I ran out of time.  Of course, I did run out of time and haven’t made them yet, but I wanted to share the recipe with a few days (um hours now) left.  These are a standard holiday recipe in my family.  My grandmother made them for as long as I can remember, and a few years ago, when baking became too much of a hassle for her, she taught me to make them.  I am now the official chocolate chip cupcake baker in the family.

Although these are cupcake-shaped, they do not have a classic cupcake texture.  They are more like chocolate chip cookie bars, baked in the shape of the cupcakes.  It’s also kind of a weird baking process, but follow the directions exactly and you’ll end up with amazing cupcakes.  Don’t be alarmed if your cupcakes sink, because that’s how they are supposed to look.  The little bowl that is created in the middle is the perfect place for a scoop of ice cream!

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes – makes 12

1/2 cup butter, softened
6 tablespoons brown sugar
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Filling:

1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/8 teaspoon salt
6-ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat 375°.  Line a standard 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners.  Grease liners!

Cream together butter and both sugars.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  Stir together flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl, and then stir into butter mixture.  Spoon batter evenly into prepared pan and bake for 10-12 minutes or until cupcakes are puffed and golden.  (They will not be done finished cooking, so don’t increase the cooking time).

Stir the filling ingredients together in a bowl.  Top partially baked cupcakes evenly with the filling.  The filling will sink down towards the bottom.  Return cupcakes to oven and bake for 14-16 minutes.  These are amazing served warm.

Photo Credit

I hope you have found some new recipes to try this holiday season!  I’ve loved sharing some of my family’s favorite cookies with you.  What was your favorite cookie that you made this year?

My Guide to Job Hunting: Find Mentors and Maintain Relationships with Them

As I mentioned before, I'm so sorry to ignore any readers who have come here looking for advice and sympathies on being an unemployed librarian.  So I’ve prepared a series of posts to help guide you down your path of library job hunting. Be sure to check out my other posts in this series, Treat Job Hunting Like Your Job, Get Organized, Diversify Your Sources, and Update Your Cover Letter and Resume Daily.

Find mentors and maintain relationships with them

I’ve mentioned several times that I have wonderful mentors and that they served as excellent beacons of advice during my job applying days.  Have I mentioned that the sole reason I’m in the job I’m in now is because of my mentor? 

In late February, I responded to a post on my school’s listserv from a former professor of mine who was looking for some help with a consulting project she was working on a local hospital library.  I knew I didn’t want to be a medical librarian (ha!), but I needed the experience and the money, so I emailed her and told her I was interested.  Fast forward 3 months and I was interviewing for the medical librarian position.  All because of one of my mentors.  Several people had responded to the listserv posting, but she asked me (and my hospital librarian colleague) because she knew me and knew my work. 

Besides my special library mentor, my other mentors were my favorite professor, the director of my program (I was her grad/teaching assistant), and the librarian at the small library on campus where I was a graduate student employee for a year.  All them proofed my resume and cover letters multiple times, gave me interview tips, helped me through my nerves, and gave me countless hours of advice for job hunting and actually being a librarian.  They served as my references, and because I had such good relationships with them, I never worried that one of them wouldn’t show me in the best light.  I kept them informed of my progress and sought their opinions on numerous occasions. 

I still maintain those relationships.  Whenever I visit my library school’s campus, I make a point to try to schedule a quick meeting or a lunch and we have fairly regular correspondence by email.  By maintaining these relationships, I now count them as colleagues and look forward to discussing our jobs and trading anecdotes.  My relationship with my special library mentor is even better.  She stops by the hospital on occasion, we have lunch every few months or so, and she is my biggest source of help.  Whenever I have a question or a literature search that is extremely difficult, I turn to her first. 

I encourage you to find mentors at library school, your job, your local public library, anywhere!  You never know where a good mentor is going to appear.  Mentors should be more than sources for references and job advice.  They should be professional colleagues, even friends.  Someone to guide you on your path to being a better librarian and someone to help you through those tough moments. 

Do you have a mentor?  While I may not be the most experience librarian, I’m always willing to talk to aspiring and new librarians, so feel free to email me with questions or even just to chat.  My email is lizy1285 (at) gmail (dot) com. 

I hope you enjoyed this series.  Please feel free to leave comments or email me with any questions.  If there is a topic I missed or something you would like to see covered, please let me know!

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Decorated Sugar Cookies

Growing up, one of the things I looked forward to most during the holidays was decorating sugar cookies with my mom and my two older twin cousins.  Mom always made it so fun.  She had lots of different toppings like sprinkles, and M&Ms, red hots, and chocolate chips.  She also made icing for us to spread on plain cookies. 

This year I intended to make decorated sugar cookies twice.  Once by myself, so I could finally learn how to pipe, flood, and decorate with royal icing, and again with my cousins’ oldest children.  My twin cousins have 5 children between them and their oldest kids are 5 this year.  My mom and I thought that they would be old enough to enjoy making and decorating cookies.  We had them over on Sunday (naturally I forgot to take good pictures) and I think they had a good time. 

I’ve yet to make and decorate my own cookies and I may or may not get around to it.  But I wanted to share my favorite sugar cookie recipes and the recipe for the icing. 

I never use the same recipe twice when making sugar cookie recipes, so instead of sharing one, great recipe, I’ve listed three recipes that I’ve tried and had great results with.  What recipe do you use for sugar cookies?  Or do you go with a mix or even slice and bake cookies?

Our Best Bites Sugar Cookies use almond extract which I think gives a little extra punch of flavor.

I like that Alton Brown’s recipe uses powdered sugar instead of flour to roll out the dough. 

If you want to slightly fancy and extra delicious, these from Annie’s Eats use both a vanilla bean and lemon zest.

There are tons (and tons) of icing recipes out there, but I use this, which is mostly a royal icing type and can either be piped (and thinned for flooding) or spread with a knife (which is way way way easier and good for kids).  It also gets nice and hard which is good for storage and gift giving. 

Basic Decorative Icing – makes 1½ cups

2 cups powdered sugar

1 egg white

1 tablespoon water

¼ teaspoon cream of tartar

Food coloring, if desired

In a mixing bowl, combine the sugar, egg white, water, and cream of tartar. Beat for 3-5 minutes with an electric mixer.  You really do need at least a hand mixer for this; you’ll be exhausted if you try to do it by hand.  I use my stand mixer fitted with my whisk attachment.  You want the icing to be spreadable and smooth.  It should drip off the whisk (paddle, spoon, whatever) in one smooth line and fold back into the rest of icing fairly quickly.

Divide icing into small bowls and tint with food coloring (or gel colors).  Frost away!  

If you are looking for good icing tutorials, try these from Annie’s Eats and The Pioneer Woman (with help from Bake at 350).

I apologize for not taking pictures, but like I said, I forgot.  Plus, you all know what decorated sugar cookies look like anyway.  :)

My Guide to Job Hunting: Update Your Cover Letter and Resume Daily

As I mentioned before, I'm so sorry to ignore any readers who have come here looking for advice and sympathies on being an unemployed librarian.  So I’ve prepared a series of posts to help guide you down your path of library job hunting. Be sure to check out my other posts in this series, Treat Job Hunting Like Your Job, Get Organized, and Diversify Your Sources.

Update your cover letter and resume daily 

It goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway!) that you should tailor your cover letter for each job you apply for.  Not only should you make sure you have the correct name, address, and job title in the letter, but you should also be using the job description to write your letter.  If the job description asks for energetic, enthusiastic librarians with Web 2.0 skills and outreach experience, your cover letter should demonstrate how you meet these qualifications.  The point of a cover letter is to highlight your resume and make you stand out in a crowd.  A cover letter is not the time to be modest!  Outside of an interview, this is your only opportunity to let the search committee know how amazingly suited you are for the job.  And all of it should be done in one page.  That’s a lot to ask I know, but a good cover letter can mean (and mostly likely will) getting the interview over another candidate.  Look for a post on writing good cover letters soon.

A lot of job searchers craft their resume, have a friend or colleague proofread it, and call it day.  That is not enough!  You should tweak, fix, edit, proof, etc your resume every day.  Working on your resume is a great thing to do during the time you’ve set aside each day for job hunting, especially if it’s a day with no applications to complete.  There are a number of resume writing resources out there, so I’m not going to spend time telling you what should and shouldn’t be on your resume.  Hopefully, you should know that.  And if you don’t, email me and we’ll work on it.

A resume is a lot like a cover letter.  It should highlight your abilities, skills, and education.  It should make you look like a star applicant.  While it should never lie or stretch the truth, your resume should make you look like a rock star.  Your resume should show the search committee that you have the education, experience, and skills to do the job they want you to do.  Which is why you should tailor your resume to suit the job.  I’m not saying you should rewrite your resume for every job you apply for, but you should have several different versions.  For example, I had a version for academic libraries with an instruction focus, academic libraries with an outreach focus, for public libraries, etc.  They all had basically the same information on it, but I would move different things towards the top of my list, or add more or less details on certain jobs or skills depending on the type of job and the description. 

Example: Say I’m fresh out of library school and applying for a reference and instruction position at a small academic library.  The first thing I would list is my reference internship and I would give details that emphasized the time I spent sitting at the desk, assisting with instruction classes, and building LibGuides.  I would then progress down my list spotlighting any true reference work and any teaching experience.  Second example: This job application is for a public library reference position.  The first thing I would list would be my internship, but I would change the description to focus more on the reference side and dealing with all types of patrons.  I would also mention something about working with collection development if that was part of the job description.  The next job I would list would be my job as a manager in a bookstore because there I worked with the public, managed employees, did training, etc.  See what I’m doing here?  Your resume should read like a work history yes, but it should also state why your previous experience makes you such a good candidate for this job. 

Coming Wednesday: Find mentors and maintain relationships with them

When was the last time you updated your resume?  Do you write a new cover letter for every job?

12 Days of Christmas Cookies - Amaretto Balls

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that this recipe isn’t for everyone.  But it’s a personal favorite of my dad’s and my mom always makes them for him.  It’s another one of those traditional holiday recipes that show up year after year at our house.

These keep fairly well and they freeze beautifully, so they would make an excellent gift if you are looking for something last minute.  I would use the little candy papers (like these).  You can also use almonds instead of pecans, if you prefer that flavor.

Amaretto Balls – makes 4-5 dozen

6 oz chocolate chips

½ cup sugar

3 tablespoons light corn syrup

½ cup Amaretto

12 oz box (2½ cups) vanilla wafers, crushed

1 cup finely chopped pecans (or almonds, if you prefer)

Extra sugar for rolling (granulated or powdered, your choice)

Melt the chocolate (in the microwave is fine) and transfer to a mixing bowl.  Add the sugar and corn syrup and stir to combine.  Blend in the Amaretto.  In a separate bowl, mix the crushed wafers and the nuts; stir into the chocolate.  Use your hands to form small balls (about 1 inch in diameter).  Finger licking is not only recommended, but practically required, as your hands will be very gooey.  Roll balls in extra sugar. 

Menu Plan Monday

Am I the only one who is slightly panicking that Christmas is less than a week away?  While all the presents have been bought, the house isn’t clean, some of the presents aren’t wrapped, and I’m nowhere near done with my holiday baking.  Everyone join me in a big, deep breath.

Okay, I feel better.  Don’t you?

Moving on.  In sticking with my goals, I’m trying two new recipes this week as well as dedicating Wednesday and Thursday to cleaning out the fridge.  Got to make room for all those holiday leftovers! I’ve listed more days than I would normally include because I wanted to give you an idea of what we serve on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We are pretty traditional and mostly have the same thing every year. 

If you are still looking for something sweet to serve or to give this year, check out my 12 Days of Christmas Cookies.

This weekend we dined on:

Friday: Chicken fingers, mashed potatoes (new recipe – it was delicious!), peas

Saturday: Steak, rice pilaf, asparagus

Sunday: Pasta with Mom’s Homemade Sauce, garlic bread

This week we will be enjoying:

Monday: Broccoli, Potato, and Bacon Quiche, Biscuits

Tuesday: Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina (bumped from last week)

Wednesday: Mom and Dad: leftovers, Elizabeth: Christmas potluck with friends, bringing a super delicious chicken casserole

Thursday: Clean out the fridge to make room for holiday leftovers!

Friday: Christmas Eve! Mario’s Baked Ziti, some sort of bread

Saturday: Merry Christmas! We will be serving ham, sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese, corn casserole, green bean casserole, rolls, and several amazing desserts.

What’s on your menu for the week?  What about for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day?  Does your family serve anything extra special?

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday.