I Miss Snow Days

One of the bad parts of working in a hospital is that no matter what the weather, you have to go to work. We had a little bit of an ice storm here, so the schools in town were closed. Luckily, the roads never really froze. I'm just not used to chipping away at the 1/4 inch accumulation of ice on my windows! Give me 6 inches of fluffy snow any day! Anyways... here is a glimpse of what I have been up to of late. I tried out a couple of new recipes!
Not too long ago, I stumbled across this great vegetarian blog called, Oh My Veggies. The author does a great job of making vegetarian recipes approachable - there are no difficult to find ingredients or complicated directions. I had a couple of random lemons languishing in my produce drawer and was craving some brussels sprouts, so I made her Lemony Wheat Berries and Roasted Brussels Sprouts recipe.

 So what are wheat berries? They are wheat kernels - the stuff they grind up to make flour! Cooked whole, they are chewy and remind me a little of rice. This recipe turned out... ok. Part of the reason I was a little disappointed had to do with the fact that my wheat berries were a bit too chewy. I had take them off the heat a little early because the fire alarm in our building went off! I had tried a couple before I evacuated the building and thought they were close enough to done. However, when I sat down with a whole bowl, my jaw was tired by the end! Ha. I will definitely be interested in trying another recipe with this fun new grain again though.

Baked oatmeal!!! I used a random recipe online to cook up a pan of apple cinnamon oats. I love making this on Sunday so I have an easy heat-n-eat breakfast all week! I have been topping mine with sunflower seed butter (my new obsession!), brown sugar, and a bit of milk. This is definitely a great breakfast for chilly winter mornings. :-)

Jenna from Eat Live Run suggested this book The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey last week. I went to the bookstore to pick up my next book club selection but they didn't have it. I saw The Snow Child on display, so I decided to grab it instead. I was not disappointed! I loved this book! It's based on this fairy tale where an older, childless couple builds a girl out of the snow and she comes to life! In this enchanting novel, Jack and Mabel, each seeking to escape the grief of their own struggle with the inability to have children, move to the Alaskan wilderness. One night, on a whim, they build a little girl out of snow. The next morning, a mysterious blonde girl appears from the forest. With each passing winter, they get to know the girl, Faina, until she becomes like their own child. Throughout the novel, Ivey keeps returning to this fairy tale as both Jack and Mabel struggle to reconcile magic and coincidence with each reappearance of Faina. Highly recommend this one! Which reminds me... I recently discovered the site Good Reads.com. It reminds me of a combination of Facebook and Pinterest for books! This bookworm was definitely happy to find this site!