SonShine Eats - Taco Bowl

Now that I've been on my own for a while I've started getting more creative in the kitchen. I had a couple of big successes recently and people asking me about them, so I thought I'd start keeping track of what I've done and then post about them. I get some of my best ideas from blogs and Pinterest, so here's hoping someone else gets a little inspiration from me :)

Starting off with my taco bowl. I love crispy taco bowls, but they can be pretty expensive to buy at restaurants. And I love me some tacos in almost any form.

I started looking up ideas and saw suggestions for deep fryers and realized that my little mini deep fryer was perfect for making a taco bowl! I have enjoyed many of my Bella appliances (and no, I'm getting nothing from them for saying that :) - I love french fries, so I picked up this mini deep fryer on sale, and it's the perfect size for me. It's also the perfect size for turning medium tortillas into taco bowls!

Sometimes the shell sticks to the basket, but it pops off pretty easily. The tongs I use are bamboo toast tongs and work perfectly for fishing the bowl out if necessary.

Bon appetit!

Bookish Resolutions: January Successes

I can't believe January has passed us by already! I did a ton of reading this month - just couldn't seem to stop! Excited to see what this new year will continue to bring.

So here's how I did on my bookish resolutions:

1. Read 200 books (at least 52,000 pages):
I read a whopping 26 books this month. I did read 12 graphic novels, but a couple were pretty lengthy. Counting the articles I read, I managed about 7,600 pages and since I only need about 4300 a month to make my page goal I'm off to a really good start!

2. Read 12 non-fiction books (preferably 1/month):
I read 2 this month. One was the graphic novel Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller by Joseph Lambert, which was a fascinating look at their initial struggles to communicate and also, and to me more interestingly, a look at the plagiarism charges Helen faced which ended up effectively discouraging her from writing fiction. I also finished David S. Serchay's The Librarian's Guide to Graphic Novels for Adults, which was an interesting look at the history of comics and graphic novels and a good, if a bit outdated at this point, list of suggestions for collection development.

3. Read at least 2 print books I own each month (with an eye to weeding):
I squeaked by on this one, reading Library of Souls, the conclusion to Ransom Riggs' Peculiar Children trilogy for book club and Adam by Ted Dekker in my continuing efforts to read through alphabetically. It's kind of depressing me that I'm still in the As, so I want to make a stronger effort to read more books I own and avoid the library for the most part.

4. Read at least 2 eBooks I own each month:
Did better on this one, because I read them on my lunch breaks and can keep myself from being distracted. This month I read Andrew Lang's The Yellow Fairy Book (only 8 more fairy books to go...), Agatha Christie's The A. B. C. Murders, Above by Isla Morley (which was crazy and good), Avalon by Mindee Arnett (a YA sci-fi reminiscent of Firefly), Before Midnight by Jennifer Blackstream, Mercedes Lackey's A Tangled Web (a novella of the 500 kingdoms that I wish was much longer!), and Arena Mode by Blake Northcott. So a total of 7 eBooks for this month.

5. Read at least 1 book off my GoodReads To Read list:
These are strictly books I do not own, so these are the only books I'm going to allow myself to get from the library. Starting alphabetically I read The ACB with Honora Lee by Kate De Goldi which was sweet and wonderful and makes me happy just thinking about it again.

6. Read at least 2 academic articles each month:
I am glad I added this challenge, because it forced me to go looking for and find articles on topics I'm interested in but might not take the time to read right now. I read "Overcoming the Barriers to Information Literacy Programs: CALM Lab for English Majors at Dickinson College" by Christine Bombaro and "'The Status is Not Quo!': Pursuing Resolution in Web-Disseminated Serial Narrative" by Anouk Lang, which was a fascinating analysis of the reception of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog.

All in all I am very proud of my progress this month and looking forward to the books I have on queue for February!