Book Review: Easy by Tammara Webber

You know, IAM crazy about romance novels. Nowadays, my main spare time hobby is to search for good books. Last week when i was just browsing  through goodreads since it has become my favorite book site, i came across this novel by Tammara Webber. If it were not for this wonderful social, book-reading site I would have never even heard of these incredible books that I've been reading! And "Easy by Tammara Webber" is a perfect example. When i read the summary, i was impressed so much that i got the book same day and started reading immediately. The novel is of young adult romance genre which is entirely new for me, but i loved it. Here is a review of the Tammara Webber's Easy.

A short Review of Easy By Tammara Webber

Easy is an easy read, easy to like, easy to absorb into and easy to remember always.

The story is written as self-narrative by the main protagonist, Jacqueline Wallace. Jacqueline has followed her high school boyfriend, Kennedy of last 3 years to the college he has chosen to acquire a law degree. Being a talented musician herself, Jacqueline could have gone to any musical college she desired, but she decides to follow her heart's decision which gets shattered soon when her boyfriend breaks with her so that he can date other people. Jacqueline is devastated and misses her classes, econ class common with Kennedy, for two weeks. After two weeks, She agrees to be her roommate and best friend Erin's designated driver while Erin gets drunk in a party. Once it is obvious that Erin is staying with her boyfriend and will not need a ride, Jacqueline leaves the party alone, walks to her truck and is nearly raped, but is saved by a handsome savior whom she discovers later as Lucas who sits on the back row of her econ class always sketching in a notebook. She is attracted to Lucas who does lot of odd jobs around campus and stares at her but tries to fight it off as she has still not got over her ex's heart-break. After two weeks of absence from her econ class, her professor asks her to get private tutoring from a senior, Landon, the class tutor. Landon shows her that she’s still the same intelligent girl she’s always been. Soon, Jacqueline comes to know and trust Lucas and realizes his talent for sketching including portraits of herself. She is intrigued as is he and their relationship slowly develops into much more serious. 

As the story continues, Jacqueline realizes that there is a deep connection between her always supportive tutor and attractive savior, Lucas who is also
hiding his past secrets from her. Her ex tries to get back with her and her stalker/attacker spreads rumor around campus about them. Jacqueline has a choice: crumple in defeat or learn to fight back but still she is not sure of one thing that knowing whom to trust is anything but easy.

Now, my review on Easy: It was a fantastic read, sweet, loving and funny. First of all, this is the first young adult romance i have read so i was surprised the way the story has been told by Ms. Webber and i loved it. It is really a good read for all ages, not specifically to college-age people. Next, normally i do not like self-narrative novels, i like the books which has the point of views of both the main characters. But, this one even though it has been told through Jacqueline's point of view, i really liked the depiction of the story.
 
Jacqueline's character was great, how she decides to follow her heart first, then when the same heart is broken how she try to cop up with the situation
and makes her life better by attending self-defense classes and rebuilds her trust and confidence. I really loved how she gets attracted to every aspect of Lucas, both his intelligent, brainy self and his attractive, intriguing self once she starts knowing everything about him.

Lucas's character is intriguing. He fills the suspense part of the story. The characterization of Lucas is mysterious which intrigues Jacqueline and also the readers which made me turn the pages of the book eagerly to know his story. He is a handsome senior doing lot of odd jobs around the campus and also is attracted to Jacqueline from a long time. He has secretly watched Jacqueline be a dutiful girlfriend to a guy that does not see her worth. Once both Lucas and Jacqueline gets to know each other, I loved how Lucas was always gentle and caring with Jacqueline because of his horrible past.

The other character i loved in Easy was Erin, Jacqueline's roommate is her very good and loyal friend who supports her best friend throughout the book
even if it results in her fall-out with her boyfriend.

At the end, Jacqueline realizes that life is about living your life and dreams independently with confidence. You can be always with your loved ones without losing yourself and your self-respect.

Best quote from Easy:

In the last part, Lucas says to Jacqueline:
 
“Choosing to be with you, isn't a difficult decision, Jacqueline...It's easy. Incredibly easy.” 
 
I encourage everyone to read the book and send me your comments. Enjoy reading Easy!!

 

South Indian Delicacy: Aappam and Coconut-Onion Chutney

Aappam/Appam as we call in Kerala, is one of my favorite breakfast dishes. Atleast once in a month, i prepare appam for breakfast. 

Appam and stew is a traditional breakfast of Kerala. In different regions of Kerala, it is prepared differently. Here is a recipe for Appam, my version, prepared from scratch. It may not be an authentic recipe but it will result in frilly, delicious appams. We can have appams with stew, either mixed vegetable or just potato stew or a simple side dish, coconut chutney. I will post the recipe for Potato stew which is my family's favorite in my next recipe blog. Now, here is my recipe for tasty appams and coconut-onion chutney (a different version of normal coconut chutney).

Ingredients for Appam:

4 cups Raw Rice
1 cup milk
1/2 cup coconut grated
1 cup Rava
1 cup coconut water
1 cup cooked rice
Baking soda - 1/2 tsp 
Sugar
Salt

Preparation of Appam batter:

Soak the raw rice for 3-4 hours in water.
Add cooked rice, coconut, coconut water and milk to the the rice and grind it to a smooth batter. 
Make a semi-solid batter with rava by cooking rava in water for 3 minutes. 

Add the Rava batter to the rice while grinding it with other ingredients.
The batter should be a pouring consistency and a little thinner than dosa batter.
Add baking soda, sugar and salt to the batter and mix well.

                                  

 Preparation of Appam:

Pour a ladle full of batter in a hot skillet or appam pan and swirl it immediately. A thin layer of the batter sticks to the sides of the pan and a small pool of batter in the middle.

                                 

Cover with a lid and cook on low flame till the center of the appam is cooked and the bottom side of appam turns to lightly brown in color. 
Once the border starts getting detached from the pan, your appam is ready to serve.

                                            

Now, as we have prepared the tasty, crisp appams, we need to have a side dish. The easiest side dish you can prepare for appams is chutney. So, here is a recipe for spicy coconut-onion chutney.

Ingredients for Coconut-Onion chutney:

1/2 cup Coconut grated
1 Onion
4 dry red chillies (big) 
1 tspn garlic chopped
1 tspn black gram/Urad dal

1 tbspn Tamarind
curry leaves
Salt

Preparation: 

Add oil in a pan and add garlic and black gram and fry it for 2 minutes.
Mix chopped onion to the pan and stir it for 5 more minutes.
Add coconut and mix it together and fry till it becomes light brown in color.
Now, add the red chillies, curry  leaves and let it fry for few more minutes. 
Keep aside the coconut mixture to cool off. Once cooled, blend it together with tamarind in
a mixer with a little water and required salt.
The chutney is ready to be served. Serve it with hot Appams.

Simply Awesome: Egg Recipes

Egg is my favorite. Is it yours also? I always use to experiment new, different recipes with eggs.
When i use to get up late in the morning, and i need to prepare something fast for breakfast, i rely on eggs.
Here are some simply delicious egg recipes that you can make easily when you don't have much time to spare.

Vegetable Omelette

You might be already knowing lot of recipes for Omelettes but here is my recipe for a tasty, spicy vegetable omelette.
I use to prepare this for lunch with rice when there is no side dish/subji to eat with rice. Easy to prepare in 10 minutes.

Ingredients:

2 Eggs
1 Onion
1/2 Tomato
3 small green chillies
2 tspn pepper powder
1 tbspn coconut grated
1 tbspn Milk
Curry leaves chopped
Salt to taste 

Preparation:

In a bowl, add all the ingredients and eggs.
Mix it nicely.
When the pan is hot, add oil and pour the egg mixture to it.
Fry the omelette till it turns brown on both sides.


Boiled Egg Sandwich

A breakfast egg recipe. Easy to prepare.

Ingredients:

Bread slices
2 hard-boiled Eggs
2 tsp mayonnaise/butter
1 tbspn pepper powder
Salt to taste 

Preparation:

Mix the eggs, pepper and mayonnaise/butter into a paste.
Take two bread slices and add the egg mixture into the first slice and cover it with one more slice.
Prepare the egg sandwich in a sandwich toaster.


Spicy Cabbage with Egg

This is an easy and tasty cabbage side dish with any meal.

Ingredients:

250 gms Cabbage chopped

1 medium Onion chopped

4 green chillies

1 tspn turmeric powder

1 tspn coriander powder

2 tspn garlic-ginger chopped

2 tspn coconut grinded

1 egg

1 tspn pepper powder

Curry leaves

Coriander leaves 

Preparation:

Heat oil in a pan and add Onion, green chillies, ginger-garlic mixture and curry leaves.

Cook it for 2 minutes until onion turns brown. 

Add turmeric and coriander powder to the onion mixture in the pan.

Add the chopped cabbage and salt.

Add required water and let the dish cook till the cabbage is cooked nicely.

Now, in a small bowl, add egg and pepper and mix it smoothly.

Once the cabbage is almost cooked, add the egg mixture, grinded coconut and cook the dish for few more minutes.
Sprinkle chopped coriander leaves when it is done.

Spicy cabbage with egg is ready. Serve it hot with rice.

Hope everyone enjoy the above dish. I use to prepare this dish mainly when there is leftover cabbage dish from lunch and i want to spice it up for dinner, i just add the egg mixture as mentioned above to the already prepared cabbage dish and make the new version- spicy cabbage with egg.

Deviled Eggs

This is one of my favorite egg recipe. This tasty dish can be made as a quick appetizer for lunch/dinner. These eggs are little bit tangy and spicy in taste. Actually not only for appetizers, they will be great as snacks also.

Here is the recipe for my version of deviled eggs:

Ingredients:

5 hard-boiled Eggs

2 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tspn pepper powder

1 tspn dry red chilly (grinded)

1 tspn Oregano (optional)

Salt to taste

Preparation:

Cut eggs in half.

Arrange egg whites cut side up on a serving plate and put the yolks in a small mixing bowl. Mash yolks with fork then add in mayonnaise. Mash and stir all other ingredients to the egg yolk mixture. Add salt as desired. 

Spoon a little bit of the mixture into each egg white half, dividing mixture as evenly as possible between the eggs. 

Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready to serve.

Spicy Fried Egg Gravy

This is a dish that will be awesome to have with chappathi/Aappam. I usually prepare this egg dish for dinner when i need a side dish with gravy for chappathi or aappam. Also, this is an easy one to prepare.

Ingredients:

2 hard-boiled Eggs
1 Onion
1 Tomato
1 tbspn Ginger-garlic paste
2 tspn red chilly powder
1 tspn black pepper powder
1 tspn garam masala
1 tspn coriander powder
1 tspn turmeric powder
2 tbspn Oil
Salt to taste

Preparation:

In a pan, add a small amount of oil and fry chopped onion and tomato in a low flame till it is soft and ready. Blend onion-tomato mixture and keep it aside.
In the remaining oil, add all the spice ingredients except eggs, little water and let it cook for 2 mins.
Now,  Add the boiled eggs to the spice mixture in the pan and fry the eggs till they are uniformly coated with the mixture.
Once the egg mixture is done, add the onion-tomato mixture to it and let it cook for 10 minutes. Add salt as required.
Spicy Fried Egg Gravy is ready. Serve hot.

Okay, so that was some awesome egg recipes that you can prepare easily at home. Please post your favorite egg recipes if you have any.
Enjoy the recipes and let me know comments/suggestions.

Book Review: A Whole New Light by Sandra Brown

I always enjoy sweet love stories with simple romance which always end happily and leave us with a warm inner glow. The latest book i read is such a romantic fiction by Ms. Brown: A whole new light.  

From the back of the book:

From the heat of an Acapulco night…

Cyn McCall knew she could always count on her late husband’s friend and business partner, Worth Lansing. He could make her laugh and forget her problems. She could tease him about his many romantic entanglements. The last thing Cyn expected was to find herself longing for a man who could never settle down.

The storyline revolves around Cyn McCall, her young son, annoying but well-meaning mother and Worth Lansing, her late husband's best friend and business partner.

Cyn McCall, Tim McCall and Worth Lansing were best friends for life since high school. Together they went through college, Tim and Cyn’s marriage, the establishment of their own law firm, Cyn’s pregnancy and the birth of her little son Brandon. After Tim dies in a car accident, Cyn and Worth become even closer in their grief and recovery. Two years after her husband's death, Cyn is still not ready for a new relationship. She is discontent with her life, with her job as a psychology counselor in hospital and feels that her life is empty. The one person she shares all her problems is Worth who himself shares all his romantic entanglements with her as he is depicted as a 'ladies-man'. When Worth's date cancels their trip to Acapulco,Mexico for a weekend, he persuades Cyn to go with him and enjoy a weekend so that it will be a change for her. Once in Acapulco, their friendship is convincingly platonic, till they end up in same hotel room and same bed. While joking around, a sudden sexual attraction catches them off-guard. They desperately try to ignore it as much as possible but, in their minds, they start seeing each other more than friends. After returning to home, both Cyn and Worth are not same as before their trip of fun and relaxation. Worth and Cyn make arrangements to work out their relationship as friends but nothing goes as planned. They had started seeing each other in a whole new light and nothing was going to be the same as before since their trip. Once they realize the depth of their attraction, they develop a romantic sweet relationship which ends in a happily-ever-after ending.

Ms. Brown's depiction of Worth Lansing and Cyn McCall are fabulous. Worth is an easy-going, caring, jovial, fun-loving person whom everyone adores including Cyn's son and mother who are crazy about him. Cyn's date, a doctor, blames her as an uptight person, her mother always annoys her asking her to be more socially active but, she is actually a warm, fun-loving person who opens her mind only to her best friend who understands her. The way she realizes the reason for her discontent life, why her life is empty after her husband died, and finding the love she craved in her life in her best friend, Worth was nicely depicted by Ms. Brown. The funny exchange between Cyn and Worth and their beautiful friendship which turns to true love are one of the best part of the story.  

The book is a fun read with lot of communications between the characters, most of which are funny. I loved reading the book. A beautifully told simple romance by Ms.Brown - you will enjoy it !!

Book Review: Breath of Scandal by Sandra Brown

I love reading books, all kind of books, especially romantic genre fictions.

Do you know why?....because it is purely fictional, entertainment, happily-ever-after books. Recently, i have gone on a book spree, reading all books whichever i can get a hand on in my free time. I'm currently reading books by Sandra Brown....she writes mostly contemporary romance and romantic suspense fictions.

The one thing i love about Ms. Brown's books is that there are no short cuts in the story, it will be a slowly developing story from the beginning to the end. Here is a review of one of her books i read two weeks back.

 Breath of Scandal by Sandra Brown

The storyline revolves around a young girl, Jade Sperry, 18 years old,  from a small southern town Palmetto, DC. She is an intelligent, pretty and a self-confident girl who had planned a bright future with her boyfriend, Gary Parker. But, unfortunately, she is attacked and raped by the wealthiest boy of the most powerful family of the town and his two best friends. She is unable to prove the attack on her and no one believes her innocence including her childhood friend and her own mother. Gary gets convinced that Jade has cheated on him when she gets pregnant and he finally commits suicide. Later, she gets a college scholarship and leaves Palmetto, with only one goal in life - to plan revenge and retribution against the three boys who destroyed her innocence and life.

If i have to describe the book in one word, it would be the book has a Powerful Story !  

It was really heart-touching, the pain and heartache suffered by Jade by her own people. The horrifying attack on her was extremely painful which again leads to worse circumstances, which ends with Gary's suicide.

In between Jade's story, Ms. Brown tells the story of another person, Dillon Burke, who loved his beloved wife and six-month old son deeply and lost them in an accident which he blames on himself.

Both Jade's and Dillon's stories goes parallely untill Jade decides to come back to Palmetto to construct a textile industry which was her and Gary's long ago dream and exact revenge on her enemies. Jade hires Dillon as the contractor for the new project in Palmetto.

The characterization of Jade and Dillon was fabulous, Ms. Brown has depicted magnificiently how each of them overcomes their emotional traumas and come together in a emotional relationship with deep feelings for each other. The slowly developing romance between Jade and Dillon was really sweet to read.
 
The depiction by Ms. Brown of each stage in Jade's and Dillon's life from their normal happy life to how it changes to the worst nightmares of their life and the deep relationship they develop after coming back to Palmetto, felt very realistic. Her depictions of the three rapists, their life, who are adults now was also commendable - especially when except one, the other two were repentant and were finally punished by fate. One more best thing about the story i would like to mention is the way by which Jade is executing her revenge -by financially stripping of the wealthiest family in Palmetto, the main person responsible for destroying her life, as she knows losing the power they hold on the town is the biggest defeat for them.

Okay, so that was a brief review of the book. I really LOVED it! It is a great read, a fast-pacing drama, you will not feel like keeping down the book untill it is finished. I would recommend everyone to read this wonderful book!!

Cooking with relish: Channa Manchurian Recipe

I have always thought cooking comes naturally to people that you can develop and enhance in your own way. When i started cooking after my marriage, i never use to go into kitchen before marriage, my mom use to do all the cooking :) , i started with my mom's recipes making small changes to it and developing my own recipes. I love experimenting with recipes from recipe sites, recipe books and all by changing it in my own style.

I remember when i prepared Gobi Manchurian with the common known recipe, it was not as expected as i wanted something similar to we get in restaurants. Then i thought may be if i modify the recipe, i may get a new entirely different one. So, i created a new dish using the same ingredients and recipe but with Channa instead of Cauliflower. It was so good and tasty, i'm eager to share it with you.

My Recipe for Channa Manchurian 

Ingredients:  

250 gms Channa (Kabuli channa)
2 tbsp Corn Flour
1/4 cup Maida
1 tbsp Red Chilly Powder
1 tbsp Ginger - Garlic Paste
1 cup finely Chopped Onions
1 Chopped green chili
1 tbsp chopped garlic
2 tbsp Soya Sauce
1 tbsp Chilly Sauce
2-3 tbsp Tomato Ketchup
Oil as per needed
Salt to taste
Finely Chopped Coriander Leaves

Preparation of Channa Manchurian :

   

Make a paste of Maida, corn flour and salt using water.

Take a tsp. of ginger and garlic paste, add it to the paste.

Once the channa is boiled, Mix it with the flour paste and deep fry the channa mix till  

golden brown. Keep aside to drain the oil.

Heat oil in another pan and add the left ginger & garlic paste, chopped onions, chopped 

garlic and green chilli to it. Now, mix soya sauce, chilly sauce and tomato sauce to it.

Add the fried Channa kept aside and mix well. Garnish it with coriander leaves.
 

Serve the Channa manchurian hot.

Enjoy!!

WELCOME TO SANDY'S DIARY

Hello Everyone!!

Welcome to sandy's blog !! My name is Sandy!! I'm here to blog about......my various interests.....let me see....it can be anything that varies from reading fictions, cooking food recipes, interior decoration, photography. What are your favorite interests?  Stay posted for book reviews, cooking recipes, decoration tips, etc, etc. Feel free to leave comments and ask questions. 

Sandy.