What I'm reading this week

Friends recommended all three of the books I'm reading this week. 

 I'm enjoying each of them immensely which surprised me.

 I'll rate and review them when I'm finished and so far, so good.  

Really good.      
 

A little Bee love

 I don't have a summer vegetable garden this year to play around in 

mainly because I was too busy with end of the school year stuff with my kids.  

You get it, right?    

Kids = busy!

I do have a flower garden though and I love it.

It's thriving and growing wild and the bees are busy pollinating everything they can get to.  

4th of July No Bake Watermelon Cake

I will definitely be making the No Bake Watermelon Cake  for 4th of July this year.

Check out Mandy's blog for the how to.

Twinkie Layer Cake

My husband L♥VES Twinkies.  L♥VES them.  When I saw the Twinkie Layer Cake from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen on Pinterest today I KNEW I would be making it for him very soon.  Holy cow.  

Talk about twinkie overload.

Twinkie Layer Cake

Twinkie Layer Cake

Ingredients

• Cake:
• 1 box yellow cake mix (I used Duncan Hines)
• 5.1 oz box instant vanilla pudding (the large box)
• 1 cup water
• 1 stick salted butter, melted and cooled slightly
• 4 large eggs, lightly beaten
• Filling/Frosting:
• 1 stick salted butter, slightly softened
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 7 oz jar marshmallow creme
• 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour 2 (8 inch) round cake pans and set aside.
2. In the bowl of your mixer, combine eggs and butter. Add water, pudding mix, and cake mix and beat on medium for about a minute, until batter is smooth and thick. Spread evenly in prepared pans and bake for about 20 -25 mins or until tops spring back when lightly touched, or a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean.
3. Cool cakes for a few minutes in the pans, then turn out on to wire racks to finish cooling.
4. For frosting/filling: Beat butter and vanilla in your mixer until combined. Add marshmallow cream and beat until smooth. Slowly add powdered sugar until just combined. Add heavy cream, Increase speed to high, and beat for one minute, until light, smooth and fluffy. Spread on cake layers and serve.

Notes

Cake batter portion of recipe adapted from Allrecipes.com

June 2013 Book Recommendations

This is my summer of reading. I L♥VE books and this month I'm devouring as many as I can get my hands on.  This past week I've read the three shown above.

The Glass Castle - 4 stars

A courageous and true to life memoir of  Jeannette Walls.  I found the book both enlightening and disturbing and at times extremely painful to read.  I knew a family like this years ago and I tried to help them but in my limited experience I realized that adults with mental illness and addiction problems that are not willing to help themselves, can't be helped, and unfortunately their children suffer immeasurably.  It's a story of perseverance and unlikely love I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Secret Daughter - 4.5 stars

! I chose this book for our July Book Club and I'm glad I did. I Loved this book! It is a deeply touching fictional story of two mothers, Somer - a San Francisco physician who is unable to have children, and Kavita - a poor mother from India who makes the heartbreaking choice to save her daughter by giving her away to the orphanage, and how their lives are tied together by their daughter, Asha.  "Compulsively readable and deeply touching, Secret Daughter is a story of the unforeseen ways in which our choices and families affect our lives, and the indelible power of love in all its many forms"

Half Broke Horses - 3.5 stars

I recommend you read this book before you read The Glass Castle.  Jeanette Walls wrote this "true novel" about her maternal grandmother Lily Casey Smith.  It's an entertaining read and clearly Jeannette Walls inherited her best traits from her grandmother.