Katie MacAlister: Crouching Vampire, Hidden Fang

You remember that I loathe cliffhangers, right? So you can probably imagine how furious I was when I bought one book in those never-ending series (which you can read in any order you like because each book focuses on a different couple) only to find out that I needed one more book to actually finish the story. 

But all bad aside, I came across the series a while ago and was more than curious about it because these books are about the Dark Ones who are from Moravia. Yeah, so finally someone puts vampires in my homeland. Naturally, I keep buying the books in order to see how foreigners see the people around me. But let's face it, you can write a romance and set it anywhere without really knowing anything about that particular country. So you stop paying attention and get the police car's colors wrong (I think it was in the first book of the series) but then you make it a cosmopolitan series and those who were happy to read about their country (even with the mistakes) are disappointed.

The vampires in these series can either be created or born. Somehow along the way they lose their soul and are left with terrible void inside. Until they find the one and only woman who can restore their soul by completing the ultimate steps to soul gaining someone has made up. The woman in question gets immortality in return and nothing changes about her. She can still follow normal diet. The dude, however, can feed only from her... so the author managed to turn the tables - if you recall, the vampire romance section is full of domineering men who decide everything, here the dude is nothing without a woman. That's nice.

GENRE: romance

FANGS OUT: Go Moravians, go! :-)=
FANGS RETRACTING: there are funnier and better books in this genre, plus I don't really understand how the author chooses titles for the books because they look so random and not connected to what's in the books
TOTAL SCORE:

Ricotta Cheesecake with Honey

You can never fail if you choose a cheesecake. Really, all of them taste awesome. And since I want to try as many as possible in my lifetime I better start making them more often. 

This time I had extra ricotta cheese so I tried to incorporate it in my cheesecake ... and I think I managed quite well.

You'll need:

• 200g unflavored (or butter) biscuits, you know the random sweet tasteless stuff
• about 50g butter
• 400g ricotta
• 200g cream cheese
• 4 table spoons honey (or more or less, depends on your taste buds as usual)
• 4 eggs
• zest from one big organic orange

1) Preheat your oven to 180°C.

2) Crush the biscuits till you like the texture - I prefer small crumbs but there are many people who have to have it finely ground... so either use a bag with a meat mullet or food processor. Then pour in the melted butter and incorporate well. 

4) Use this mixture as your base - press it on the bottom of your cake pan.

5) Bake for 10 minutes.

6) Meanwhile, take a hand mixer and use the rest of the ingredients to create creamy filling. 

7) Once the crust is at least room temperature again, pour the mixture onto it and put it back into the oven for about 50 minutes - once the top starts to get gold/brown color, you know it's time to get it out and let it cool down.

Jacques Chessex: The Vampire of Ropraz

I bet you've come across one of those ultimate book lists - books sorted by their importance, chronology, success and so on. I've seen a book list of vampire books no one reads. That sounded bizarre enough (how can the author of the article know about the books if they are not read?) to catch my attention so ever since then I've been on the lookout for the books on that list. It's really difficult to obtain them since they are no longer in print but I'm positive I'll get them all and find out why no one reads them.

So I think I've figured out why no one reads The Vampire of Ropraz. Its length isn't at fault because it reaches one hundred pages so you are done with it in no time, therefore why not read it, right? I think it is due to its lack of the vampires we are used to nowadays. This fake Gothic story covers events which supposedly happened more than one hundred years ago and the events are similar to what was actually happening at that time - that is pointing at mentally ill and saying they were vampires. This story uses the word vampire as our ancestors used it - they just didn't know they weren't dealing with what we now call vampires but rather with odd individuals. And I thing that's a major turnoff for many readers.
The other thing can be the language. I'm not sure how much was lost in translation, but I guess what was supposed to be a little poetic (the sentence structures are a bit different) somehow doesn't work in English.

The story has very interesting traits to it (it is always a thrill if you add a lunatic in the mix) but the events go unexplained, the facts are stated as if by a robot with almost no sense for details. So it wasn't altogether a bad book considering it was probably an attempt at early vampire Gothic works (Carmilla isn't that detailed either if I remember correctly) but somehow it's too swift, too dull and when you start enjoying it it's suddenly over.

GENRE: attempt at Gothic

FANGS OUT: it looks real and believable
FANGS RETRACTING:  didn't reach its potential
TOTAL SCORE:

Dark Cookies with White Chocolate Chunks

All the cookies are white with black chunks so I decided to experiment a little and make them different. I just added cocoa powder into the usual cookie mix and substituted the usual black chocolate for white chocolate. The white chocolate didn't stay in nice chunks but rather melted - I'm not sure if it is because I bought wrong brand (I rarely buy it so I dunno which is the best) or if it is this way with all the white chocolate you can get. However, they taste awesome. They aren't as decorative as I wanted them to be but given the fact that they are going to wind up inside anyway it matters little. 

You'll need (20 large cookies)

• 120g melted or room temperature butter
• 1 egg
• 1 tea spoon vanilla extract
• 100g brown sugar
• 150g flour of choice (I used spelt)
• 40g cocoa powder
• 1/2 tea spoon baking powder
• 100g white chocolate chunks (I bought a bar and with the use of meat mallet I created chunks)

1) Mix all the ingredients together.

2) Make small balls or make it already look like cookies (balls will flatten so make sure there is enough room around) and put them on your baking tray.

3) Bake at 180°C for about 10 minutes.

Vanilla Tapioca Pudding with Mango and Kiwi Topping

I think I heard of the tapioca pudding first when I was watching Rain Man. However, there was no tapioca around back then to try it. I've been noticing this food since then. Really, it's mentioned in a ton of movies or TV series. Must be a real thing then. Fortunately with the boost of alternative food I could finally after all those years get it - and not just in my bubble tea. 

I noticed most recipes use some kind of precooked pearls or pieces of tapioca. Unfortunately I could only get my hands on the floury type so... let's hope I did it right.

The results were good I think. The texture is little weaker than in normal pudding - it's not as firm, it's rather runnier but it holds together like a pudding should. The biggest surprise was the taste or rather the lack of it. I thought tapioca would have a specific taste but it's just a starch thingy which makes milk in the pudding thicken and that's it so you must put something in there to make it taste like something - hence the vanilla. 

You'll need:

• 400ml milk of choice (no need to use cow if you don't like it because I tried it also with goat, coconut and almond milk and they all worked just as well)
• 3 table spoons tapioca flour
• 2 table spoons brown sugar (or less or more - it's up to your taste buds)
• 1 egg
• 2 tea spoons vanilla extract (or one vanilla bean)
• topping: one kiwi, half a mango

1) Pour the milk into a pot and add the tapioca, sugar and the beaten egg - combine it all well and let it sit for a couple of minutes.

2) Then put it onto your cooker and reach the boiling point while stirring - you know that the milk tends to burn easily, so don't you dare to not stir! ;-)= Once you have reached the boiling point (the bubbles will appear, you know), turn off the stove and stir for an extra minute or two. It should start to thicken. This is where you add the vanilla extract. If you have the bean, add the seeds with everything at the beginning.

3) Pour the mixture into glasses or bowls or whatever you want to serve it in and let it cool down. Once it's cooled down, you want to put it into a really cold environment - say fridge or balcony during the winter time. It will take a couple of hours to get into the jelly-like yet solid state.

4) Before serving, take your fruit and blend it with a hand mixer. I'm used to this rather sour taste, but you can add sugar if you think it's too raw for you. Top the pudding with it and you are ready to eat it.

A Touch of Color

There are those days you want to spend five minutes or less on your make-up but you want to look "sophisticated" as well. Maybe the bleak boring winter is tiring you out and all you need is a little bit of color for your energy boost.

Then why not adding an extra line to your eyeliner? Start with the liquid or gel eyeliner you normally use (I prefer liquids by Oriflame because they still keep those tiny brushes which create miracles as opposed to most of the other brands which produce spoge-y monstrosities which will never allow you beautiful lines).

And then you need either a wet eyeliner brush with your favourite eyeshadow to make the line just above the normal line. Or, you can discover Stargazer brand which makes unusual eyeliner colors and have that awesome brush. 

It looks like classic lines from the distance but you know they are not, the closer you get the better you can see there is a nice colorful touch to them.

Tuna and Ricotta Patties

This is one of the go-to recipes when I buy ricotta cheese. Everyone in my family loves them and they are super easy to make. And if you add some vegetable salad and sour-cream-based dip, you will be buying that cheese very often.

You'll need (20 small patties):

• 200g canned tuna
• 200g ricotta 
• 1 egg
• salt, dry basil, thyme, and rosemary (I know, I know, I use these way too much but I love them!) and if you have some fresh herbs like chives or parsley, chop them in as well
• about two handfuls of breadcrumbs (you will have to experiment - you need just enough to make the patties not sticky but not too dry either)

1) Mix it all together till it creates nice not so sticky structure.

2) Roll into balls and then squeeze them so that you get this desired patty shape.

3) Either put them in the oven or onto a frying pan - in both cases you will need only a couple of drops of olive oil to bake/fry them on. 

4) In the oven they are done in about 15 minutes, on the pan they are ready once both sides get the nice brown color. 

Ellen Schreiber: Immortal Hearts

You know I have this problem with unfinished series. Long time ago I bought the whole Vampire Kisses series thinking it would be an entertaining read and then I had to stop reading it because it was very weak. That was then. Now I'm all about giving it a second chance - yup, it means that I have totally forgotten why I've never finished the series. 

So, there is this teenager who spends her time dressing like a Goth and daydreaming about being a creature of the night in a small town full of average people. It all changes when she meets a newcomer to the town - a real vampire. Throughout the series they face foes and all she does is whine why she doesn't get turned. 'Cause being stuck in a teenage body must be a really mature wish. So her vampire boyfriend keeps postponing the turning because he seems to have both feet on the ground. 

I don't know, the plot twists are almost nonexistent especially in the last book of the series (that's the worst of them all), the heroine acts like a broken record and everything that seemed thrilling about the series at the beginning somehow wanes into nothingness. Really, there may have been some story to tell at the beginning but as the series progressed, it became more and more dull.

GENRE: teenage romance

FANGS OUT: Goths have potential
FANGS RETRACTING: word candelabra overuse
TOTAL SCORE: