Weekend Book Reviews

Stock the Crock by Phyllis Good is a collection of 100 recipes.  A wide variety of recipes are included from soups to sides to sweet treats.  I marked several recipes that I was interested in.  I tried out the recipe for Chicken and Wild Rice Soup.  The recipe included basic ingredients and was good.  I will adapt it a bit to give it more spice and flavor.  It was a bit to bland for my family, but the base is good.  The hints and variations for each recipe are helpful.  Overall this is a useful slow cooker cookbook.

A Christmas Peril by J.A. Hennrikus is the first book in the Theater Cop Mystery series.  Sully has left her job as a cop to be the manager of her hometown's theater.  Her current job is to keep the theater's production of A Christmas Carol on budget and on track.  When her best friend is accused of murdering his father, she reverts back to her cop training to help find the real killer.  The characters are well developed for a first book, and the mystery kept me interested until then.  I look forward to seeing how the characters evolve as the series continues.

George Bellairs' Death of a Busybody is part of the British Library Crime Classics series.  Miss Tither, the village busybody, meddles a little too much and is found dead in the vicar's cesspool.  While the language of the setting/era did slow me down slightly but not so much that I found it impossible to follow.  I do enjoy vintage British mysteries, and this one did not disappoint.

Holiday Cookies by Elisabet der Nederlanden features 50 cookie recipes as well as ideas for packaging your finished cookies.  Do not let the title fool you though.  I will be making many of the cookies from this book year around.  I tried out the recipe for Triple-Chocolate Chunk Cookies.  I followed  the recipe exactly.  Aside from an issue with the baking time (my oven required considerably less time), the cookies were delicious.  The flavor was wonderful with the addition of three types of chocolate.  I bookmarked several more recipes to make.  It has given me several ideas for holiday gift giving and cookie trays.  If you are a cookie fan, I highly recommend this book.


disclosure:  I received these e-books from NetGalley but was not otherwise compensated for these reviews.  All opinions are my own!