Mmm Egg Salad

You get bored with the same old same old recipes sometimes.

Granted I'm all for the tried and true, eggs, mayo, and dijion mustard version, but I had a lot of hard cooked eggs and I wanted to try something different.

I want to thank Taste of Home for this great recipe that I only modified slightly.

Ingredients

3 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup mayonnaise (1/3 of a cup worked better for me)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped green or sweet red pepper
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
1/4 cup sweet pickle relish
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley (I omitted the parsley and added about 1 Tbsp of Dijon mustard)
8 hard-cooked eggs, chopped



Directions
In a bowl, mix cream cheese, mayonnaise, salt and pepper until smooth. Stir in green pepper, celery, relish and parsley. Fold in eggs. Refrigerate, covered, until serving. Yield: 3 cups.

I usually like my egg salad on a nice roll or bun, but I had melba round crackers from Aldi and it was yummy.

Super Book Blast: The Likelihood Of Lucy

THE LIKELIHOOD OF LUCY

by Jenny Holiday

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

BLURB:

London, 1815

Trevor Bailey is on the cusp of opening the greatest hotel in London. His days as a gutter snipe are behind him, as he enjoys a life of wealth, society, and clandestine assignments as a spy in the service of His Majesty. Until one tumultuous night churns up the past he'd long left behind...

Turned out by her employer for her radical beliefs, Lucy Greenleaf reaches out to the man who was once her most beloved friend. She never expected that the once-mischievous Trevor would be so handsome and gentleman-like and neither can deny the instant attraction.

But Lucy's reformer ways pose a threat to the hotel's future and his duties as a spy. Now Trevor must choose between his new life and the woman he's always loved…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excerpt :

Who was this man? He was the Trevor of her youth, yet he was not. The boy would not have touched her like that. Would not even have noticed her face long enough to bother with a dab of pudding gone awry. The boy had reserved that sort of intense scrutiny for lock picking and cake filching.

The man, by contrast, was causing her stomach to feel like little wings were fluttering inside it.

It was almost as if she wasn’t in the room, which was ridiculous because of course she was. It was her lip he caressed. But he stared so intently at her mouth that the encounter seemed somehow to be unfolding between him and it without her presence mattering at all.

She lifted herself onto tiptoes, and the tiny birds inside her took off, a great flapping flock of them. They were propelling her toward him, and she wasn’t in charge anymore. She pressed her lips against the spot of chocolate near the corner of his mouth. If she’d thought the chocolate

tasted sinful before, she’d been naive. The tang of his skin magnified it, made it magnetic.

“Lucy,” he rasped, his lips moving against her skin as he spoke her name. She waited for more, for him to cry halt. He did not. So she remained where she was, her lips pressed against the corner of his mouth but not moving, the roar of blood in her ears a rushing waterfall.

Beneath her mouth, his jaw clenched, became hard like iron, and his breath, already short, took on a ragged quality. Warmth pooled low in her belly like that chocolate, liquefied and hot. Every second they stood there, unmoving, something coiled more tightly inside her. It was almost painful, but it was impossible to imagine stepping away.

He moved only an inch. Less than an inch. His lips grazed hers, and though they barely touched hers, the warmth in her belly became fire. How was that possible? They weren’t even kissing, not really, and yet she felt as if she were at the gates of Bedlam.

A thought crept in. She tried to push it away, but it persisted. This is why Mary had fallen victim to her bouts of suicidal behavior. This—this unnamable compulsion—would grow and grow until it took over, displacing everything else, everything that made her herself. Unlike Mary, she

wasn’t capable of producing great works of philosophy with the potential to change the world, but she did have a life. A hard-won life she’d made for herself through sheer force of will. Trevor was helping her—she’d had no choice but to permit it given his logical argument that their arrangement would benefit them both. But she needed to remember why she had agreed to stay only for six months. Because men were dangerous—even him. Even Trevor. Perhaps especially him.

So she stepped away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

AUTHOR Bio and Links:

Jenny Holiday started writing in fourth grade, when her awesome hippie teacher, between sessions of Pete Seeger singing and anti-nuclear power plant letter writing, gave the kids notebooks and told them to write stories. Most of Jenny's featured poltergeist, alien invasions, or serial killers who managed to murder everyone except her and her mom. She showed early promise as a romance writer, though, because nearly every story had a happy ending: fictional Jenny woke up to find that the story had been a dream, and that her best friend, father, and sister had not, in fact, been axe-murdered. From then on, she was always writing, often in her diary, where she liked to decorate her declarations of existential angst with nail polish teardrops. Eventually she channelled her penchant for scribbling into a more useful format. After picking up a PhD in urban geography, she became a professional writer, and has spent many years promoting research at a major university, which allows her to become an armchair astronomer/historian/particle physicist, depending on the day. Eventually, she decided to try her hand again at happy endings--minus the bloodbaths. You can follow her twitter accounts @jennyholi and @TropeHeroine or visit her on the web at jennyholiday.com.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jennyholidaybooks

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/jennyholiday   

BUY Links:

http://www.amazon.com/Likelihood-Entangled-Historical-Regency-Reformers-ebook/dp/B00WRGWHT2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1431466263&sr=8-1&keywords=the+likelihood+of+lucy

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-likelihood-of-lucy-jenny-holiday/1121815835?ean=9781633752825

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The author will award a randomly drawn commenter a $25 Amazon gift card.

Please use the following Rafflecopter code:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Southwestern Pasta Salad

The Memorial Day holiday always means a nice pasta salad.

This year I took the lazy girls way out and used a Suddenly Salad mix and jazzed it up.

I looked at the recipe for the Southwest Salad on the Betty Crocker site and it was a little too much. So I kept what I liked and changed a few things and I have to say the result is quite nice.

I'm going to add a package of Southwest Chicken to the salad before serving, but it is honestly yummy just the way it is.

Ingredients

1 box of Classic Suddenly Salad
1/2 cup italian dressing
Hot sauce
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1 can green giant mexicorn
1 can tomatoes and green chilis drained
1 can black beans drained
1 cup grated mexican cheese


Direction

Prepare pasta according to package directions
In a medium bowl combine, seasoning packet, dressing, about 5 splashes of hot sauce and cumin and mix well
Add pasta and remaining ingredients and combine
Cover and chill for an hour before serving to get the optimum flavor!

Pretty In Pink Cake

If you are looking for a quick and easy dessert that's really no muss, no fuss, look no further than the Pretty In Pink Cake.

It has a few simple ingredients

1 box of white cake mix
1 can of cherry pie filler
3 eggs
1 tsp of Almond extract

Preheat your oven to 350

Combine all 4 ingredients and mix well.

Pour into a prepared 9 x 13 pan and bake according to the package directions. Usually 30 - 35 minutes.

This cake is delicious with powdered sugar on top, plain or with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry.

It can also be made with Devil's Food cake for an awesome chocolate cherry cake.

Farewell David Letterman

I have to admit, I was never a big Letterman fan. I always leaned toward The Tonight Show, but for some reason, knowing that he has signed off as really made me thing about things.

His name has been synonymous with Late Night tv for most of my life.

He was always the more odd ball of the hosts, and I think that's why I didn't gravitate to him much, tough I do remember some of the highlights that they showed this week, particularly the Sonny and Cher reunion.

Ah and the Madonna thing and you can't forget about Oprah.

The one thing you can say about Letterman, he always shook things up.

Now that he's retired, the late night talk shows are all new. There are now tried and true hosts. It is young blood.

It's going to take some getting used to.

I'll leave you with my favorite Letterman memory from the recent shows

Movie Review: Wreckers

Synopsis: 

A married couple moves back to his childhood village to start a family but a surprise visit from the husband's brother ignites sibling rivalry and exposes the lies embedded in the couple's relationship.

Review:  This is one movie that I totally regret watching. I adore Benedict Cumberbatch, but even he couldn't save this boring, confusing piece of cinema.

Maybe the film is too deep for me but very little about it made any sense. If it weren't for the fact that Benedict Cumberbatch is so darn pretty and he is shirtless quite a bit in this film, I think I might have fallen asleep.

The premise is a good one. Nick comes across as a great mentally unstable soldier with PTSD and David slowly starts looking menacing, but nothing really feels like it is pieced together.

The scenes are choppy and though you see Dawn and Nick's relationship changing, when things REALLY change it didn't seem right. The other thing that bothered me was that though they told you a bit about David and Nick's past, you never really felt like you knew them or what were really like. There definitely was something unnatural about them that was really creepy.

I never quite understood Dawn's (Claire Foy) silence. She never asks questions of her husband. The other thing I couldn't quite wrap my head around was why they never painted the rooms in the house when both David and Dawn seemed to have decent jobs. Why couldn't they afford a coat of paint?

This was really a bad movie in my eyes, even if the actors were wonderful. It is an hour and a half of my life I'll never get back.

Goddess Fish Promotions Super Book Blast & Book Review: Summer's Family Affair

Summer's Family Affair

by Cynthia Gail

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jenny Cohen defines successful independence: she put herself through college, couldn’t ask for

better friends, owns a consulting firm, wears designer clothes, and just moved into her dream

home . . . But she’s alone, except for her ailing mother whom she supports in a nursing home.

As the marketing consultant for Chester, Dorsey & Tanner, she’s surrounded by male attention.

Too bad it’s the overly-protective big-brother type.

Architect, Craig Stone, hasn’t looked at another woman since his wife passed away four years

ago. His time is taken—building a career while trying to be both mother and father to his eight-

year-old son. But when his appointment with the largest development firm in Nashville is double-

booked with a black-haired beauty, he finds himself reaching for new possibilities.

The attraction sets off more fireworks than the Fourth of July. Yet, their relationship is riddled

with issues neither one of them expected. Somewhere in the middle they must find a way to

compromise or let go of a chance for love they may never find again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EXCERPT :

All thought froze, as a beautiful voice cut through the near-silence of the room. Craig stared at the portfolio for just a second more before turning his attention to the front desk. He couldn’t see far enough around the corner to get a good view. What he did see . . . a pair of black strappy stilettos.

“Better you than me. He’s in an awful mood. Jeffry was out for just three days and his temp messed up the entire week’s schedule.”

Craig quietly moved down the row of chairs. Though his line of sight was much improved, he still couldn’t see the face behind the voice.

“You know it’s only going to get worse. It’s just Monday. How bad is it, really?”

She must be leaning over the desk, because her voice was now a faint whisper and the scene that greeted him was a firm derriere and a pair of runner’s legs that made his heart skip a beat.

“I’m not sure. I do know that you’re double-booked with the gentleman sitting across the room. Don’t look now.” Someone cleared their throat. “He’s a new architect Nick’s consulting with on the expansion designs. Too expensive to reschedule. Sorry.”

“Oh.”

“Brandon’s supposed to be part of their meeting and the temp had it on his calendar for noon tomorrow, instead of nine today.”

“I guess I can take second place. Only because it puts Brandon at my mercy. Tell Jeffry to come to the lobby and we’ll work it out. I’m always flexible, especially when it gives me an edge.”

The women laughed, a beautiful melody that rang through his entire being. Craig watched as she straightened and he could now see long, wavy black hair, falling against a ruby-red silk blouse. She reminded him of a Victoria Secrets model—long and lean, with a hint of curve.

“That’s why I like you so much. It’ll be a few minutes, if you’d like to have a seat.”

Craig shifted his attention back to the contract in his hand and purposefully read the title five more times. Slowly. He listened as her shoes clicked across the hardwood floor, waiting until the sound stopped before turning in her direction. She’d taken the chair he’d previously occupied and was sliding her phone into a black designer clutch.

Then she greeted him with a smile that still held a spark of amusement. He took a deep breath and swallowed. She had a hint of summer tan that made her skin glow, a touch of sheer gloss on her lips, and chocolate-brown eyes that instantly warmed him to the core.

His throat went suddenly dry and his mind raced for something to say. He stared silently, feeling like a teenage boy who’d never spoken to a girl before. Somehow, he found his footing and stood, then walked over to the chair next to hers. “Craig Stone.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Review: Summer's Family Affair is a wonderful read for romance lovers.

Cynthia Gail has created characters that are real and who you can really related to.

I really like that Jenny was the strong single woman and Craig is the widower with a young son. Both are pretty ok, with being single, but both need something more.

Jenny and Craig are both career minded and each has family responsibilities of different varieties, but the two of them definitely have a great chemistry. They also have some road blocks on their way to true happiness.

I liked the heat level which was relatively low in this book. It is hotter than sweet romance which gives a nice balance, which really is perfect for the characters and their situations.

This is a great quick read for a sunny summer afternoon, especially if you are at a beach. Highly recommended!

Rating: 5 stars

My husband and I live in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee with our three dogs. When I'm not

working or writing, I can be found with family and friends. I love to bake in the winter, grill in the

summer, and on occasion, I sneak away from everyone and curl up with a good book.

Website:  http://cynthiagail.com/ 

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/CynthiaGailRomance 

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/CynthiaGailBook 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6564818.Cynthia_Gail

Amazon Author Central:  http://www.amazon.com/Cynthia-

Gail/e/B009WQTTQE/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1426743860&sr=8-1

Amazon buy link:  http://www.amazon.com/Cynthia-

Gail/e/B009WQTTQE/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1426743860&sr=8-1 

Winter’s Magic   http://amzn.to/1Gsi6OM

Spring’s Surprise   http://amzn.to/1Np002k 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

Cynthia Gail will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter

during the tour, and a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn host.


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