November | 2019 | My Haunted Library

November 24, 2019
by Jennifer Leave a comment

Bacon Jalapeno Poppers

Need an appetizer for Thanksgiving? A great snack for the big game? Try these poppers – you won’t be disappointed!

My pepper plants went above and beyond this year: we’re talking pounds of peppers. Many, many pounds of peppers.

So, okay, maybe I over-compensated from years of unsuccessful harvests and I planted a few (a lot) too many plants: Anaheim, Poblano, Serrano, and Jalapeno. I have roasted and frozen them. Pickled them. Made jalapeno jelly. Added them to endless salsas (aided by our equally-prolific tomatoes). I’ve eaten them on everything from eggs to tacos. Stuffed them. Made spicy peanut brittle. I even tried to give them away—free!—at a little table at the end of our country driveway. But, we’re in Ohio. Peppers, apparently, aren’t quite so popular here as our old home state of Colorado. Oh well! More for me.

Here’s an easy recipe we’ve made…three times this season? Four times? That even my not-too-big-a-fan-of-spicy-things husband really enjoys. I think we adapted it from a Pioneer Woman recipe long ago. Non pepper-lovers, don’t be afraid: all the heat comes out of the pepper when you scrape out the inner white membrane and the seeds and the peppers have a mild, almost fruity flavor. Want more heat? Leave in the membrane, or some seeds. These poppers are fabulous right when you make them and they also warm up fine the next day. If you have any left. (You won’t!)

Ingredients

8oz package cream cheese

10 slices regular bacon, cut in half

10 fresh jalapenos

20 toothpicks

How to Make Them

Preheat your oven to 300F. You’re going to cook these low and slow. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and place a wire rack over it.

Cut the peppers in half lengthwise and use a spoon to scrape out the white membrane and the seeds—unless you want your poppers really hot!

Spread about a tablespoon of cream cheese into each pepper half.

Wrap a half-slice of bacon around each jalapeno. Stick a toothpick horizontally through the center of the pepper to hold everything together. Set each pepper on the wire rack.

Bake for 35-40 minutes at 300F. Keep an eye on them: They may need a little more or a little less time for the bacon to get brown and delicious.

Eat them. Be happy.

November 17, 2019
by Jennifer Leave a comment

Review: Afraid

Afraid – Jack Kilborn, 2008. Rating: 3.5/5

A helicopter crash in a remote Wisconsin town releases five highly trained, psychopathic terrorists who lay waste to the hapless citizenry as they single-mindedly pursue their mission.

These “red-ops” soldiers were “recruited” from death rows and psych wards. Each has been behaviorally modified and is controlled by a microchip implanted in their brain. The five are programmed to torture, kill, rape, and instill fear in civilian populations—and they enjoy it. Several even boast signature methods of inflicting pain: Taylor has an…oral fixation…and giggling Bernie has a fondness for fire.

The ironically named town of Safe Haven doesn’t stand much of a chance against them. Their peace officer, Sheriff Streng, is an aging Vietnam veteran on the verge of retiring. Young firefighters, Josh and Erwin have yet to fight a fire. The U.S. government sends in Dr. Ralph Stubin, brain surgeon and expert in behavior modification, along with some military troops to recapture the red-ops team. Stubin is accompanied by his genius—thanks to another microchip—capuchin monkey, Mathison.

Needless to say, the military doesn’t quite arrive safely. At all. It is up to Streng, Josh, Erwin, single-mom Fran, and a handful of determined townspeople to either stop the red-ops team or successfully escape them. Both are impossible. And, the more Streng learns about the team’s mission, the more he realizes there is a connection to his estranged brother, Warren. Things are not quite what they seem.

Full disclosure: I almost quit reading after the first fifteen pages. Torture flicks and books are just not my thing, and this one opens with a very unsettling scene. Plus, there’s a kid and two loyal animals involved. I don’t do well with stories that hurt kids and animals. I was worried.

That said, I’m glad I persevered. Although there is a ridiculously high body count, disturbing mutilations, bear traps (!), and lots of dirty fighting, there’s actually a warm heart to this book. I’m serious. I’m also trying to resist gory jokes about warm hearts. The book rubbed off, a little.

The characters (though subject to a low survival rate) carry the story. We root for Sheriff Streng, who turns out to be one tough old lawman. We’re cheering for Fran who goes all Sarah Connor when her bright, caring son Duncan and his beagle, Woof, are threatened. There are some poignant moments of self-sacrifice near the end that truly choked me up. Afraid does have heart: a living, beating one.

Afraid is a highly suspenseful read. You’ll fly through the book. It has a couple of crafty twists, lots of bloody battles, and just enough family love and a whisper of romance to humanize it.

*Minor spoiler alert ahead for sensitive souls who are waffling on this title*

The animals and the kid make it through safely. You can read it.

November 10, 2019
by Jennifer Leave a comment

Review: The Fog

The Fog—James Herbert, 1975. Rating: 4/5

A menacing yellow fog drifts across the British countryside, leaving everyone it touches violently insane in James Herbert’s 1975 classic.

John Holman is conducting a solo mission for the Department of the Environment. This time, Holman’s investigating what exactly the Ministry of Defense is doing with a very securely guarded swath of land near a little village in Wiltshire. But concerns about his mission take a backseat when an unnatural earthquake swallows half the village and Holman’s car. As he and a little girl struggle to escape the giant hole, a peculiar-smelling yellow mist rises from the depths. Holman and the girl emerge: he’s a raving lunatic, and the girl is comatose.

Miraculously, Holman recovers his sanity—which is fortunate for us readers because he’s our hero. Holman thinks (correctly) there is something suspicious about this yellow fog, which is growing denser and moving around almost as if it has its own agenda (which it does). When Holman’s boss goes insane and kills himself, and Holman’s girlfriend, Casey, tries to butcher him, Holman learns (painfully) that he’s on the right track. Bizarre, savage murders and barbarically aberrant behaviors spread like wildfire in the wake of the fog. The British government rallies medical researchers and the army to stop the malevolent mist, but it is up to Holman, the only person with immunity to its effects, to carry out the final plan.

This is not John Carpenter’s The Fog. No relation at all. Herbert’s novel is uniquely and immediately terrifying. He grabs you within the first three pages and you’re on board for the duration: The pace is unrelenting. As quickly as the authorities catch on and scramble to discover the origin of the fog, and how to stop it, London dissolves into a shadowy, nightmare dystopia. Holman must make his way through this murky killing zone, facing everything from murderous cultists to a psychotic bus driver. I was reminded—in a good way— of some of my favorites: Matheson’s I Am Legend, and the films 28 Days Later and The Warriors. A warning to the sensitive: There is a lot of graphic violence, a bit of it sexual in nature, and a massive bloody, body count. That said, the story is gripping and the characters— although many of them are short-lived—are well-drawn and their plights affecting. This my first James Herbert novel, and I can’t believe I haven’t read him before this. I’ve already added three of his other titles to my queue.