Lettuce Wraps and Sci-fi Smut

I have been a busy girl these last few days and haven’t had time for much more than salads and quick veggie sautees. I’ve been trying to come up with new ideas for easy vegetable based dishes that are light but filling. I’m working on a floribbean thing that I don’t have the right ingredients to play around with just yet, but look for that this weekend. Today I was looking for a recipe using sweet potatoes, but I couldn’t find what I wanted. I ended up surprising myself with what I came up with. Here’s what I did –

Filling

• one large sweet potato peeled, cubed and oven roasted w/olive oil (I usually roast a few of these to have on hand for snacks or recipes. It’s easy fairly quick and quite good!)
• 1/2 cup cooked black beans room temp or cold
• 1/2 cup cooked corn room temp or cold
• 2 roma tomatoes chopped (you can use compari, or whatever you have on hand)
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp dried cilatro
• 1/2 tsp salt

Throw everything together in a bowl and toss well.

Dressing

• 2 T vegenaise
• 1 tsp lime juice
• a few pinches chopped fresh cilantro (I almost always have fresh cilantro on hand, you can use dried, but the flavor won’t be as strong)
• 1 clove garlic minced

wisk everything in small bowl and drizzle over filling after stuffing into bib or boston lettuce leaves or you could use tortillas if you like. I also topped mine with roasted pecan pieces and a few sliced black olives. The combination of the sweetness from the potato and the tartness of the cilantro dressing is really good. I thought that the added crunch of the pecans was a nice finish too. It was very filling and yet not heavy. I’ll be making these again!

On to the smut! It’s no secret that I love erotica. I write reviews and I have a soft spot for sci-fi. There are just so many possibilities there. Anyway, I have been reading a new-to-me author Marie Harte and I love her! She writes this series called Circe’s Recruits and it’s unlike anything out there that I’ve read. It’s very difficult to come up with something unique and fresh in a genre that has practically seen it all. Granted, this series is not for the feint of heart.  The sex is mind blowingly graphic, about as hot as it gets in erotica and that’s saying something. But hot, raunchy sex aside, the storyline is surprisingly well crafted. See, there is more to erotica than smutty sex scenes! And the characterization is there. If you like hot reads and are into ebooks, this is a good read for you.

Which brings me to another thing – ebooks. Do any of you out there in blog land read them? There are so many good books out there that aren’t in print. Being a complete biblophile, there is nothing like the experience of reading an actual novel. I love the way books smell, the feel of them, collecting them etc. I always thought that I wouldn’t be much for ebooks. I still think that there is something impersonal about them. I am so glad that I was thrust, kicking and screaming mind you, into the world of ebooks by the site I review for. We deal mostly in electronic formats. It’s just more efficient for what we do. I am thankful for the world it has opended me up to. There are so many good authors and books that only come in electronic format and I would be missing out!