*Collapses, flailing on the couch with relief*~from Mandy Wrangles garden.

Finally, tomato season is over! I made my final batch of green tomato chutney over the weekend, marking the end of what turned out to be months of weekend sauces, chutneys, relishes and salsas.

I’ve pulled most of my tomato plants out – already replacing some with garlic, kale and leek – and this weekend I’ll pull the remaining ten or so. Already, there’s literally hundreds of baby tomato plants popping their heads up after self-seeding. What a shame they won’t last the winter! Along with tomato preserves, I’ve been pickling chilli, gherkins and other veggies, drying herbs and freezing berries. I feel very organised and prepared for any zombie apocalypse.

Berries

I’m still getting about half a dozen strawberries and maybe three or four ripe raspberries each day. While I did get to make loads of yummy stuff with the strawbs, there was never quite enough razzies in one day to do much with. So towards the end of the season, I’ve been freezing my berries. It’s by far the easiest and most practical way of preserving them for use later in the year.

Raspberries, I simply pick and immediately pop into a small snap-lock bag in the freezer. I don’t even bother to wash them – my garden is totally organic, so I know there’s no unwanted chemicals hanging around, and the lack of water means no ice crystals will form on the fruit.

I do, however, check the berries over for unwanted critters and hitchhikers! With strawberries, I’ll hull them first, and maybe slice the bigger ones in half. That’s it! Perfect for baking, defrosting to have with breakfast cereal, yogurt or desserts.

Herbs

Last summer, I turned most of my basil into pesto and froze it. I didn’t find it all that successful, and we struggled to use it all up. This year, along with chives, Italian parsley, oregano and celery leaves (sooo delicious!) I’ve been dehydrating my basil to use dried in the kitchen.

It’s time consuming, but so, so simple. You can buy a basic dehydrator like mine for about $40 upwards. I think we paid around $60 five years ago. For herbs, just pick straight from the garden, remove leaves and check for critters. With chives,

I hold a bunch in one hand and snip them into smaller pieces with scissors – much easier than cutting with a knife. Arrange leaves flat on the shelves of your dehydrator, and set to a low heat for about six to eight hours. You’ll know when they’re ready because the herbs will be crunchy. Your kitchen will smell AMAZING for days. Commercial dried herbs have nothing on the homemade stuff – you’ll find home dried herbs have a more concentrated flavour and are a great replacement when you can’t get hold of fresh produce. 

When emotions are erased from the world, creating a civilization of mindless drones, only those with fury can survive.

On the same day each year Josephine Luquet wakes naked, shivering and covered in blood that is not her own. Under the cold gaze of the blood moon she is someone else entirely, but when dawn breaks her memories flee and she is left with only an icy horror, a burning fury. Amid a sea of drones, she alone hasn’t been cured.
It will be the same each year: atrocities forgotten, truths hidden and pieces of herself left to die.

Until Luke.

He isn’t like the other drones. With secrets whispering behind his eyes and a hunger for all things Josephine, he is the only one determined to help her discover the truth before the next blood moon rises.
But time is running out. Is Luke willing to risk his life to be near her? Does he truly understand what violence she is capable of?

Raw and full of passion, Fury is a story of love in a dystopian world, and how much we are willing to forgive in the struggle to remember our humanity.

Kindle Edition, 1st, 348 pages

Published March 25th 2014 by Momentum Books, Pan Macmillan

Fury is a story about Josephine trying to come to terms with the fact that she is unlike anybody else. Stories of her past and present day interweave and we meet the people who try to help her, and those who try to destroy her.  We also get bits of information about how the world has changed and what caused people’s emotions to be erased.

The fact that the novel is told from three different perspectives means that we get to see different sides of Josephine and how she deals with what happens to her every year. My favorite parts of the story were from Anthony’s–her therapist’s– perspective.  Through Anthony, I was able to get more of an idea of the world outside Luke and Josephine’s relationship. His perspective gave me a better understanding to how the “emotions” play out in this world. Though people can feel no anger, there sure were a lot of really mean, abusive people in Josephine’s life.

I felt that the book was a mesh of two different stories. The dystopia (where people are mindless drones) was a fully-conceived separate idea from that of the Fury and its yearly release within Josephine. The combination of the two ideas was interesting, but I found myself a little perplexed with Josephine and how she viewed her world.

What I loved about the story was when the Fury was released within Josephine. It was scary, dark, and gory. I was gripped by suspense, waiting for the next time it would happen and to see how far it would go. It was never disappointing.

I recommend the book to those who enjoy dystopian horror stories. There was some romance as well, and Luke was a fun love interest with secrets of his own. Overall, it’s a pretty fast paced novel that delves deep into Josephine’s past and emotional well-being. 

Her style is like early Gwen Stefani, and you will have heard her songs on adds on the telly. Make no mistake, if rap is your thing and you haven’t discovered her, you are missing out.

23 year old Amethyst Amelia Kelly AKA Iggy Azalea, that’s who we’re talking about.

At 16 this vibrant young lady moved from the New South Wales town Mullumbimby to the USA, taking YouTube by storm with her songs Pussy and Two Times. She’s not only an award winning recording artist but a model to boot.

I guess the easiest thing would be to let Iggy speak for herself, so here’s her Vevo introduction Who the F**k is Iggy Azalea

Her biggest hit to date is Fancy which parodies Clueless. *Explicit Language warning*

She’s not my cup of tea, but I can respect her artistic style, both musically and visually.

It would take some real determination and heart to make it in the Hip Hop music industry, especially if you come from a small town in NSW!

Let me know in the comments what you think of Iggy Azalea?

**Marianne adds: ‘I love her!’

One of my favourite German dishes! It can be a bit messy the first time around, but the taste will make all the mess worth it. Delicious, especially with a fresh slice of lemon.

Ingredients:

• 8 pork scaloppini
• Salt and pepper
• 5 eggs
• Plain bread crumbs (I used Progresso)
• 2-3 cups of corn oil (I used Mazola)

Instructions:

1. Take your pork scaloppini out and let them thaw. This recipe won’t work if they’re frozen.
2. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the five eggs. You may need more later.
3. On a large plate pour out 2-3 cups of bread crumbs. You may need more later for this as well.
4. On another plate, put a thin layer of bread crumbs. This plate is for the finished breaded pork, and the bread crumbs are to ensure the meat will not stick to the plate.
5. Once your pork is completely thawed, salt and pepper each side.
6. Take a single slice of pork, dip and cover it in the whisked egg. Allow any excess egg to drip off.
7. Transfer it onto the bread crumbed plate, covering the entire thing with crumbs. When you’ve covered it and pushed down the crumbs to ensure they stick, pick up the pork and allow any extra crumbs to fall back onto the plate.
8. Transfer the pork to the third and final plate.
9. Repeat this process, until you’ve finished with all your pork scaloppini.
10.  In a large pot, pour 2-3 cups of corn oil or until you have about ½ inch on the bottom of your pot. On medium heat allow this to get hot. Prepare a clean plate with paper towels next to your stove. The paper towels are there to suck up any extra oil from the finished schnitzel.
11.  Once your oil is hot, add your breaded pork. Be careful: oil does start to pop and can burn you. Do not flip it until the bottom side is a darker gold color. Turn it over to the other side and let it cook until it matches the color of the top. This can happen pretty quickly, so don’t leave it out of your sight.
12.  Take your schnitzel out of the pot, and transfer it to a plate with paper towels. And continue doing this with all your breaded pork.
13.  Make your favorite potato salad, or bake up some French fries, add a lemon slice to your schnitzel, and ENJOY!

One of my favorite German dishes! It can be a bit messy the first time around, but the taste will make all the mess worth it. Delicious, especially with a fresh slice of lemon.

If you haven’t started reading a Kiersten White book, you should! They are absolutely AHH-mazing reads! Recently I’ve been on a reading high that completely revolves around Kiersten White’s books. Her characters are fantastic and their development through her stories is incredible.

I’m addicted to her writing and the characters she creates. I’ll admit it.

When it comes to Mind Games, it’s exactly the same. The story follows two sisters named Annie and Fia. Annie is two years older, blind, and has the ability to see visions of the future; she still blames herself for not seeing her parents’ car crash and warning them earlier. Fia has perfect instincts and can see someone’s intentions before she even knows the person.

When their parents passed away, Annie was invited to attend a “special school” for girls with similar abilities to hers. No matter how unsure and uncomfortable Fia feels about this offer, Annie thinks it’s an amazing opportunity and doesn’t want to it give up.

After years of attending this “special school”, the two sisters quickly learn that it’s everything but. The school takes advantage of the girls and uses them for corporate espionage. Without any obvious powers, Fia is used for completely different work; she’s become the hands of the school, doing any and all of their dirty work.

If Fia refuses to do any of the jobs she’s given, Keane—the owner of the school—threatens to hurt Annie. While Annie is locked on a single floor in the school building without any idea of what her sister is doing, Fia is forced to eliminate a guy named Adam. She isn’t allowed to know why. She never is. She only has to get the job done.

When Fia can’t bring herself to murder Adam, she confesses everything to him and lets him go. She knows what she’s done and what’s at stake.

Fia’s tired of doing all the dirty work and she wants to escape with Annie. Even if it means having to lie, fake Adam’s death, and murder her own sister…

Let’s start with my favorite part: the characters.

As you already know, I LOVE Kiersten White’s characters, and Annie and Fia were two perfect examples. Annie was the older sister and was much more calm and collected. Fia, on the other hand, was the complete opposite. She was the younger sister, but felt like she was the protector of Annie, and was willing to do anything Keane asked of her to keep Annie safe. Fia did as she was asked, but she also had this IDGAF attitude, which was sooo kick butt!

Overall, the story was crazy good! The entire idea behind a school using girls with these super powers for corporate espionage was so interesting; I bet there are probably people who really do this too!

Don’t even get me started on the ending of Mind Games, because my brain is still mush! What a CRAZY ending. I can’t believe how this turned out!! I never saw it coming, and….just WOW!

But if I had to admit to one bad thing about Mind Games, it would be the structure. The story not only switched between the sisters’ perspectives, but also between different times. It would randomly go from the present to the past and then back to the present. Within a couple of chapters I got into the swing of things, but at first I was completely confused and lost.

If you get the chance to pick up Mind Games, I recommend you do! But beware: chapters don’t just take place in the present, but also in the past!