Besides cooking the next thing that I love to do is read. When I was younger, I would have my nose in a book pretty much every chance that I could get, which was pretty much every hour that I was not asleep. I was a huge sponge and read everything I could get my hands on. The library became my favorite place, where I would spend hours looking for books to run home so I could open them and instantly be transported, without having to leave my chair to far away places, where I would meet people from all walks of life an, experience things that would be impossible to experience in real life.

Reading has taught me about hatred, and about love, about fellowship and about aloneness. It assured me that I wasn’t the only kid who had certain fears, and it continued to prove to me that no one – absolutely no one – could keep me from finding out about something if I really wanted to.

When I read, I’m reminded of all of my senses and sensations and imaginations. When I read, I’m reminded I have a brain, and a heart, and a soul.

In my perfect world, the one where I would not need to work, I would spend my days cooking and reading book after book. Throw some travel in and you pretty much created my perfect trifecta.

Unfortunately, my world consist of working 8 to 5 and reading has taken a back seat to cleaning the house, doing errands and trying to catch up on much needed sleep!

And I have missed it.

So when my friend Steph from KitchenKM invited me to a monthly book club made up of other bloggers in our area I jumped at the chance.

Our goal was to read one book a month from a blogger and the first pick was right up my alley. A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table by Molly Wizenberg. Most food bloggers out there will recognize the name since her blog, Orangette is one of those that have gazillion followers, and so for the newbies in me this was a BIG DEAL.

I could give you a quick overview but you can get that in her blog or amazon. The point is that her book has about 50 recipes and one sounds better than the next, so far I have made 2, but I’m going to totally make the rest. This past weekend I made her Bouchons au Thon that is, as she puts it “… is a cross between a quiche and freshly-made country pate”.

They called out to me, because if there is anything in can goods that I love a lot – it’s tuna. This past Saturday all the elements were in place – I had tuna, I was lazy and we were hungry and could not face another ham and cheese sandwich. The beauty of this is that if you have everything it comes together pretty fast, then pop them in the oven and voila! A perfect little round of goodness for lunch or an early dinner fare.

Tom knocked 3 right off the bat, and that pretty much tells you how well received these were in our bellies.

You can find the recipe and the story behind them over at Orangette.

And because nobody ever has the perfect pantry of ingredients, this is what I did differently:

I replaced the crème fraiche with sour cream.
I used chopped fresh oregano instead of parsley.
And instead of tomato paste I used (don’t cringe because it worked) Ketchup
Did not have Gruyere in the cheese box but I had Comté which is pretty similar.

These will be made again, and this time I will follow the original recipe to the letter to compare.

But I have a feeling they will be just as good the second time around.