Love those slow-cooker recipes!

I'm on a recipe roll.

Mr. L and I save the newspaper to read in the evenings. After a day at the computer, we just want to chill out with an adult beverage and the paper. We don't read our local paper (OMG--what a disaster), so every day Mr. L goes to the grocery store and picks up the Buffalo News.

The last thing I want to do after relaxing for an hour or so is get up and cook dinner. That's why I love my slow cooker. Toss everything in and six to eight hours later you've got your evening meal read to serve. And one-pot (or crock) meals are a breeze to clean up, too. (Okay, usually the crock soaks overnight and then it gets washed and put away in the morning.)

One of the easiest recipes I make is Slow Cooker Kielbasa and Beans. It literally couldn't be easier.

Ingredients
1 pound smoked turkey kielbasa, cut into coins
1 large onion, chopped
1 medium sweet red pepper, chopped
2 cans (16 ounces each) beans, rinsed and drained
½ cup chicken broth
Pepper to taste

Add all the ingredients to your slow cooker and switch it to the "high" setting.  Give it a stir and cover. If using raw onions and peppers, let it cook for 5-6 hours. If using frozen onions and peppers, give them a quick thaw in the microwave. Heat on high for 2 to 3 hours. (Everything is pretty much already cooked, so you're really only heating it up.)

Yield:  6 servings

It doesn't matter what kind of beans you use. I've used just kidney beans, and I've switched it around using cannellini, garbanzo, black-eyed peas, great northern beans--anything I had in the cupboard--and it still turns out great.

Another great thing about this recipe: if you use turkey kielbasa, there's very little fat, it tastes great, and has very few calories.  Win-win!

Have you got any easy-peasy slow cooker recipes you'd like to share?

My Easter Dessert

The best part of holidays for me is ... the food. It's so enjoyable to share a wonderful meal with friends and/or family, and this year for Easter we're going traditional with a spiral ham, deviled eggs, honeyed carrots, rolls, and at least one more fresh veggie. We'll see what's at the store tomorrow.

But my favorite part of the meal is the dessert.  Okay, I've got a sweet tooth. This year, I'm leaning toward cake. My upcoming book, The Best From Swans Nest, a Lotus Bay Cookbook, has ten cake recipes and five frosting recipes. YUM! I'm leaning toward making spice cake with maple frosting. (That maple frosting also takes great with carrot cake or hummingbird cake. Yum-yum!)

Spice Cake
Ingredients
¼ cup butter or ½ cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup dark-brown sugar, packed
4 eggs
½ cup milk
½ cup molasses
2¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC, Gas Mark 4). Butter and lightly flour two 8-inch round cake pans. Cream the butter or shortening and slowly add the two sugars, beating until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, then add the milk and molasses, beating thoroughly. In another bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients and add to the wet mixture, beating until well blended. Pour the batter into the pans and bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then turn out onto a rack.

Frost with your favorite cream cheese or buttercream frosting. Also tastes great with maple or caramel frosting, or sift confectioners’ sugar over the top.

Yield:  6 to 8 servings

Maple Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2¾ cups confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup
¼ cup chopped walnuts

Place the softened butter in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer for 30 to 40 seconds until whipped. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Sift the confectioner’s sugar into the bowl. Beat with an electric mixer for 30 to 40 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the brown sugar and maple syrup. Beat for 2 to 3 minutes or until the mixture is fluffy, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Stir in the walnuts until just until mixed and spread on the cooled cake.

Yield: 3 cups

THE BEST FROM SWANS NEST arrives on May 14th. Pre-order your copy now!

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Adding a little spice to my life

Some of you might remember that I love Indian food. I like spicy food (either Indian or Mexican), too.  But ... I'm not fond of Indian or Mexican restaurants.  A) Most Indian restaurants have a buffet. They food is good but ... not spicy (because many Americans seem pretty timid about spices) and B) Most buffets aren't hot.  Not talking spicy here, talking temperature.  It seems like there must be a shortage of sterno under the "warming" trays. And C) They don't have good bars. I don't want to pay $7 for a lousy martini.  (There, I said it.)

So ... the answer?

Make the food myself.  I've got a few Indian recipes that I make over and over again, but I've decided I want to do more. I'd like to make at least one new recipe a week. My only real problem is that I usually don't have the ingredients on hand, so this is going to take some planning. It's not so much the spices--I've got them and use them a lot, mostly for breakfasts and lunches (yup, I put curry powder in my omelets--garlic and cumin, too).  It's things like plain yogurt and coconut milk.

So, in my quest for new-to-me food (and I'm not adverse to eating more vegetarian, either), here's the first recipe I made. And since there are only two of us, it made a HUGE amount of leftovers.

Easy One-Pot Cauliflower Curry Recipe
Ingredients
1 medium cauliflower head cut into florets
1 tablespoon vegetable or olive oil
2 cups white onions,  chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon cumin
¼ teaspoon ground coriander
4 teaspoons curry powder
Salt and black pepper to taste
2 cups diced tomato with the juice from the can
2 cups green peas — frozen or fresh (optional)
 ¾ cups coconut milk from the can — not carton coconut milk
cooked rise

In a large pot, add 2 cups of water and place a steamer in the bottom.
Bring the water to a boil. Add the cauliflower florets in the steamer basket, cover the pot, and steam for about 6 to 8 minutes. Remove the steamer basket (with the cauliflower) from the pot and let the cauliflower cool down for 5 minutes. Set aside. (Discard water.)

Return the pot  to the stove and add oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and sauté until the onions are tender (3 to 5 minutes) Add the cumin, coriander, curry powder, salt, and pepper. Stir well to combine everything. Add the tomatoes, green peas (if using) and stir in the coconut milk. Bring to a simmer and add the cauliflower back to the pot. Cook everything together for 3 to 5 minutes before serving. Serve over cooked rice.

Yield:  6 to 8 servings

Truthfully, I upped the curry and garlic, and next time I make it, I'll put in some cayenne in for heat. I also opted not to add the peas, but I think I will next time (only I might only put in 1 cup).

And how was it?

Terrific.  And it made a LOT. (Guess what I'll be having for lunch for the next few days.)

What new recipe have you made for yourself and/or your family?

You'll get only The Best From Swans Nest

Woo-hoo! Two years in the making, but at last THE BEST FROM SWANS NEST is now available for pre-order. It's a companion cookbook for the Lotus Bay Mystery series.

What's been fun for me is giving background information for Kathy Grant and what her inn and food mean to her. If you're a fan of the Lotus Bay Mysteries, and you like to eat, you'll want to add this companion to the series to your ereader. (And yes, it will also be available in print -- hopefully on the same day as the ebook. I'll keep you posted.)

Here's a brief description:

Kathy Grant, owner of the Swans Nest Inn on beautiful Lotus Bay, has collected more than a hundred mouth-watering recipes that she not only offers her B&B guests, but the brides who book their engagement and wedding parties at the inn.

Now you can enjoy the same treats like sweet sausage coffee ring, lots of marvelous muffins, quiche, stuffed mushrooms and many, many more!

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Hooked on British Reality Shows

I don't like American reality TV shows. There, I said it. They're just too scripted and full of drama. I may be wrong, but British reality shows seem a lot more real to me.

It seems like every few months I find another show on YouTube to binge on.  Last month, it was Bad Tenants, Rogue Landlords. (Its original title was Bad Tenants, Scum Landlords. I guess they had to change it.)  Over the 40+ episodes, I got to feel like Paul and Chris were chums, helping people with really bad tenants get back their properties. (And there were more than a couple of scary moments that I'm sure were NOT scripted.)

This week, I found a new show to have playing in the background while I do mundane things like pair socks and fold towels:  Eat Well For Less.  This show features two guys (Gregg and Chris) who watch people shop, confront them at the register, and then go to their homes and swap out bad-for-you and expensive food for lower calorie and cheaper (similar) products.

Unfortunately, there aren't many episodes available on YouTube so I'll be looking for something new next week, but I've quite enjoyed the episodes I was able to see.

What I like best is that most of the families eat a LOT of processed food -- mostly because they think they don't have the time or were never taught to cook. I like the cooking portions best. They don't give the recipes, but you can find them online. (There are a few I want to try -- like vegetable croquettes, where you take all the dodgy veggies out of your fridge, chop or cut into ribbons, add a little flour, some garlic, and a couple of eggs, and fry them in a little oil. I can see me making that in the summer when the garden is over-producing. The Rosted Caluiflower with Romesco Sauce sounds good, too.

After watching those shows, it really made me want to get in the kitchen and cook. Unfortunately, I didn't have most of the ingredients for the dishes they made. (Like coconut oil, plain yogurt, etc.) I'm going to have to hit the grocery store and stock up on some of these ingredients.

Any suggestions on what British show I should try to watch next?

Baking with my characters

I was speaking with my hairdresser the other day (got my roots done -- I'm YOUNG again!) and she was telling me that her husband doesn't like to eat. She has to remind him to eat.

A person who doesn't like to eat??????????

I smell cake/cookies/muffins/Yorkshire pudding and I gain weight. Therefore, I live vicariously through my characters who love to bake. Among them: Katie Bonner, Kathy Grant, and most recently Tricia Miles. These ladies are baking up a storm--and they can do it and not get fat because they have an audience they can feed. Katie has her vendors at Artesans Alley, Kathy has been experimenting with recipes for her B&B and feeding her friends Tori, Anissa, Noreen and Paul. Tricia has her employees, Pixie and Mr. Everett (and when you read A Killer Edition, which will be out next year, this will become really obvious.)


But I like to bake, too. And the other day my neighbor, who has a huge garden, put out a little stand for veggies his family can't eat. It's so cute with a colorful umbrella to shade the veggies during the day. And I picked up a zucchini, tomato and a chili pepper. The zucchini was too big for stir fry, but I knew when I picked it up it was destined for zucchini muffins.

Who's my audience? Mr. L. He loves baked goods for breakfast and this will be my second batch of zucchini muffins this summer. In fact, I will need to make a double batch because it is such a big zucchini. That doesn't worry me!  Here's my recipe.

Zucchini Muffins
Ingredients
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil
2 cups finely shredded unpeeled zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dried currants or chopped raisins

Preheat oven to 350° In a bowl, combine the first six ingredients. Combine the egg and oil; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in the zucchini, walnuts and currants. Coat muffin cups with cooking spray or use paper liners; fill three-fourths full with batter. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack.

Yield: 12 muffins

Who do you bake for? (And care to share a recipe, too?)

==========================================

Recipes to Die For: A Victoria Square Cookbook, was the first companion book I did for my New York Times bestselling  Victoria Square Mystery series. In it, Katie Bonner shares her favorite recipes, and those of her vendors and the merchants on Victoria Square, plus each contributors signature drink and anecdotes about their lives on Victoria square.

Treat yourself today!

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It's a bumber crop!

This year I've got a bumper crop of rhubarb. Of course, the thing I love to make most is rhubarb chutney, but I made so much of it two years ago, that I haven't even started last year's jars.  And -- holy cow, did I mention that bumper crop???

Luckily, Mr. L loves rhubarb ANYTHING. In years past, I've made him rhubarb crisp and strawberry-rhubarb pies. My folks used to like stewed rhubarb with Bird's custard.

I'm going for rhubarb bread and here's the recipe I'm using.

Rhubarb Bread
Ingredients
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1½ cups brown sugar
1 egg
2½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk (liquid or made from powder)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1½ cup chopped rhubarb (small but not fine)
¾ cup chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC, Gas Mark 4). Mix the oil, brown sugar, and egg together in mixing bowl. Alternate with flour, salt and soda. Add buttermilk, vanilla, rhubarb and walnuts. Bake in a well-greased tube pan for 34-55 minutes. Test with a toothpick to see if done. This recipe tastes better the day after baking. Refrigerate any leftovers. Keeps well in the freezer for several weeks.

Yield: 12-16 slices

What's your favorite rhubarb recipe?

It wasn't supposed to turn out this way

For years, I was able to enjoy the very best quiche in the world at The Sherwood Inn in Skaneateles, NY. It was a quiche like I'd never had before. About 4 inches high with a thick custard center, and usually with asparagus. OMG -- it was good.  And then ... one day, they stopped making it that way. What a bummer. : (

I recently got this very pretty Mikasa quiche pan at a yard sale and that made me determined to try my hand at a from-scratch quiche.  (My mother used to make them all the time back in the 80s and 90s.)

I've been looking for a recipe like that for years, and one of my readers gave me one she thought might fit the bill.  I assembled my ingredients and I figured I was good to go.

My first attempt tasted good, but wasn't at all tall.  (Very pretty pan--but too small. I ended up making omelets with the leftover egg and cream mixture.)

On Tuesday, I was all set to make a tall quiche. I bought a springform pan at a yard sale and it was at least an inch taller than the last.  One tiny problem.  I (again) decided to add mushrooms to the recipe (because I like them) and like Julia Child liked to say, "don't crowd the mushrooms." So while I was browning the crust, I was paying more attention to the mushrooms and ... (BTW, my smoke alarms work really, REALLY well!)

I ended up having a salad for supper that night. (Oh well, at least it had a lot less calories!)

Went a little overboard on the Swiss cheese.  Grated 3 times what I needed.

So Wednesday, I decided to try again.  But this time, even though I rolled the crust thinner, it didn't "take" in the pan. It shrunk. I put in as much of the cream and egg mixture as I could but ... (you got it, I'll be having an omelet for breakfast today). It tasted good, but no thick, creamy custard.

It was taller, but not by much.

I'm now in search for a taller, yet smaller (in diameter) springform pan. I'm determined to replicate that quiche if I have to eat a dozen of them to do it. One of my readers told me about a Mile-High Quiche, and I'm going to try that recipe.

Have you ever had a frustrating recipe that just wouldn't work out?

Cakes, Cookies, Pies? It's your choice today!

Can you imagine a world without calories? Nah, neither can I.

BUT ... can you also imagine how sad it would be to live in a world without dessert?

Just think, no cakes, no pies, no cookies, no pastries, no ice cream, no cheesecake, no fruit. It's enough to make you cry! Luckily, that's not the world we live in.

You can go to the grocery store or bakery and indulge yourself and/or your family, or you can take the satisfaction of making dessert yourself.

Recipes To Die For: A Victoria Square Cookbook can help.  Katie Bonner, of the Victoria Square Mysteries, has put together a collection of recipes for breakfast, lunch, happy hour (in the form of signature drinks), and dinner -- but most enjoyably, for teatime and dessert.

Pies, cookies, cakes -- you name it, she's made them and collected recipes from friends and fellow merchants on Victoria Square to share with readers and friends.

So maybe just for this one day -- indulge yourself. Make something wonderful for your family. Katie is glad to lend a hand!

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So, what's YOUR favorite dessert?

I love this holiday!

Now here's a holiday I can get behind. I could eat Yorkshire Pudding every day of the week and NEVER get tired of it. (Had some last week as a matter of fact.) Love it, love it, love it!!!

Click this link for an English #recipe -- so you know it's good. (I use drippings when I can -- otherwise olive oil.)

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/9020/best-yorkshire-puddings

My veggie garden gives up its peppers

As a follow-up to Saturday's post, I thought I'd talk about my veggie garden.

Every year I plant a veggie garden. Some years we have good luck, some years ... not so much.  This year Mr. L dislocated his shoulder, and so the veggie garden went in late (in mid-June). I bought plants at the garden center, stuck them in the dirt, and hoped for the best.

The tomatoes have gone absolutely bananas ... but they're only just starting to ripen. If we have a frost, they'll be toast.  I bought two spindly pepper plants that did nothing until about a month ago--then they went bananas. Yesterday I picked 5 of them and there are still 5 or 6 small ones that may or may not get much bigger. I'll keep watching the weather and if it looks like a frost, I'll pick everything.

Meanwhile, it was time for Mr. L's recipe for ...


SAUSAGE-STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS
 Ingredients
4 medium peppers, with tops cut off and seeded
1 pound seasoned sausage, like Bob Evans hot, bulk, 1 pound roll
1 medium onion, chopped
½ tsp. oregano
1 cup mozzarella
2 cups (1 small jar) Traditional Italian Sauce

Directions
Blanch the pepper bottoms in boiling water for 4 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC, Gas Mark 6).   Heat some olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat, and then add the sausage and cook until well browned, stirring often to separate meat.

Stir the onion and oregano into the skillet and cook until the onion is tender. Now, stir in the cheese.

Arrange the pepper halves, cut-side up, in your baking tray. Spoon the sausage mixture into the pepper halves. Pour the sauce over the filled pepper halves. Halfway through baking, poke the peppers so any extra juice can leak out (makes for less soggy peppers).

Bake 40-45 minutes until the peppers are tender.

While this recipe is NOT in The Cozy Chicks Kitchen (after all, Mr. L isn't a Chick), there are lots of great recipes you can try.  If you haven't given it a shot, maybe now is the time to do so!

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So, what are you cooking from your garden?

I long to bake ...

I love to bake, but I seldom do it. Why? Calories.

I've been reading Susan Branch's Martha's Vineyard: Isle of Dreams. It's a memoir of how she became the unique and famous cookbook author that she is. (I won't admit to you how many times I've read it since it came out in April, either--but it's more than five.)

This book speaks to me on so many levels; as an author, as someone who struggled to become an author (although Suan's book was accepted on her second try--and she never had to go through the whole struggle of finding an agent and 11 years of rejection. And she didn't start at a small press, she went straight to the top). Am I jealous?  A little green with envy, but it doesn't pay to be jealous. Everybody has their journey and that's what makes their talent singular.

We have other things in common. We both drink a LOT of tea. We both bought tiny houses as single women, when not many women were doing that. (Although I bought my first house at age 24; she was 34.) She was writing from an early age (her diaries--which is why she is such a good memoirist), and I always had my secret stories, but didn't start writing them down until I was 17. She made people happy through her cooking. I made me happy through baking.

She's sprinkled recipes throughout the book,  (Hey, she's primarily a cookbook author, and her recipes are good.) I'm a cookbook author, too (though not nearly as successful). I used to hate to cook, but always enjoyed baking. These days, I'm cooking more (and finally enjoying the process), but not baking as much.

I live in fear of the scale. As you get older, it's so much harder to lose weight. I recently went on a diet and lost six pounds. For our anniversary, Mr. L bought us a cake (and it wasn't THAT big a cake). She shared it, 50/50.  I gained 6 pounds and he didn't gain an ounce.

I'm back on the diet.

But today I'm going to bake zucchini bread. My container garden plant gave me two tiny zucchinis and I bought two more at the Public Market.  I'm going to allow myself one slice, and then freeze the rest. Mr. L will enjoy it for breakfast in the coming weeks. But you know, I'm getting tired of only having one slice. I feel so demoralized by having to deny myself things I like because of the power of that damned scale.

The fact is, most of my family are diabetics and I'm not. And I want to keep it that way. So I'll just have my one slice. And I'll keep writing about food and eating vicariously. That's the only way I'm going to keep from packing on the pounds.

Have you struggled in this way?

=======================================
P.S.  Here's my zucchini bread recipe (made with unsweetened applesauce for less calories--of course, adding the nuts kind of cancels that out--except walnuts are very healthy. (Yes, they are!)

Ingredients
3 eggs, beaten
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 cup granulated sugar
(or 1 brown sugar + 1 granulated sugar)
2 cups grated zucchini squash
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC, Gas Mark 4). Combine the eggs, applesauce, and sugar until well blended. Stir in the zucchini and vanilla. Sift together the flour, salt, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda; stir into zucchini mixture. Stir in chopped nuts. Bake in 2 well-greased loaf pans for 1 hour.

 Yield: 28 slices

Why not apply it straight to your thighs?

Doesn't everybody love fudge? I rarely eat it though because of the calorie count. The first time I made fudge, I was about 13 and didn't know what a candy thermometer was. We didn't have one, so I winged it. I didn't end up with fudge, I ended up with chocolate-flavored SAND. I felt like Betty Crocker had failed me.

Here's a recipe for peanut butter fudge that doesn't need a candy thermometer and tastes pretty darn good.

1/2 cup butter
 2 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
3/4 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the brown sugar and milk. Bring it to a boil and boil for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from the heat. Stir in the peanut butter and vanilla. Pour over the confectioners' sugar in a large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth; pour into an 8x8 inch pan. Chill until firm and cut into 1-inch squares.

Yield: 64 pieces

Your taste buds will love this!

Back in March, one of my readers posted a video blog (vlog) talking about making fried rice. I knew back then that I would HAVE to make the "recipe" for myself some-when soon. But first I had to have the main ingredients on hand to do it.

Well, that happened this week. Mr. L and I bought a very nice pork roast last week, but we knew we couldn't eat it right away, so off to the freezer it did go.

We come from families who used to have a big Sunday dinners, so we waited it for Sunday and roasted it. But since I knew we'd have a TON of leftovers,and I remembered Loremil's fried rice recipe, I decided to make a big pot of basmati rice the same day. You see, fried rice "comes good" when the rice has been made the day before.

So, I tossed a cup of rice into two cups of water, brought it to a roiling boil, and let it sit there for three full minutes. Then I turned off the burner, covered the pot, and let it sit for about 45 minutes.  (You don't even need to let it sit that long--30 minutes usually does it, but I had other stuff to do.)

Once the rice cooled a bit, I put it in the fridge and forgot about it ... until the next day.

Loremil’s Fried Rice
Ingredients
1 cup basmati rice, cooked and set aside for a day
3 eggs, beaten well
Vegetable oil
1 large carrot, diced (optional)
1 large onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
Steak seasoning or garlic-pepper seasoning
White pepper (optional)
½ cup diced ham or pork
1½-2 tablespoons soy sauce
½ cup frozen peas (peas and carrot, or mixed vegetables)

Put day-old cooked (basmati) rice in a big mixing bowl and break up. (Wet your hands before breaking it up or use a spoon.)

Whisk the eggs and cook them in a fry pan with a little vegetable oil. Season with the garlic salt, steak seasoning, and white pepper.  When the eggs are half done, turn them over.  When thoroughly cooked, cut up into strips or snip with cooking shears.

In another fry pan, add a little vegetable oil and brown the pork or ham until crispy.  Add the carrots, onions, and garlic. Stir, but don’t let them burn. Add seasoning to taste. Let the vegetables cook until the onions are translucent but still a little hard.

Add the rice and more seasoning to taste.

Combine the rice, the vegetables, and the eggs. Add the soy sauce.  Add the frozen peas and stir.

Lower the heat.  Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes. Then raise temp to med-high for 5-6 minutes to brown and crisp everything up.

Serve as a main or side dish.

I must admit, this was the BEST fried rice I've ever eaten in my life (and I've eaten a lot), and I think it was because I may have put a tad more garlic in it than most restaurants use.

Okay, it's a little fussy to make, but the results will be well worth it.

If you'd like to see Loremil make this dish, just click this link to see her video.

What's your favorite "ethnic" recipe?

When I want to lose weight -- I eat this for lunch

For many years I practically bragged that I didn't like to cook. I'm rather impatient and cooking takes time.  I did like to bake, but cooking?  Not so much.

And then my father passed away and my mother stopped cooking for herself.  She would eat a microwaved poached egg and toast, or heat up a frozen fish fillet in the toaster oven, and that was about all. It was up to my brother and me to make sure she was eating something with nutrition. It turns out that my brother is a pretty darn good cook. I needed to step up to the plate.

Something my Mum liked was egg drop soup from the Chinese take-away around the corner. I shudder when I think of that container of greasy goop that passed for egg drop soup. I needed to find a healthier recipe.  The one I now use takes about five minutes to make and is practically fat-free. (The time sink is getting the chicken stock up to a boil.)

Ingredients
4 cups chicken broth or stock
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon sugar (optional)
2 teaspoons seasoned rice vinegar
salt, to taste 
2 green onions, (spring onions, scallions) green parts only, thinly sliced

In a saucepan, bring the chicken broth to a boil. Add the sugar, salt, and the rice wine or dry sherry if using. Cook for about another minute. Remove from the heat. Gradually stir in the egg white, stirring in one direction only. Chopsticks work well for this if you have them. Garnish with the green onion and serve.

Yield: 2-4 servings
I make this for lunch several times a month. It's very low in calorie (I don't even put the sugar in it--instead using more of the rice vinegar).

Do you have a fast, easy recipe you use on a regular basis?

If you have a cool (or cold) night--this is perfect.

While we're already deep into spring, Mother Nature doesn't seem to have noticed. We had frost earlier this week, which gave me a hankering for some good English comfort food.  I read a bunch of recipes for Shepherd's Pie and Cottage Pie and US recipes just weren't going to cut it, so I went to the BBC to find 3 different recipes--and all were quite different. I picked one and had to make some adaptations.  (Example:  Finding ground lamb around here was going to be a BIG problem, so I decided to go for Cottage Pie, which uses mince ... er, I mean hamburger.)

Last summer I found a really cool, OLD casserole dish that I knew would be perfect for this dish.
Here're the ingredients:

 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
 1 large onion, finely chopped
 2 medium carrots, diced
 2 stalks celery
 1 cup frozen peas
 1 pound hamburger
 1 tablespoon plain flour
 2 sprigs fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
 3 tablespoons tomato puree or sauce
 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
 16 fluid ounces of or beef stock
 salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the mashed potatoes
 1½ pounds potatoes, peeled and cut into halves or quarters
 ¼ cup milk
 2-3 tablespoons butter
 1 egg yolk
  

 In a large frying pan, add 2 tablespoons olive oil and fry the hamburger, stirring, until browned all over. While the meat is frying, break up any lumps with the back of the spoon.  Add the flour and stir. Mix well and add the thyme, Worcestershire sauce and stir. Set aside.

 Boil the potatoes.
 
 
 Deglaze the hamburger pan with a little stock. and saute the onions, carrots, celery, and stock. Cook until the onions and carrots are soft.  (About ten minutes).  Add the peas and the tomato sauce.

 Preheat the oven to 400°F.


Add the cooked hamburger to the veggies and bring to a high simmer, adding a pinch of salt and pepper, stirring regularly.  Once it's all heated through, put it in the casserole dish.

For the mashed potatoes, boil the potatoes until tender (about 10 minutes). Drain, add the milk, butter and egg yolk, then mash until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.
 
 Spread the mashed potatoes on top, smooth over and drag a fork over the top for decoration.

 Put the dish into the oven and cook until the surface is golden-brown. (About 40 minutes.)

 And here's a picture of my dinner.

 Serves 4 good sized portions.  Yum!  Enjoy! (And you just know this recipe is going to end up in one of my books, right?)

 What's your idea of comfort food on a COLD day???

Foodie Friday: Tacos for everyone!

Today is National Taco Day ... and my character Angelica Miles of the Booktown Mysteries is celebrating with her own recipe.  It's from the fourth book in the series, Chapter & Hearse.

Here's the recipe.

Hacienda Tacos

Ingredients
3 cups coarsely chopped or shredded (pulled) simmered chicken
1 onion, chopped
½  green pepper, chopped
1 ½ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 ½ to 2 teaspoon chili powder (according to taste)
1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce
8 oz. water
12 corn (or flour) 8 or 9 inch tortillas (or taco shells)
1 cup lettuce cut into strips
1 tomato, chopped
¾ cup grated or shredded Cheddar cheese
Your favorite bottled salsa

In a large skillet, mix together the chicken, onion, green pepper, salt, pepper, chili powder, tomato sauce and water. Cook covered over low heat for about 15 minutes. Cook, uncovered for five to ten minutes, until excess liquid is gone. Oven heat the tortillas and fill the lower 3/4 with chicken mixture and the remainder with the tomatoes, cheese and lettuce. Top as needed with a spoonful of the salsa. 

Foodie Friday: Ruminations on Rhubarb

I had a load of fun putting together y little cookbook RECIPES TO DIE FOR: A Victoria Square Cookbook together. The odd thing is, most of the recipes are ones I really do use over and over again. (It's kind of nice to have them all in one place.)

It's springtime and for me that means fresh rhubarb. What an odd vegetable.  I never thought about it as a vegetable, since the only thing I use it for is desserts and chutney, but it really is a veggie, and the leaves are very, very poisonous.  (If you value your liver, never, EVER eat them.)  But the stalks are just fine to eat--and EXTEMELY tart! We've got rhubarb up the wazoo and I've been even tossing it in my green smoothies.  (Yes, VERY TART indeed.)

Mr. L is partial to rhubarb crisp. Here's my favorite recipe

Ingredients:
1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup quick cooking rolled oats
½ cup melted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
4 cups sliced rhubarb
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350°. In mixing bowl, combine the brown sugar, flour, oats, butter, and cinnamon; mix together until crumbly. Press half of the brown sugar and oats mixture into a buttered 8-inch square baking dish. Top with the sliced rhubarb. In a saucepan combine 1 cup granulated sugar, cornstarch, and the 1 cup of water and vanilla. Cook together until the liquid is clear, then pour over the rhubarb. Top the rhubarb with remaining crumb mixture and bake for 45 to 55 minutes. Serve warm, and if desired, with a scoop of ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream.

Yield:  4-6 servings.

Mmm-mmm good!

And in case you are interested in RECIPES TO DIE FOR, here are a few links.

Watch the video!  (Made by Ellery Adams and me!)

Trade PaperbackKindle US
Kindle Worldwide
Nook
iBooks
Kobo
Smashwords

P.S.  New recipe up on my Lorna Barrett Website from Bookmarked for Death.  Find it here!

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