Cornbread BLT with Cheese

Hi. I'm at a writers and fans conference called Thrillerfest this week in New York, so I have to admit that I didn't make this sandwich last night or even last week. I was too busy packing, planning, stressing. But would you even know if I didn't tell you? Not about the packing and stressing but the baking?

This was an experiment that I just had to try. I adore corn bread. Being gluten-free, it's one of the few breads that I can make that keeps the original consistency I remember as a girl. I thought wouldn't it be great to have a cornbread BLT. I don't think I saw the idea on any food channels, but one never knows.

Anyway, I made my handy-dandy cornbread recipe, let it cool completely, sliced the pieces in halves, grilled the corn bread and added the makings of a great BLT in the middle. With cheese, of course. The results was so delicious I wanted two...no, three.  I settled for one. But yum!

Pardon the short post. I'm on my way to a meeting. I hope the deliciousness of the meal will suffice for this week.

Hugs to all.

Avery's Corbread BLT with Cheese

First the Cornbread:

Ingredients:

1 ½ cup milk, plus 2 tablespoons

2 eggs

1/3 cup melted butter

¼ cup maple syrup plus 1 tablespoon

1 cup cornmeal (gluten-free)

½ cup sweet white rice flour

½ cup potato starch

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon xanthan gum

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

Directions:

Mix all together.

Pour into 8 x 8 pan that has been oiled.

Bake at 400 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. 

Remove from oven. Let cool slightly.

Now for the sandwich:

Ingredients:

Serves 4

[Recipe for corn bread above, baked in an 8 x 8 pan]

4 ounces Fromager de Affinois (which Krista told me about and is sublime!)

8 slices bacon, crumbled

2 Roma tomatoes, sliced thin

Lettuce

Butter

Directions:

Bake corn bread according to recipe, in an 8 x 8 pan.  Let cool.  Cut in 4 squares. Remove from pan and slice, using serrated knife, into thin slices (bread-thick).  Set aside.

Griddle or microwave bacon.  When done to crispiness desired, sprinkle with paprika and pepper. Crumble into bite-sized pieces. {It’s easier to eat this way}

Slice tomatoes and separate the lettuce.

Heat a griddle. Butter the “bumpy” sides of the corn bread. Lay the butter sides down on the griddle.  Top 4 of the slices with the Fromager de Affinois cheese.   Cook the bread on low until warmed through.  Do not overcook.

Assemble the BLT: Corn bread with cheese, tomatoes, lettuce.  Top with bacon bits and the other slice of corn bread.

 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Book 2 in A Cheese Shop Mystery series launched in May: Lost and Fondue. If you'd like to order a copy, click this booksellers link on my website. To see a trailer, click HERE. To read an excerpt, click HERE. If you you'd like to find out more about the series or want to download a few recipes from me (on recipe cards, including a recipe for fondue), click HERE. And be sure to catch me on my other blog, Killer Characters, and on Facebook and Twitter @AveryAames.  SAY CHEESE!

Easy Chocolate Chip Cake, Part 2

It’s been an interesting summer around the Adams/Craig household.

My son has been away for almost all of the summer break so far. He’s the one who’s the eating machine in our home. No food stands a chance against a 14 year old boy.

It’s given my daughter and me the luxury of cooking some food that won’t be gone by the time we finish cooking it!

My daughter really enjoys the whole cooking process and has brought some of the fun of it back to me (I tend to be wildly busy, throwing ingredients together like a madwoman.)

Recently, she went through the entire process herself. She found one of my recipes that she wanted to cook, rode to the store with me, found the ingredients, mixed them all up, and put it in the oven. I tried to stay on the sidelines.

The reason why the cake she chose is a Part 2 (as the title of the post states) is because Krista made an absolutely fabulous chocolate chip coffee cake just a week ago! My daughter would like to try that one, too. :)

The one I’m sharing today is slightly different from Krista’s cake (and it’s got a lot more ‘cheats’ in it, like cake mix…which means it might be a good choice for cooks under the age of 10, which is what we have here.) My daughter was able to make it entirely herself, although at one point I did make sure that she’d stirred all the lumps out of the batter. She had—it was just me being Type A!

Easy Chocolate Chip Cake

1 yellow cake mix with pudding included
1 small box instant pudding
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup oil
3/4 cup water
8 oz. container sour cream (I did use light)
4 eggs
6 oz package semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a bundt pan.
Mix the cake mix, instant pudding mix, and sugar together. Then add the remaining ingredients. Cook for 1 hour at 350.

********************

It’s very simple, and very moist. My daughter enjoyed it for a couple of days…just little bites here and there. Then my son came back from a week away and ate it in a day. :) Sigh.

Riley/Elizabeth
Delicious and Suspicious (Riley Adams)
Finger Lickin’ Dead—June 7 (book 2 of the Memphis BBQ series!) It’s here! Download it on Kindle: http://amzn.to/kh7MAp
Mass market paperback: http://amzn.to/lfUE2N

How Snakebites and Bleach Can Quench Your Thirst and Let's Play Dead!

Have you ever quenched your thirst with a Snakebite? No? How about Chlorine Bleach? I know what you're thinking: Are you crazy? They're poison. They'll kill you. Not if you drink them my way. :)

More on that in a moment. First, I have a better idea...

LET'S PLAY DEAD!

Please join me in congratulating our own Sheila Connolly on the release of her new mystery Let's Play Dead!

This is the second book in Sheila's wonderful Museum Mystery series where fundraiser Eleanor "Nell" Pratt solicits donations—and sometimes solves crimes—at The Society for the Preservation of Pennsylvania Antiques.

In this second entry, the new exhibit at the Philadelphia children's museum, "Let’s Play," isn’t meant to be shocking—but when one of the installers is zapped with a fatal electrical charge, it’s up to Nell to put her detective skills on display.

To order Sheila's brand new release, click here or here.

To visit her web site home, click here, and...read with joy!

Congratulations,
Sheila!

And now, on the subject of
drinking Snakebites and Chlorine Bleach,
otherwise known as types of shandies... 

Cleo Coyle, who sips Blue
Moons by moonlight, is
author of The Coffeehouse
Mysteries

I never heard of a shandy until I traveled to the UK, where pub life introduced me to the delights of this drink, along with a "ploughman’s lunch," but that's another post.

The shandy I drank, which was a mix of Harp beer and carbonated lemonade, was love at first sip. Bright, refreshing, a delightful summer cooler! Unfortunately, after I returned to America, bartenders shook their heads when I ordered one.

Mixing beer with lemonade? Please. In my hometown, bartenders poured you an Iron City or Rolling Rock off the tap—and that was it. Mixing it with lemonade made as much sense as mixing it with chlorine bleach, which is (ironically) exactly what certain regions of Spain call their version of a shandy. :)

Well, it's over 20 years later and American bars regularly serve Mexican beers (e.g., Corona) with a wedge of lime or lemon.

BTW – I always wondered why this was done. One source claims adding lime and lemon to these beers hides a type of spoilage known as skunking, which comes from exposure to light or heat during shipping—an especially common problem with beer shipped in clear bottles.

A squeeze of citrus was supposed to mask this defect, and according to at least one Texan I know, the citrus also "keeps the flies out of your beer." :)

These days, even standard American brands like Bud and Miller are marketing a variety of bottled beer already mixed with lime. My favorite of this new trend comes from the Coors brewery in Colorado, which introduced a very nice line of bottled beers with citrus notes, under the Blue Moon label. (I could drink these babies all day...)




Like many lagers, Brooklyn is
a bit bitter. For me, it didn't
work in a shandy. I also
found the Sprite too sweet
and cloying.



SO HOW DO YOU
MIX A SHANDY?

Generally speaking, a shandy is a lager beer mixed with a citrus-beverage like lemonade, or a citrus-flavored soda (such as Sprite or 7-Up). The proportions are generally half-and-half, but almost everyone (including me) adjusts to taste.

NOTE #1: I've tasted many versions and concluded that lagers (like the Brooklyn Lager in my photo at the right) are too bitter to use for a shandy. I strongly recommend using a pale lager like Heineken, Corona, Amstel Light, Rolling Rock, Michelob, Coors Light, or the Japanese Sapporo.

For more on pale lagers, click here.

NOTE #2: Frankly, I find Sprite and 7-UP to be too sweet and cloying for the drink. For my taste, the very best shandy will always be made with lemonade...

As for the Snakebite and Chlorine Bleach, you'll find them listed below, along with some other names for this drink...

• SHANDYGRAFF, as it's known in the UK, is a mixture of beer and ginger beer or ginger ale.

• LAGER TOPS is also served in the UK; it's made by pouring a layer of non-carbonated lemonade or freshly-squeezed lime juice over the top of a beer before serving.

• BLACK SHANDY is enjoyed in Canada; it uses stout (instead of lager) with a carbonated citrus soda.

• OLD GROUCH ("Brummbär") is Germany's mixture of stout and cola.

• SNAKEBITE is an American version that uses beer and hard (alcoholic) cider. (Note: See the comments section of this post for a note from Riley/Elizabeth on this drink.)

• DEVIL is Belgium’s version of a Snakebite. 

• PANCAHE, served in Italy and French-speaking Switzerland, is a shandy made with lemon-lime soda (e.g. 7-UP or Sprite).

• STING ("pika") is the name for this same drink in Basque, Spain.

• CHLORINE BLEACH ("leija") is apparently what they call this drink in Spain’s Guipuscoa region!

To read more about the differences among lager, ale, stout, and porter, click here.

The link will take you to Riley Adams' (Elizabeth Spann Craig's) informative post for this blog: A Side Order of Beer.

Finally, here's how I make
a shandy in Queens, New York...

CLEO COYLE’S
SUMMER SHANDY

Per serving...

1 glass or mug (frosted is suggested)

1 bottle of pale lager beer (trust me, use a pale lager*, other lagers are too bitter)

Lemonade (carbonated is traditional, but I use non-carbonated and enjoy it. You can also make your own carbonated lemonade by mixing fresh lemonade with club soda.)

Method: First pour the beer into your glass. Add the lemonade. To what ratio? I recommend 3-parts beer to 1-part lemonade. You’ll enjoy a refreshing citrus note without flattening or overwhelming the beer.

*As mentiond in my post above, examples of pale lagers include (but are not limited to) the brands: Heineken, Corona, Amstel Light, Rolling Rock, Michelob, Coors Light, or the Japanese Sapporo.

Drink with joy!

~ Cleo Coyle, author of 
The Coffeehouse Mysteries

To get more of my recipes,
sign up to win free coffee,
or learn about my books,
drop by my *virtual*
coffeehouse at...

CoffeehouseMystery.com

Click to see the
Coffeehouse Mystery
Book Trailer

Murder by Mocha

Releasing August 2nd

Includes chocolate recipes!

"...a tasty espresso-dark tale of
multigenerational crime and
punishment lightened by the Blend's
frothy cast of lovable eccentrics."

~ Publishers Weekly

To pre-order from Amazon, click here 

To pre-order from Barnes and Noble click here for the book; for the Nook click here.

 

 

 

Roast Mortem

Includes firehouse recipes!
A Reviewer’s Pick 

Favorite Book of the Year ~ 2010

Bookreporter.com

 

Coming to paperback
August 2nd

 To pre-order

from Amazon click here.

To pre-order
from Barnes and Noble, click here.

Panic Cupcakes

  Happy 4th of July!

Let freedom ring!

If you're like me and you had a very busy week, you're drinking your morning coffee or tea and wishing you had planned better.  Where did the weekend go?  And now you're supposed to bring a dish to a cookout or at least do something more than order in pizza.  

So today I'm offering some links to great barbecue recipes, sides, a luscious ice cream dessert, and a cupcake recipe that you can make with items you probably have in your fridge and pantry.  

Kale Salad
from Wendy Watson














Southern-Style Potato Salad
from Riley Adams













Barley, Red Pepper, & Corn Salad, from Krista Davis














Barbecue and Blue, an entire barbecue dinner menu from Avery Aames









 

Coffee-Marinated Steak and menu suggestions from
Cleo Coyle

Spatchcocked Chicken from Sheila Connolly













Luscious Mocha Ice Cream Torte from Mary Jane Maffini









Woohoo!  What a selection!  But let's say you're missing ingredients for most of those recipes.  Your family will go for hot dogs and burgers, but a quick dessert would be helpful.


You know those interviews where they say "name three things that are in your refrigerator right now?"  I love those!  Chances are that not everyone has cream cheese, or heavy cream, or lemons.  Maybe you do!  But I went with basics, hoping to offer a recipe that wouldn't force you to take a trip to the grocery store.  These are easy cupcakes to make and they are as vanilla as they come -- in the hope you'll have the ingredients on hand.  You can use any kind of milk.  I used nonfat because that's what I had.  Sugar, butter, flour, vanilla -- is it beginning to sound do-able?  This makes 12 yellow cupcakes with a cake type crumb. 

Vanilla Cupcakes

8 tablespoons butter (1 stick)
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups flour
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Optional: blueberries and/or strawberries


Preheat oven to 350.  Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.  If you don't have liners, butter and flour the cupcake pan.

Cream the butter with the sugar.  Add the eggs, one at a time.  Add the salt and baking powder and mix well.  Add the flour and milk, alternating them.  Add the vanilla.

Fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 full.

IF you have blueberries, poke one blueberry in the middle of each cupcake for fun.

Bake 18 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

4 tablespoons butter
2 cups powdered sugar
8 teaspoons milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

Mix together the butter, sugar, 4 teaspoons milk, and vanilla.  Add remaining milk one teaspoon at a time until you have reached a nice spreading consistency.  Frost the cooled cupcakes.

IF you have blueberries and/or strawberries and/or raspberries, use them to achieve a July 4th red, white, and blue look.  If you don't have berries, that's okay, too.  Place them on a blue and white plate, or line a plate or a basket with a red or blue napkin.  If you only have a couple of berries, that's okay, too.  Mix them up, some with berries, some without.  They'll look festive no matter what you do!

What's in your refrigerator today?

Guest Blogger Maryann Miller’s Gringo Chili

First I want to thank Riley, er, Elizabeth for inviting me to be a guest today. I have visited the Mystery Lover's Kitchen on a number of occasions and, well, quite frankly, I feel like an imposter.

I don't love to cook.

There, I said it.

I read all these great recipes and think I will try them some day, but some day never comes around. Although that pineapple casserole recipe Riley posted last week sure is tempting.

None of the protagonists in my books like to cook, either. Well, not the women anyway. Sarah, one of the homicide detectives in my new mystery, doesn't even make real instant coffee. She runs the tap until the water is hot and uses that. No messing with a tea kettle or even a microwave for that woman.

I didn't pattern Sarah after me. Honest. I do know how to boil water, but I did think that little quirk said something about her as a character. She has a tendency to focus on the end result, often skipping steps along the way, which does get her into trouble with her boss, and her new partner.

When trying to decide what to share today, I thought about my chili, which folks here in Texas do not consider the real deal. Okay, the recipe came from Michigan. What can I say.

When I was a child, this chili was made every Sunday and left simmering on the stove. That was the one day of the week that the “cook” took the rest of the day off, and we were free to eat a bowl whenever we were hungry. Some of us liked to eat it spread generously over an open-faced hamburger bun. We called it a chili burger.

I thought of those great, lazy Sunday afternoons when the heroine in One Small Victory needed some “comfort food” for her children. What better than a bowl of Gringo Chili.

GRINGO CHILI

1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. pork sausage (mild)
1 onion (chopped)
1 green pepper (chopped)
3 toes of garlic (more if you are a garlic lover)
3 lg. cans crushed tomatoes
1 lg. can tomato paste
2 cans pinto beans drained and rinsed
1 can green chilies
3 tsp chili powder
½ tsp. crushed red pepper
½ tsp cinnamon
2 tblsp. sugar

Brown meat with crushed garlic, onions and peppers. Cook until vegetables are soft. Drain. Add tomatoes, beans, and tomato paste, then add seasonings. Simmer, stirring often, for at least an hour.

Of course, the recipe can be modified; adding more spices to make it sizzle, but then it wouldn't be Gringo Chile any more, would it?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Maryann Miller's latest mystery, Open Season, is the first in a new series. It is a police procedural in the vein of The 87th Precinct series, and the second book, Stalking Season will be out November 2012. Her suspense novel, One Small Victory, is available as an e-book and in paperback. Visit her Web site at www.maryannwrites.com. Find her on Twitter at @maryannwrites and on Facebook.

Thanks for coming by today, Maryann! I think some Gringo Chili sounds like the perfect all-American option for the 4th of July weekend! Thanks for sharing it with us!

Raspberry Cheesecake Sundaes

July is National Ice Cream Month.  Since I have a work-related interest in ice cream, I don't really need a reason to make (or eat) it, but the "holiday" provides an excellent excuse to indulge more often than usual.

The problem is that July is also Texas Hotter-Than-Holy-Heck Month (followed soon by August's You Thought July Was Bad? Month).  Most really great ice cream recipes require serious stove time, as you prep the egg custard to get that perfect, silky mouthfeel.  I have no real desire to stand over a hot stove for more than a minute or two right now.

So my challenge this month is to provide you with killer ice cream recipes that require little-to-no actual cooking.

Philadelphia-style ice cream (also known as American-style ice cream, and as opposed to French-style ice cream) does not use eggs.  It relies solely on milk, cream, sugar, and flavorings.  Unfortunately, many of my home efforts at Philadelphia-style ice cream have been, well, uninspired.   Ice cream fresh from the churn is usually the consistency of soft serve, and without the custard base, it melts fast.  It's best if you can "cure" homemade ice cream in the freezer for a few hours ... but with Philadelphia-style ice cream's higher ice content, that stint in the freezer produces a solid rock.

In short, in my experience, with Philly ice cream you have to choose between "almost melted" and "frozen solid."  There's just no in between.

Enter stabilizers ... with custard-based ice creams, the stabilizer is the eggs.  You can also stabilize the base with cornstarch or arrowroot powder (both require a little cooking, but not as much as the eggs).  But there's a magic stabilizer that requires no cooking at all:  xanthan gum.


What?  Is that some weird chemical?  No, not at all.  It's a natural sugar that is, well, magic.  Because it's used to provide volume and texture to gluten-free baked goods, it's also pretty widely available these days.


This luscious cheesecake ice cream (flavored with mascarpone cheese and just a hint of vanilla) is not too sweet.  Macerated raspberries with just a touch of sugar are a beautiful and vibrant counterpoint to the smooth creaminess of the ice cream.  Enjoy!

Raspberry Cheesecake Sundaes

A sprinkling of sugar turns the
berries into a no-fuss "sauce"

fresh raspberries
sugar (about 1 tsp. for 6 oz. berries)

Ice cream:

1 pint half & half
1 14-oz. can of sweetened condensed milk
1 8 oz. container, mascrapone cheese
1 Tbs. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. xanthan gum

Combine ice cream ingredients in a blender and blend well.  Refrigerate mixture overnight.  Right before you make the ice cream, strain through a fine mesh sieve (to remove any lumps from the xanthan gum).  Freeze according to your ice cream maker's instructions.  When it's the consistency of soft serve, transfer to a plastic container.  Cover with plastic wrap, pressed onto the surface, and then with an airtight lid.  Freeze for about four hours.

Meanwhile, combine raspberries and sugar.  Let the berries sit for at least 30 minutes, until they start to release their juices.  You can mash them a bit with the back of a fork.

Serve ice cream and berries in fancy dishes (because this ice cream deserves fancy dishes, and so do you!!).

~~~~~~

Wendy is the author of the Mysteries a la Mode. Visit her on the web or on Facebook.

SPATCHCOCKED!

by Sheila Connolly

This is your chicken.

This is your chicken on drugs.

Oops, wrong script.  The latter picture is actually a spatchcocked chicken.  Don't you love that word?  Actually it was hyperactive Gordon Ramsay who introduced me to the term, on his entertaining cable television show The F Word.  All it means is that you remove the backbone and the breastbone from your chicken (or any other bird) so you can flatten it and cook it on the grill or broil it.

How do you remove the backbone (with a minimum of wrestling and cursing)?  Poultry shears.  I inherited these from my mother (who never in her life spatchcocked a chicken, as far as I can recall).  Snip along both sides of the spine and remove it, nick the sternum so it splits easily and then wrench out the cartilage and bone (did I say this was for the faint of heart?), and then lean on the bird to make it lay flat. 

It's summer (someone should tell the New England weather that), and it's grilling season.  I will confess I am a grilling dinosaur:  I've been using the same Weber grill for decades.  No propane, no fancy dials--just fire and a cover, and a couple of vents to control the temperature.  I'll admit that I know that charcoal briquets are evil, and the fire-starter stuff you squirt all over them makes things worse, but I tell myself I don't use them that much.  Really.  And if it's 100 degrees in my non-air-conditioned kitchen, no way am I heating up the broiler.

Now it's time to marinate your flat chicken.  I have a go-to marinade that I cribbed from Julia Child's From Julia Child's Kitchen, but of course I've modified it.  It's simple:  lemon peel, fresh ginger, garlic, soy sauce, olive oil, a dash of sesame oil, thyme, salt and pepper.  Oh, you want measurements?

The thinly-peeled rind of 2 lemons

2-3 thin slices fresh ginger

2 Tblsp soy sauce

4 Tblsp olive oil

1 tsp sesame oil

2-4 cloves garlic (I use a garlic press, which St. Julia frowns upon, or you can mince it finely)

Thyme (fresh if possible)

Freshly-ground pepper

If you love to julienne, have at it with the lemon peel and the ginger.  If you're in a hurry, grate the ginger and even the lemon rind.  I promise I won't tell anyone.  Use fresh thyme if you have it, but dried is fine too.

I had to add this picture of the liquid ingredients just because they looked so cool when I combined them.

Mix everything together and massage your bird with it.  If you don't want your hands to smell like garlic and sesame oil for the rest of the day, wear gloves or paint the marinade on with a brush.

Now cook your bird.  You're going to have to use your judgment here, but this is what I do.

--make a nice fire in your grill, Wait until the coals are covered with grey ash, and spread out the coals evenly. 

--put your grate over the coals and lay your flat chicken on it, skin side down.

--Cover the grill and cook for ten minutes.

--Turn over your chicken, cover the grill again, and cook for another ten minutes.

As you can guess, the timing depends on how big and how hot your fire is, not to mention how big your chicken is.  You can poke the chicken with your finger to test it, and if it's too squishy, it's probably not cooked through.  If the legs fall off, it's definitely done.

And there you go!  It smells delicious, it's low calorie, and it's easy.  Happy summer grilling!  And have a wonderful (and safe) holiday weekend.

-------------------------------

Almost forgot to mention:  Let's Play Dead comes out next Tuesday!  Shocking things happen at the Philadelphia children's museum, Let's Play, and Nell Pratt is on the scene. Click here or on the book cover to learn more.

But wait!  There's more!  My first e-book, Called Home, debuted on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and a lot of other places.  It's a prequel to the Orchard Mystery series, and there's a ghost--maybe.  And it includes a peek at the next book in the series, Bitter Harvest, coming in August. Click here or on the book cover to jump to the Amazon product page.