Welcome Guest Blogger - Tony Perona!

Julie here:

It is my great pleasure to welcome Tony Perona to Mystery Lovers' Kitchen. Tony and I have been friends for years and have bolstered and cheered one another through the many ups and downs we've experienced in our publishing lives. And, being (or having been) band parents we share plenty of kid-related chitchat, too. Tony is the Mystery Writers of America Midwest Chapter President and he is doing an awesome job of making the chapter vital to its members. I'm just delighted to have him here. Please welcome our guest blogger, Tony Perona!

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Hi! I’m Tony Perona, author of the Nick Bertetto mystery series. Nick is a stay-at-home dad/freelance investigative reporter who has a knack for solving mysteries that have a supernatural element. Since Nick stays at home, he does a lot of cooking for his family, and that comes out in the books. While these aren’t culinary mysteries and I don’t include recipes, I do often talk about what Nick is cooking.

I come from a long line of great cooks and learned to be comfortable in the kitchen early in life. Mom had three boys, and lacking a girl, decided to teach all of us to cook. (Note: my middle brother says the lessons didn’t take with him, and that would be true. My youngest brother, however, is an excellent cook.) Mom taught us to make foods she learned from her mom, which were mostly French and Czechoslovakian dishes, but she also learned Italian cooking because that’s my dad’s heritage and those are the dishes he loved. Italian is definitely my favorite cuisine, although I enjoy a wide variety of ethnic dishes. Like Nick, I was a stay-at-home dad and did most of the cooking for my family.

This dish is from the first book, Second Advent. Nick, who is of Italian descent (like you wouldn’t know from the Bertetto name), is visiting his father and wants to prepare something for him that his mom used to make, since Nick’s mom had passed away a couple of years before the book begins and Nick’s dad doesn’t cook. The recipe can be cut in half (I do that now that my wife and I are empty nesters) but it can also be doubled to feed a lot more. I hope you enjoy it. I occasionally blog about food and include recipes at my website (www.tonyperona.com), so come over and visit and see what I’m cooking. And please don’t be put off by the sinister photo of me on the site—my wife says, “who would trust a recipe from you when you look like that?”—just remember it’s a publicity photo. Julie Hyzy will tell you I’m really a nice guy…

Italian Sausage & Peppers

Ingredients:

1 T olive oil

4 Italian sausage links (about a pound or more)

1 large bell pepper, cut into thin slices

1 small zucchini or yellow squash, cut into rounds

2 15-oz cans of diced tomatoes with Italian seasoning (I like Red Gold brand)

1 medium onion, cut into rings or half rings

½ cup red wine

Cooked rice

Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the sausage and cook on all sides until brown, about 10 minutes or so. Remove the sausage from the pan. Add the pepper, the onion, and the zucchini and sauté until done, 5 to 7 minutes. Place the sausage back in and add the wine and tomatoes. Simmer over low heat, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes or so. Be sure to taste the tomato mixture and adjust the seasoning to your preference.

I like to serve the Italian sausages separately and plate the tomato/vegetable mixture over cooked brown rice. A salad is all you need to complete the meal. And wine, of course. (You did open a bottle of red just for this meal, didn’t you? Why not drink it, too?)

Buon appetito!

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Julie here again...

Tony's first two books in the Nick Bertetto series were cozies. Tony's newest, however, Saintly Remains, is not. I ordered my copy and it just came in, so I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but having read the first two books in the series (which were great!) and reviews (such as the one below), have me eager to get started:

"... engaging characters and timely plot make Perona's third mystery (after Second Advent and Angels Whisper) a compelling read." ~ Library Journal