Brewing Up Murder Party with Joyce Tremel and Cleo Coyle + Double #BookGiveaway!

Joyce and Cleo are celebrating their new December mystery releases with a joint recipe post and giveaway.

Congrats to our winner - "Amanda"!

You first party host is Joyce Tremel!

To learn more about
Joyce, click here.

First I want to say thank you to Cleo for asking me back, and especially for sharing her blog day with me. I’m honored to share a release day with her, too! When I visited here back in September 2014, the launch of To Brew Or Not To Brew seemed so far away, but the time since then has just flown by. It seems like yesterday that I got the call from my agent that the proposal had been accepted, and now I’m actually working on the third book in the series!

To learn more about
To Brew or Not To Brew:
A Brewing Trouble Mystery, 
click here.

To Brew or Not to Brew is a cozy mystery and features a female brewmaster named Maxine “Max” O’Hara who is opening a brewpub in Pittsburgh. And when she finds the body of her assistant in an empty beer tank…well, you’ll just have to read the book to find out what happens! 

The book also features a couple of recipes. Max’s hunky new chef Jake comes up with his own twist on a Pittsburgh favorite: Pierogies. They are delicious if I do say so myself. The recipe is in the book but I’ll repeat it here.

                   

BUFFALO CHICKEN PIEROGIES

Jake’s Filling

Ingredients:

1 cup cooked shredded chicken (or 1 can of chunk chicken)

1/3 cup Frank’s Red Hot (or other hot sauce)

1 – 8oz pkg. cream cheese

½ cup ranch dressing

¾ cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions: Heat chicken and hot sauce in saucepan. Stir in cream cheese and ranch dressing and heat until cream cheese is melted and mixture is hot. Mix in cheddar cheese and heat until cheese is melted and mixture is hot and bubbly.

Basic Pierogi Dough

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 tsp. salt

1 egg

½ cup sour cream

¼ cup butter softened

Directions: Mix flour and salt. Beat egg and add to flour mixture. Add sour cream and butter and work until dough loses stickiness. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 30 minutes or overnight.

Boil water in large pot. Roll dough on floured surface to 1/8 inch thick. Using a large glass or cookie cutter (3-4 inch diameter), cut dough into circles. Place 1 tablespoon of filling on each circle. Wet edges of circle, fold, and seal completely using fingers or tines of a fork.

Place pierogies in boiling water. When they float to the top, remove with slotted spoon and drain. (At this point, they can be frozen until later, if desired. Place in boiling water again to defrost.)

Heat 2 tablespoons of canola oil in a non-stick pan. Add pierogies and brown on each side. Drain on paper towels.

Arrange on a plate and serve with ranch dressing for dipping.

The filling used in the pierogies also makes an excellent dip for tortilla chips or spread on crackers. I usually make a batch and keep in warm in my mini-crockpot. Yum!

Thanks so much for having me here, and I hope you enjoy the recipe!

Find Joyce on Facebook here. 

Follow Joyce on Twitter here.

You second party host is Cleo Coyle!

To learn more about
Cleo and her husband
(and partner in crime-writing)
click here.

Thanks again to Joyce for joining us in the Kitchen today and making our release week festive and fun!

As most of you know, I collaborate with my husband to write The Coffeehouse Mysteries, a long-running series of amateur sleuth mysteries set in a charming Greenwich Village coffeehouse.

In DEAD TO THE LAST DROP, we take our hardworking single mom and coffeehouse manager to Washington where she attempts to successfully open a new branch of her beloved Village Blend. 

It's an exciting time for Clare, especially when the college-age daughter of the US President becomes a fan of her coffee and the relaxed Jazz Space on the shop's second floor. Then the First Lady befriends her and even arranges for her to contribute ideas to a temporary Smithsonian exhibit on Coffee in America. 

To learn more about
Dead to the Last Drop:
A Coffeehouse Mystery,
click here and
scroll down.

But when a State Department employee suspiciously collapses in her shop and the President's daughter goes missing, Clare finds herself wanted for murder and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Now she must solve both mysteries—and discover who framed her—or she may find out firsthand that Washington is murder.

If you are new to our Coffeehouse books, don’t hesitate to pick up DEAD TO THE LAST DROP. You can read it as a stand-alone story, and if you like the read, you have fourteen more in our series to enjoy. But don’t miss this Washington entry. It’s embedded with twists, turns, and hidden secrets about our nation’s capital that were inspired by my own experiences while living, studying, and working in D.C.

DEAD TO THE LAST DROP is also a culinary mystery, with an appendix of more than 25 wonderful recipes.

And speaking of recipes, I have a holiday favorite for you today, my easy Candy Cane Frosting that quickly brings Christmas cheer to any plain old cake, cupcake, cookie, or pan of brownies...

Cleo Coyle’s

Candy Cane Frosting

For a keeper copy of this recipe,
click here and save and then
you can share or print.

 

The Origin of Candy Canes

In 1670, in Cologne, Germany, a choirmaster wanted to solve the problem of noise caused by children in his church during Christmas Eve services. He asked a local candy maker for some sweet sticks for them. In order to justify the practice of giving candy to children during worship services, he asked the candy maker to add a crook to the top of each stick, which would help children remember the shepherds who paid visit to the baby Jesus. From Germany, the candy canes spread to other parts of Europe. Around 1882, people began hanging them on Christmas trees and in the early 1920s, Chicago confectioners the Bunte Brothers filed the earliest patents for candy cane making machines. 

Eat with Joy to the World!

~ Cleo Coyle

New York Times bestselling author of  

The Coffeehouse Mysteries

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Congratulations to "Amanda"
who won the signed copies of 

Joyce and Cleo's new books!