Friday, June 21, 2019

Let's give a hearty welcome to our new MLK'er, Vicki Delany!! Woot, woot!

Please welcome Vicki Delany, a new member of our MLK team!  
She will be posting every other Friday, alternating with Sheila.




Vicki has been a regular guest on our site, so we're thrilled to have her become one of us.  Vicki is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: the Year Round Christmas mysteries for Penguin Random House, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates) for Crooked Lane Books, and the Tea by the Sea mysteries for Kensington. 

Vicki lives and writes in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario. She is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada.  Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. 

Photo: Iden Ford

Visit Vicki at www.vickidelany.com. On Facebook at www.facebook.com/evagatesauthor. Twitter @vickidelany

Take it away Vicki!!

Thank you so much Daryl for that nice introduction.

I am such a fan of Mystery Lovers Kitchen and I was so excited when the gang asked me if I’d like to be an actual member of the blog group.  What an honour!  I’ve posted before as a guest, but now I’m going to be a regular contributor. I hope you’ll stop by the 1st 3rd and 5th Fridays and see what’s cooking at my house.

I'm a good baker and I like to bake, but I don't get much of a chance as I live alone. But when company comes or I've been asked to bring a dish, you'll find me elbow deep in the flour and sugar.  I am, if I do say so myself, quite a good cook.  I make a lot of dishes in the crock pot, because that makes a big batch and I can then freeze several meals. So I intend to show you some of those dishes as well.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to my Strawberry Rhubarb Bars. These are absolutely perfect for this time of year when fresh locally grown strawberries and rhubarb are available in abundance at your local farm stand.


Vicki Delany’s Strawberry Rhubarb Bars

Crumble Mixture for base and topping

1 cup 3 plus tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled from the fridge
2 ½ cups (390 g) all-purpose flour
¾ cup (95 g) graham cracker crumbs
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons (62 g) large flake oats
½ cup (105 g) sugar
¾ cup (144 g) brown sugar, packed
1/8 teaspoon salt
 Zest of one lemon
 1 egg; 1 egg white

Filling

3 cups rhubarb sliced into 1-cm pieces
3 cups strawberries halved and then sliced
½ cup (105 g) sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons corn starch

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375 and grease a 9 x 13 tray. Use a cheese grater to grate the butter onto a plate and then place the grated butter in the freezer while you mix the rest of the ingredients. This works best with butter from the fridge, not room temperature or frozen butter.

In a large bowl stir together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, ½ cup oats (do not add the 2 tablespoons yet), brown sugar, white sugar, lemon zest, and salt. Add the egg and egg white and mix them into the dry ingredients with a fork.

Get the grated butter from the freezer and add it to the crumble mixture. Use your hands to rub the butter into the flour until it resembles crumbs the size of peas. Remove two cups of the crumble mixture to use as the topping and stir the 2 tablespoons of oats into this mixture.

Press the remaining crumble mixture into the greased pan into an even layer.

In a different bowl stir together the chopped rhubarb, strawberries, sugar, vanilla and corn starch. Spread on top of the layer of pressed crumble. Top with the reserved two cups of crumble mixture.
Bake for 45 to 50 minutes until the top is golden and the filling is bubbling. Allow to cool completely before cutting into bars.









My newest book is SOMETHING READ SOMETHING DEAD written by me as EVA GATES.  This is the fifth in the Lighthouse Library series set on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. SOMETHING READ SOMETHING DEAD is now available in ebook and hardcover and will be out in mass market format in September.



42 comments:

  1. Welcome, Vicki! I love all your series and am working on getting current on them. Thanks for sharing your tasty recipe!

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  2. Thanks, Amanda. I'm so thrilled to be here.

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  3. Welcome, Vicki! It's a pleasure to share the Friday slot with you. Now all I have to do is remember which Friday is which! And that crumble recipe sounds really good.

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    1. I love all your Irish recipes, Sheila. It's a please to be your Friday-mate!

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  4. Welcome Vicki. I've read all the Lighthouse Library series. Loved them. Thank you for the recipe-sounds good too.

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  5. Welcome. Love new recipe ideas. These look delicious. Love your books.

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  6. Thanks Judy. These bars really are the perfect early summer treat.

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  7. Welcome to the blog, Vicki! These look great!

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  8. Welcome to MLK, Vicki! I can attest you have amazing recipes and I'm looking forward to trying these Strawberry Rhubarb bars!

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  9. Welcome, Vicki! I am a huge fan of your books — all three of your cozy series and your Constable Molly Smith series.

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  10. So nice to have a new member and learn more about books and best of all recipes.

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  11. Welcome, Vicki! We're delighted to have you here. The only downside? We won't be able to call on you as a guest!

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    1. I'm happy to be here. Thanks so much for inviting me.

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  12. Welcome, Vicki! I'm so glad you're now a part of Mystery Lovers' Kitchen. Thanks for sharing your delicious recipe!

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  13. Welcome, Vicki! Love the recipe and your books. So glad you are going to be a regular here.

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  14. I love the lighthouse library series

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    1. Thanks, Bonnie. I hope you'll check out my other books too.

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  15. I imagine this would work with equivalent amounts of any yummy, fresh fruit. (For those of us not fond of rhubarb.)
    Welcome to the kitchen.

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    1. I've never tried it with anything else, but it should. The crust and topping are what makes this one special, I believe.

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  16. Marc and I warmly welcome you to the Kitchen, Vicki! We're thrilled and honored to be co-blogging with you. May you find joy here!

    ~ Cleo

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  17. Welcome to a wonderfully tasty and interesting site with good food and cozy mysteries, too. You had me at strawberry rhubarb!!

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  18. Oh, what fun! Can't wait to see what else you come up with.

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  19. Hi, Vicki! So glad you've joined our wondrous Kitchen Cooks. Those bars look so perfectly scrumptious, I can't wait to see more of your recipes. I can't imagine how I've missed your Sherlock Holmes Bookshop titles, but I'm going shopping right now!

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  20. Welcome, Vicki!

    Love all your series - can't wait to read SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT.

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  21. Hi Vicki, love the flavors of summer you have in these bars. Look forward to giving the recipe a try.

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  22. Welcome Vicki, so glad you joined the group. Love finding new (to me) writers and more recipes. Food, books and coffee just go together!

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