Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: Elizabeth S Craig

Showing posts with label Elizabeth S Craig. Show all posts

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Easy Brunswick Stew--Elizabeth Craig

A very warm welcome home to Elizabeth! We're thrilled to have her back today. She has a new quilting series coming out in June. I've had the honor of reading Quilt or Innocence, and it's wonderful. You'll love the Southern women she writes about!

And now -- Elizabeth!

Hi y’all! I’m excited to be back visiting at Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen today and catching up with all my friends! While I'm here, I think I'll pick up some more recipe ideas, too. :)

I thought I’d share a really easy and hearty version of Brunswick stew that I think you’re going to love. It’s one of those recipes that everyone in my family eats and it really fills them up on dreary winter days.

And, it also fills them up on warm spring days! Because we’ve been having a lot of those lately…but they enjoy the stew too much to take it off my rotation. :)

You can switch it up a little bit, too—you can use lima beans instead of green peas, for instance (limas make it much more of a traditional Brunswick stew…but I had green peas in the house, so that’s what’s thrown in!) The brown sugar gives it a wonderful sweet taste that
complements the other ingredients well.

Sometimes I’ll make it in the crockpot, too, and just leave the house while it cooks. That’s easy to do—just brown the meat beforehand, add all the ingredients, then set the pot to low for hours.

Tasty Brunswick Stew

1 lb. ground chuck 8 oz white chicken (I use the frozen,grilled chicken strips…defrost and chop)
1 cup pulled pork
1/2 chopped medium onion
8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 can creamed corn
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can green peas or lima beans
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1/2 cup water (more, if you want your stew thinner)
1 1/2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 T Worcestershire sauce
Couple of dashes of Tabasco

Brown ground chuck with the onion. Drain. Add all the ingredients to soup pot. Cook on low heat for an hour. Serve with cornbread.

Hope you’ll enjoy it, too!
Riley/Elizabeth
Hickory Smoked Homicide
Finger Lickin’ Dead
And the upcoming Quilt or Innocence which comes out June 5!

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Taco Casserole with Black Beans---Food to Feed Boys

I thought I’d share with y’all today a nice standby for a crowd of hungry boys—or for anybody, for that matter.

The only problem is that I lost my mind between the skillet portion of this recipe and the moment when it came out of the oven. I got a picture while it was in process (felt so proud of myself, too—because I was multi-tasking and doing about five things at once)….then forgot when my timer went off and it was time to race to the Boy Scout covered dish supper on Monday night.

And this, sadly, was all that was left after the potluck supper—nothing. :)

I have been absolutely amazed what boys eat. My son ate about fifty pieces of Halloween candy in one night and wasn’t sick and didn’t seem an ounce heavier than before. Hmm. Can this be marketed?

As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, I’m trying to use more black beans in my cooking. They’re just supposed to be so good for us!

Easy Taco Casserole with Black Beans

1 lb. lean ground beef
1 15 oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes (undrained)
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes with green chilies (undrained)
1 15 oz. can whole kernel corn, drained
1 package taco seasoning mix
10 6-inch tortillas, cut into fourths
1 cup shredded cheddar or Mexican cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Brown meat and drain. Return to skillet and add taco mix, beans, tomatoes, and corn. Simmer for five minutes. Coat a large baking dish with spray. Layer the bottom of the container with half of the cut tortillas. Spoon half the beef mixture on the top of the tortillas, then cover with the remaining tortillas. Top with the beef mixture. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Sprinkle with cheese and return dish to the oven for five minutes or until cheese melts.

Hope you’ll check out Lulu’s latest adventure in Hickory Smoked Homicide! Now on the shelves!

Riley/Elizabeth
Finger Lickin’ Dead (Riley Adams)
Hickory Smoked Homicide (preorder book 3!)
Progressive Dinner Deadly

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Warm Onion Dip

Have you been to a lot of drop-ins and parties lately? Seems like I’ve been to a lot more than usual. Maybe people are getting tired of the Recession that Shall Not End and are wanting an excuse to have some fun?

Since I’ve been out so much lately, I’ve eaten more than my fair share of the world’s onion dip. And I’ve noticed that the onion dip is almost always served cold.

I do enjoy cold onion dip…except lately when I’ve gotten a little tired of it. Plus, it’s kind of chilly outside, especially after the sun goes down. So here’s an old recipe for some warm onion dip. I’m using Vidalias because I’ve still got some, but you could use any sweet onion…and any kind of cheese. Maybe a 5-cheese blend? You could even broil this as a spread on bread. Lots of tasty possibilities!

I’ve found that a low-fat mayo helps keep the dip from being too oily.

Warm Onion Dip

2 cups Vidalia onions (or any sweet onion), chopped fine
2 cups grated Swiss cheese
8 oz. cream cheese
1/2 cup light mayonnaise
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 t garlic salt

Preheat oven to 350. Combine the ingredients and scoop the mixture into a small casserole dish. Cook at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Serve on crackers or French bread.

Hope you’re having a good start to your fall!

Riley/Elizabeth
Finger Lickin’ Dead (Riley Adams)
Hickory Smoked Homicide (preorder book 3!)
Progressive Dinner Deadly ($2.99 on Kindle—Elizabeth Craig)

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Calico Salad

Nothing beats a hot, steaming 3-bean salad.

Unless…it’s 100 degrees. Then the last thing I want are hot vegetables.

I’ve been eating sliced tomatoes as part of lunch all summer. And I make salads like calico salad to get my veggie fix in…in a cooler way.

Now, this recipe is the crack-open-a-can and mix it together type. Would it be even better with fresh veggies from your garden or farmer’s market? I’m sure! You might want to give it a go. I’m being a little lazy this summer (we’ll blame the heat. I’m sure that’s it.) :)

I love the pimentos in the recipe (or, as my fellow Southerners will say, pahmennas!) And the chickpeas are yummy, too.

Calico Salad

2 small or 1 large cans of shoepeg corn, drained
14 oz early peas, drained
1 can lima beans, drained
14 oz french green bean, drained
1 cup chickpeas, drained
1 green pepper, chopped
1/2 cup chopped pimento
1/2 cup chopped red onion

Dressing:

1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 c vinegar
1 T water
1 c sugar
1 t salt
1 t pepper

Mix together the drained vegetables. Mix the ingredients for the dressing and boil for one minute. Cool the dressing and pour over the vegetables. Chill overnight.

Eat your veggies! And stay cool. :)

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

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Quick Pasta Salad

While I was visiting family in Alabama, we enjoyed a tasty pasta salad that my husband’s family served cold alongside of sandwiches for an oven-free meal. And if I thought it was hot in North Carolina, Alabama was like an oven, itself!

The only hot part of this meal is the cooking of the pasta on the stove. After that, you’ve got a delicious side dish…or even a main dish. It filled me up pretty well (pasta always seems to.)

The pimentos make it Southern. :)

Quick Pasta Salad

1 16 oz package Vermicelli
1 T all-purpose seasoning
1 T seasoning salt
3 T lemon juice
4 T oil
4 oz. chopped pimento, drained
1 pepper, chopped fine (green or red)
3/4 cup green onion
1 1/2 cups mayonnaise

Mix all the ingredients and chill overnight.

Stay cool! :)

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

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.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Pineapple Casserole

Okay, y’all, it’s time for another delicious Southern-style casserole to blow your diet with. :)

Actually, I think that this recipe for pineapple casserole is perfectly wonderful—if you think of it as a dessert.

The amount of sugar in the recipe puts it into dessert territory. And it’s sweet enough to qualify, too.

Although usually it’s served as a side dish here. :)

You can make this recipe with less sugar. I’ve made it with as little as a few tablespoons of sugar. But…it just wasn’t quite as good (imagine that!)

You do have to turn the oven on for this one, but at least it’s easy and cooks in 30 minutes.

I usually make it with canned pineapple, but right now the pineapple in the store is looking really good. Making it with fresh pineapple makes it even better. :)

Pineapple Casserole

20 oz. can of pineapple chunks
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons flour
1 cup grated cheese
1 stick melted margarine
1 tube crushed buttery crackers

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Drain most of the juice from the canned pineapple (leave about 6 tablespoons) and pour the chunks and into a casserole dish with the 6 tablespoons of juice.

Mix 1 cup of sugar and 4 tablespoons of flour and pour the mixture on top of the pineapple chunks.

Sprinkle the cheddar cheese on the top.

Mix 1 stick melted margarine and 1 tube crushed crackers together.
Cook 30 minutes at 350.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Pink Lemonade Pie—by Riley Adams

Hi everybody! I’ve got a summertime treat for you that you can whip up in about a minute today…and with just a few ingredients. But first, I wanted to remind y’all to enter our friend, Wendy Watson’s giveaway. Wendy’s book, A Parfait Murder is her exciting third book in her delicious Mystery a la Mode series.

Here’s the contest, in Wendy’s own words:

A Parfait Giveaway

In honor of the June 7 release of A Parfait Murder (the third Mystery a la Mode), which features a story line about the Lantana Round-Up Rodeo Queen Pageant, I'm giving away a little cowboy couture: a leather and rhinestone cuff, and a "rodeo queen" keychain.

Eligibility: This contest is open to everyone living in the U.S. and Canada. One entry per person, please.
How to Enter: Send proof of purchase of A Parfait Murder (either a receipt, or a picture of you holding the book, by e-mail to wendylynwatson@gmail.com. Put the words "Parfait Giveaway" in the subject line.
Entries must be received by 5:00 PM Central Standard Time on Friday, June 17. I will randomly select one entry, announce the winner on MLK on Saturday, June 18, and contact that person via e-mail. If I do not get a response within 7 days, I'll draw another name.

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

Some of y’all aren’t experiencing sunny weather where you are…and you’re wondering why on Earth I’m putting up a summertime dessert like Pink Lemonade Pie.

Can you believe it, but it’s 91 degrees here in North Carolina right now? My children have been swimming in outdoor swimming pools without turning blue and it isn’t even Memorial Day yet!

As soon as the weather started turning, I went ahead and grabbed my recipe box. I knew my kids were going to be asking about lemonade pie. I have an old recipe from the summer before I married. That summer I asked for recipes from just about everybody I knew. And if I ate at someone’s house, I asked for the recipe for everything on the menu. I was a recipe-collecting fiend, for sure! And this recipe has stood the test of time really well. Why? Well, you can’t beat a recipe that has just 4 ingredients and takes about 3 minutes to make (plus 2 hours in the freezer).

In fact, I really thought about putting having the title of this post be “The Easiest Pie Ever!” Decided it wasn’t descriptive enough, so I went with “Pink Lemonade Pie.” But this pie is so simple that I just handed off the recipe to my 9 year old little girl and she made it herself.

Pink Lemonade Pie

1 6-oz container frozen pink lemonade (thawed a little)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
8 oz Cool Whip topping
1 graham cracker pie crust

Mix lemonade, milk, and Cool Whip together. Spoon into pie crust. Freeze for 2 hours.

Enjoy! And put those children to work in the kitchen for you this summer. Smile

Coming June 7!
FINGER LICKIN' DEAD by Riley Adams
Riley/Elizabeth
Delicious and Suspicious (Riley Adams)
Finger Lickin’ Dead—June 7 (book 2 of the Memphis BBQ series!)

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Easy, Cheesy Bread

I was thumbing through my grandmother’s recipe box, when I came across an easy-looking recipe for cheese bread.

Her recipe included poppy seed, which I decided to skip. I substituted Italian seasoning and garlic instead (because who doesn’t like a little garlic in their day?) :)

The bread was done in just 35 minutes and then it was time for the taste test. Pretty good, I thought. Then, suddenly, half the loaf had disappeared! Apparently I subconsciously decided it was even tastier than I’d thought.

At any rate, it’s a tasty, comfort-food-type bread that I whipped up in about five minutes—and it was only 35 minutes in the oven. I’ve got a name for those types of recipes—keepers!

Easy Cheese Bread
(Printer-friendly version)

2 1/2 cups commercial baking mix (like Bisquick)
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar
1 t Italian seasoning
1/2 t garlic powder
1 cup milk
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a loaf pan with cooking spray. Mix the dry ingredients together (including the chees). Beat egg and milk together. Pour the egg mixture into the dry mixture. Stir until moistened. Scrape into greased loaf pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.

Quick, easy, delicious!

Coming June 7!

FINGER LICKIN' DEAD by Riley Adams

Riley/Elizabeth
Delicious and Suspicious (Riley Adams)
Finger Lickin’ Dead—June 7 (book 2 of the Memphis BBQ series!)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Bacon and Buttermilk Garlic Mashed Potatoes

I was at the very end of my fresh, delicious buttermilk (I made buttermilk banana bread last week) so I decided to make mashed potatoes with garlic, bacon, and buttermilk. Mmm!

Lynn in Texas commented on my post last week that there was wonderful powdered buttermilk on the market, too. Then, on Saturday, our very own Wendy Lyn Watson (also in Texas! Texas must be the Buttermilk State) used powered buttermilk to make her scrumptious buttermilk biscuits on Saturday. So now I’m inspired to cook even more with buttermilk. I’m planning to start stocking it for those in-between times when I haven’t been to the store to buy fresh.

So in the meantime, here’s my recipe for mashed potatoes with fresh buttermilk.

Bacon and Buttermilk Garlic Mashed Potatoes

2 lb. Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
1/2 cup buttermilk
½ stick of unsalted butter
2 cloves garlic
4 slices crumbled bacon
1 t salt
Cover potatoes with cold water, add garlic and salt, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are soft enough to easily mash. Add butter and buttermilk and stir to combine. Add crumbled bacon.

Hope you’ll enjoy it! There are lots of different tastes in this recipe, but I think they all combine really well. :)

Riley/Elizabeth
Delicious and Suspicious (July 6 2010) Riley Adams
Pretty is as Pretty Dies –Elizabeth Spann Craig

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Buttermilk Banana Bread

First of all, a huge congratulations to my fellow Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen cooks, Avery Aames and Mary Jane Maffini for their Agatha wins!

It’s been a big week for Avery—we’re also celebrating her new release, LOST AND FONDUE, which just hit the shelves yesterday. Can’t wait to read it!

I know not everyone is a fan of buttermilk, but it’s like summer in a glass to me.

It’s fun to cook with, too. And, since I’ve got buttermilk in my house, I have a feeling I’ll have buttermilk recipes for the next couple of weeks. :)

I absolutely hate throwing food out, especially produce…and especially now that the produce prices have gone so high!

Since I had buttermilk in the house and several bananas that I knew were too speckled for anyone in my family to want to eat, I had the perfect recipe to help me waste not, want not. Quick and easy to whip up, too.

Buttermilk Banana Bread

2 beaten eggs
1/2 C cinnamon-flavored applesauce
1/3 C buttermilk
1 t vanilla
3 over-ripe bananas, mashed (makes a little over a cup)
1 C brown sugar
1/2 C white sugar
1 3/4 C all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Spray loaf pan with cooking spray.
Blend eggs, applesauce, buttermilk, vanilla, and bananas.
Sift dry ingredients together and then mix with the banana and buttermilk mixture.
Pour into loaf pan and cook for about an hour.

Hope you’ll enjoy it!

Riley/Elizabeth
Delicious and Suspicious (July 6 2010) Riley Adams
Pretty is as Pretty Dies –Elizabeth Spann Craig

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Got Leftover Ham? Ham Casserole!

Cleo’s delicious ideas for ham leftovers yesterday (Easter egg and bacon salad, ham salad, and Italian Easter Pie Palmiers) really got me thinking (and made me hungry!)

I have a lot of leftover ham. Actually, I’m not sure what possessed me to buy so much ham for Easter since it was just the four of us this year.

So I not only have enough for all of Cleo’s wonderful recipes, but I also have enough for the 2 cups of chopped ham needed for my ham casserole recipe! And the recipes are all different enough that I don’t even think anyone in my house will be saying, “Ham again?”

This recipe is super easy to throw together but you do need to set aside an hour and 20 minutes to cook it since the pasta isn’t cooked when you prepare the dish. So it takes maybe 5 or 6 minutes to throw together, but it’ll take a lot longer to let it cook.

Ham Casserole

Printer-friendly version

1 cup milk
1 cup sour cream (I use light)
1 cup water
1 can cream of mushroom soup (I use light)
1 t salt
1 t pepper
10 oz. package frozen peas
2 cups uncooked elbow macaroni pasta
2 cups cooked, chopped ham
3 oz. can sliced mushrooms (drained)
1 cup (4 oz.) shredded Swiss cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine sour cream, milk, water, salt and pepper with the mushroom soup. Add frozen peas, uncooked pasta, ham, and mushrooms. Spray a 13-x-9 inch baking dish with cooking spray and spoon mixture into dish. Sprinkle shredded cheese on the top.

Cover the casserole and bake for 80 minutes. Uncover and cook for 10 more minutes.

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Riley/Elizabeth
Delicious and Suspicious (July 6 2010) Riley Adams
Pretty is as Pretty Dies –Elizabeth Spann Craig

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Fruit Salad in a Flash

We always have fruit and yogurt in our house. They’re just staples around here.

And my family loves fruit salad recipes. I’ve got some really elaborate recipes that call for apple pie filling and soaking the fruit in pineapple juice. I’ve got recipes that call for kiwi and lots of different kinds of fruits.

And then I’ve got this one. This is Fruit Salad in a Flash. It’s the simplest thing in the world, but people absolutely love it whenever I serve it. And although it’s easy to think about yogurt and fruit in smoothies, it might not immediately come to mind when thinking about a salad.

Unfortunately, right now we’ve got House of Strep at my home, even as I type. My daughter has been afflicted with lovely, pervasive streptococcus bacteria for a couple of days now. For a while I thought I would be Super Mom and resist the powerful germs! But no. :) Apparently I’m not quite as immune to strep throat as I’d thought!

And when Mom isn’t well, all hades breaks loose on our household. To keep the boy members of our household from eating potato chips and cookies for supper, I offer: Fruit Salad in a Flash!

Ingredients

Grapes
Bananas
Strawberries
Blueberries
20 oz. can of pineapple tidbits or chunks
20 oz. can of sliced peaches
6 ounces of French vanilla yogurt

Mix all the ingredients together. If you’re making a small amount of fruit salad (if you just don’t have as much fruit around your house), then you can definitely reduce the amount of yogurt you use. You could also experiment with different fruits and different types of yogurt.

Obviously, you just can’t beat fruit and yogurt for a healthy alternative to whatever the boys will find in the pantry. :) And it’s great on a sore throat, too!