Sheila Connolly's Ham and Cheese Pie #giveaway

Ham and Cheese Pie from Sheila

Another oldie but goodie from my mother’s 1960’s stash of recipes! Not that I remember her making it—most of the meals I remember at home were strictly meat-starch-veg. Her version of this recipe was made with Bisquick. I found myself reverse-engineering the stuff, which is ridiculously simple (flour, baking powder, salt and shortening). It's not a lot of work so that leaves you time to read Fatal Roots, #8 in the County Cork mystery series in bookstores now! And be sure to leave a comment below to be entered in the giveaway of one copy of FATAL ROOTS...

Ham and Cheese Pie

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked ham, diced

1 cup cheese (my mother’s version called for Swiss cheese, but any semi-hard cheese that you can shred will be fine—just taste it for saltiness before you add any additional salt), shredded

1/2 cup green onions (scallions) or yellow onion, chopped

4 eggs

2 cups whole milk

1 cup Bisquick (or make your own--see below)

salt and pepper

Note: if you don’t have any Bisquick handy, you can make your own by mixing:

1 cup flour

1-1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

1 Tblsp. shortening, olive oil or melted butter

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Grease a 10-inch pie plate.

Sprinkle the diced ham over the bottom, then the cheese over the ham.

Beat together the remaining ingredients (yes, including the scallions or onion) until smooth. Pour the mixture over the ingredients in the pie plate.

Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. (Note: this time may vary widely depending on the type of pie pan you are using. In a metal pan the pie will cook more quickly than in a glass or pottery pan.) You can test for doneness by inserting a knife into the center of the pie to see if it comes out clean and/or wiggling it to see if the center is set.

Remove from the oven and let cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

My verdict for this vintage recipe? I was happily surprised: it tasted really good. The flavors of the slightly smoky ham, the sharp cheddar that I used, and the onions blended well. I also wondered if it would collapse into a gooey mess when I tried to cut it, but the pieces held their shape well. And it’s easy to make (once you finish chopping and shredding), plus you can swap out ingredients. Feel free to experiment!

Praise for Fatal Roots:

"Likely to appeal to readers who love Irish settings, Irish folklore, and Irish chatter."

—Kirkus Reviews

"Series fans will enjoy spending time in the company of old friends."

—Publishers Weekly

"The perfect cozy mystery with its small setting full of colorful characters, multiple points of intrigue, and a strong, sassy heroine."

—Foreword Reviews

"Intriguing and whimsical with just the right amount of menace, Fatal Roots is a cozy mystery that’s full of surprises."

—Foreword Reviews

"Satisfying...For fans of the series, but this should also work with those [who] enjoy gentle reads."

—Booklist

LEAVE A COMMENT TO BE ENTERED IN THE DRAWING FOR THE NEW BOOK!

RELEASE DAY NEWS: Fatal Roots by Sheila Connolly

Congratulations to our own... 

SHEILA CONNOLLY

On the release of her new 
County Cork Mystery

FATAL ROOTS

Some secrets are too big to stay buried...

A few months ago, Boston expat Maura Donovan was rekindled with her mother after more than twenty years of absence. Since then, Maura has been getting accustomed to Irish living, complete with an inherited house and a pub named Sullivan's. But now, her mother has returned--and she's brought Maura's half-sister in tow. To make matters more confusing, a handful of Cork University students are knocking on Maura's door asking about a mystical fairy fort that happens to be located on Maura's piece of land.

The lore indicates that messing with the fort can cause bad luck, and most everyone is telling Maura not to get too involved for fear of its powers, but Maura is curious about her own land, and she definitely doesn't buy into the superstition. Then one of the students disappears after a day of scoping out the fort on Maura's property.

Maura treads carefully, asking the folks around town who might have an idea, but no one wants anything to do with these forts. She has to take matters into her own hand--it's her land, after all. But when she uncovers a decades-old corpse buried in the center of the fort, nothing is for certain.

FATAL ROOTS

To learn more or buy,

CLICK HERE

📖

Click to see more of our
upcoming releases.

👓

Marinated Chicken with Leeks

Here I am again, watching the rain fall, which has made food shopping challenging. I think I mentioned before the fresh-premade meat and fish dishes that Field’s offers (and, I’m told, makes fresh every day). I’ve tried a couple now, and they’re uniformly tasty and well-prepared.

And then I had a brainstorm. The meals as sold need only to be baked to be ready to eat, and are already nicely marinated (not too salty, not too overwhelmingly spiced), which makes them a perfect candidate for a slightly more elaborate dish—half your work is already done.

This is especially important when you're working with a tiny kitchen like my Irish one!

My Slide and Hide oven

 I happened to have watched recently a show in which Mary Berry was gallivanting around from place to place sampling restaurant dishes. One involved prawns and oyster mushrooms and leeks in a light sauce. Well, I had no prawns and haven’t even sighted oyster mushrooms in a market, but I could find leeks, so I decided to improvise my sautéeing the boned chicken breasts and giving them a nice bed of lightly cooked sliced leeks. You could use heavy cream as a sauce (as Mary did), or a lightly thickened chicken stock, or nothing at all. You could serve the dish with orzo, which I often think of as fake rice, but a bit easier to cook.

[As a slightly relevant aside, my neighbor who lives behind me was born in Ireland but spent most of her adult life in England before moving back. She mentioned that on one occasion when she was house-hunting for her family, she toured what was then Mary Berry’s house (although she didn’t buy it). It had two complete kitchens.]

Now, what do I call this? I’ll take the easy out: Marinated Chicken and Leeks.

Chicken and Leeks:

(serves two)

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts, boneless

3 large leeks

Bread crumbs (white or brown)

Instructions:

Marinate the chicken breasts, covered, in the marinade of your choice, for a couple of hours (or buy them pre-marinated).

Butter the inside of a round or oval roasting pan. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Slice the leeks thinly. If they seem to be a bit gritty, rinse them in cold water after slicing, then let drain and pat dry.

Melt some oil and butter in a saucepan and saute the leeks gently until they are soft but not browned. Spread them in the bottom of the prepared baking dish.

Here’s where you have to decide if you want a sauce with your dish, clear or creamy, or just skip that step.

In the same pan, melt some more butter with oil at medium heat, and sprinkle the breasts with salt and pepper and saute them, turning once, until they are lightly browned (you don’t need to cook them through).

Lay them over the layer of leeks. Sprinkle to top of the dish with breadcrumbs.

Place the dish in the preheated oven and cook for half an hour, or until the bread crumbs are lightly browned.

And there you have it—a quick and simple meal (if you’re lucky enough to have a Field’s nearby!)

Coming in January 2020

Did I mention I found a ring fort right down the hill from my cottage? 

Back to Ireland!

View from my front window

Many thanks to Lucy Burdette for stepping in for me while I was traveling. I case you haven’t heard, I’m in Ireland now, for the foreseeable future. My cookbooks, however, are on a ship in Boston Harbor, waiting to sail. And the weather here has not been conducive to wandering in the Skibbereen Farmers’ Market (but I will soon, I promise!)

But the local grocery store, Fields, is thriving (would you believe I have a frequent buyer pass?) so of course I ended up there. I know, you’ve seen and heard about it before, but I had to see if there were any changes. There weren’t, actually, although some of the prepared foods were new, so of course I had to try a couple of them. There were chicken and duck breasts with a variety of sauces, perfect for a single meal. And all they required was heating—which involved the large assumption that I could understand the instructions for my Neff oven. They are not simple, but I did manage to find Bake.

Perfectly clear, right?

And wild game was in! Several years ago I tried cooking pheasant (and included the recipe here, I think). This year I am contemplating quail, which are so tiny that they should take only a few minutes to cook. Anybody tried quail? Because I haven’t.

Assorted fresh game

I think it was ordained that I had to fall in love with a supermarket that had twenty feet of diverse baking products, including more kinds of flour than I knew existed. The only thing missing from my excursion was Battenberg Cake (which I also included her a while ago), which is my absolute favorite. I’m sure it will be back, and so will I.

I promise I’ll provide some real recipes as soon as I get organized! (Connolly’s of Leap now offers house-made Italian pizza, and you can be sure I won’t miss that!)

Coming in January: Fatal Roots, the next in the County Cork Mysteries!

Summer Salad

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you about the horrendous weather we’ve been having this past week—first a weekend with 100+ degrees heat, than a tornado or two in the neighborhood (missed my town, at least). This is not normal, right?

Anyway, you may have noticed quite a few recipes for various kinds of salads on this blog lately. It shouldn’t be a surprise, since salads are quick and easy (and usually cool) to make, and can include a wealth of fresh vegetables, from your own garden or local farmers’ markets.

I decided to jump into the fray because a friend of mine arrived recently with a package of Italian spinach-infused noodles as well as a bundle of brightly-colored carrots, and I decided to try a bright, cheery mixture with a light vinaigrette. I hope it offers you some suggestions, but you can go with whatever ingredients you have on hand (that don’t require a lot of heat or hard work to make into a salad!).

Summer Salad with Italian Pasta

Ingredients:

2 cups dry Italian spinach pasta

6 colorful carrots, coarsely grated

Chopped parsley

Chopped chives (or add thinly sliced shallots)

Dressing:

6 Tblsp Italian olive oil

1 Tblsp Italian white wine vinegar

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Boil the pasta according to package instructions (10 minutes?). Remove from the heat, drain, sprinkle with some olive oil to prevent the pasta from sticking to itself, and set aside to cool (you can do this in advance).

Peel the rough skin off the carrots and grate them in a food processor with the most coarse holes, or grate by hand if you have a large-hold grater (try not to grate your fingers!)

Toss pasta, carrots, parsley and chives to mix.

Make the (very simple) dressing and toss with the vegetables—not too soupy! And there you have it!

Feel free to add whatever inspires you—cheese (feta or parmesan), other bits of fresh vegetables. Don’t add the dressing until all the ingredients are loosely mixed and you’re ready to serve. You can serve it as a main course or with a protein.

Buon Appetito!

Maybe if Maura Donovan ever gets the kitchen at Sullivan's pub built, she can try out this simple recipe (and there are plenty of fresh vegetables in West Cork!).

Fatal Roots will be out in January 2020.

Roast Chicken Breasts with Oatmeal Stuffing

If my recipes seem a bit haphazard these days, it’s because much of my cooking items are packed away (I’m preparing to move, although it seems to be going in slow motion). That includes all my cookie sheets and racks, among other things. It’s not my fault! I’ve hired an efficient packing/shipping/

disposing crew who are very enthusiastic, and I can’t watch all of them at the same time, so I may never find some things. So I will cook with what I have, and don't expect any cookies soon.

My tiny Irish kitchen. Where am I going
to find room for things?

But I still have cookbooks! Including all my Irish ones. Is it absurd to ship all my Irish cookbooks to Ireland? At least over there I should be able to find all the ingredients, no matter what they are called. This is a modified recipe from one of those Irish cookbooks.

Roast Chicken Breasts with Oatmeal Stuffing

Ingredients:

(the original recipe was for four pieces of chicken. I reduced it to two)

1 cup red wine

1-1/2 cups chicken stock

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2 oz. butter (half a stick)

1-1/2 oz coarse oatmeal (not instant!)

1-1/2 Tblsp finely chopped parsley

2 chicken breasts, about 6-7 ounces, with skin and bones

Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Sauce:

Put the wine in a saucepan, bring it to a boil, and reduce by half. Add the chicken stock and boil again until reduced by half (again). Set aside and keep warm.

Stuffing:

 Melt 1 ounce of butter in a pan and fry the chopped onion. Stir in the oatmeal, parsley and seasoning. Let the mixture cool. (Note: Irish oatmeal is cut differently than the American version--it's more like chopped that rolled.)

Preparing the chicken:

Lay each breast on a cutting board, skin side down (the meat will be on the bottom). Cut a small pocket in the meat (do not cut through entirely!). Divide the stuffing in half and stuff in the pockets. (I used the small skewer to keep the stuffing in!)

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Melt the rest of the butter in a sauté pan and brown the chicken pieces on both sides. Transfer them to a baking sheet and roast in the oven until they are cooked through (at least 1/2 hour, depending on the size of your chicken pieces).

Serve with Champ. Wait a minute—what’s Champ? It’s a traditional Irish potato dish, aka mashed potatoes made with milk, with herbs or almost anything you want added to it..

Ingredients:

1 lb. potatoes

1/2 cup whole milk

Spring onions (that’s the traditional ingredient, but my supermarket didn’t have any, so I substituted fresh chives)

2 oz. butter

Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Wash the potatoes and boil them in their skins until tender. Drain them, then put them back in the pan and let them dry over low heat. When they are cool enough to handle, peel the skin off and mash the potatoes well.

Put the milk and the chives in a saucepan, bring to a boil, and simmer for a few minutes. Beat the mixture into the potatoes (not too much—you don’t want them soupy), then add the butter and beat it in. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Place a generous scoop of Champ on a plate, and follow with a chicken breast. Spoon some of the wine/stock sauce over both and serve immediately.

Here's a sneak preview of the proposed cover of Fatal Roots, coming January 7, 2020, from Crooked Lane Books.