Potluck Beans #giveaway and #recipe #Father's Day @Kim Davis

 

KIM DAVIS: With summer and Father's Day right around the corner, casual gatherings for barbecues and/or potlucks are starting up. A dear friend of mine, Janet, always served these Potluck Beans as a side dish to the grilled meat whenever she hosted a get together. The dish quickly became a favorite of mine and I immediately begged for the recipe. She graciously shared it with me (which I adapted to suit my tastes, i.e. ground turkey instead of beef, and bacon limited to garnish instead of a pound cooked with the beans) and since my family enjoyed it so much, I often serve it as a main course, especially during chilly winter months. What I especially like is the ease of making this dish. It relies on canned beans along with a few other staples. Once the turkey (or beef) is cooked through, and the beans come to a simmer for a short time, the dish is done and ready to serve giving you time to enjoy your family and friends! 

Be sure to scroll all the way down to find out how to win a copy of Essentials of Death! 

Potluck Beans

 
Ingredients

1 pound ground turkey (or ground beef)
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3-pound can pork & beans (or 2 large cans Bush’s Baked Beans)*
1-pound can chili beans
1-pound can cannellini beans, drained
1-pound can red kidney beans, drained
1-pound can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup ketchup
3 tablespoons white vinegar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Suggested toppings (not shown in photo)
Cooked and crumbled bacon
Shredded cheddar cheese
Sliced green onions
Pickled jalapeño rings
Sliced black olives

Instructions
In a large soup pot, cook the ground meat with the diced onions until the meat is no longer pink. Drain off the liquid/fat and discard.

Add the remaining ingredients, stirring well to combine. 

Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Serve with your choice of toppings and cornbread.

Notes
*If you must eat gluten-free, I recommend substituting Bush’s Baked Beans. Their large cans are 1 pound, 12-ounces. It’s fine to use 2 full cans.

For gatherings, you can keep the Potluck Beans warm in a crockpot for easy serving.

💕 Click here for a free printable PDF of the recipe!💕

Books available at most online retailers

 

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Cupcake Catering Mysteries * Essentials of Murder* Essentials of Death

 

About the Author:

Kim Davis writes the Aromatherapy Apothecary cozy mystery series, and the award-winning Cupcake Catering cozy mystery series. She has also written several children’s nature articles published in a variety of magazines. Kim Davis is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators.

She lives in Southern California with her husband and rambunctious mini Goldendoodle, Missy, who has become an inspiration for several plotlines. When she’s not spending time with her granddaughters or chasing Missy around, she can be found either writing on her next book, working on blogs, or in the kitchen baking up yummy treats to share.

Click here to sign up here for Kim’s newsletter: Newsletter

Connect with Kim: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Bluesky, Bookbub, Goodreads, TikTok, and website

 

I'm celebrating my new release today!

While this isn't a copy mystery, I'm celebrating the release today for my middle grade fantasy book, The Secret of Sweet Treats Kingdom, the first book in The Board Game Chronicles! Suitable for ages 7 to 11. If you have kids or grandkids who needs to do some reading over the summer, please check it out. It's free on Kindle Unlimited, and ebook and print versions available on Amazon. Print is available on Barnes and Noble as well.

What it's about: 

Amber Addison is fed up with her kindergartener sister. It’s Ava’s fault she’s missing her best friend’s birthday party, the most anticipated event in their sixth-grade class. To make matters worse, Ava has coerced her into playing Sweet Treats board game and she keeps losing to a five-year-old. When Amber’s irritation gets the best of her, she throws the game, destroying it.

As the board disintegrates, the two girls are swept into a swirling vortex and they find themselves in the middle of Sweet Treats kingdom. Ava is kidnapped by an evil queen, and Amber finds herself relying on a mint-green rabbit to help her find her way to Bonbon Castle with the hope of finding her sister. Along the way, she encounters more sweets than she could ever eat along with fantastical beings. Some will become her friend and others create danger that she must survive in order to save her sister and find their way home.

A fun recipe is included

Purchase Amazon ebook or read for free on Kindle Unlimited: HERE

Purchase Amazon print:  HERE

Purchase Barnes & Noble print: HERE

G I V E A W A Y   T I M E !!!

I'm giving away a copy of Essentials of Death, your choice of format: print, ebook, or audiobook.

Comment below and include your email (yourname at yourserver dot com) for a chance to win a copy of Essentials of Death. (Contest ends 11:59pm on Wednesday, June 3, 2026. Print and ebook limited to US residents; audiobook is available for everyone.)

Readers, do you have a favorite side dish you make for barbecues or potlucks?

PLEASE WELCOME OUR GUEST LINDA REILLY #GIVEAWAY

I'm excited to have my counterpart in cheese as our guest today! Linda Reilly is the author of several cozy mystery series, her current being the delectably delightful Grilled Cheese Mysteries.

Thank you, Korina Moss, for inviting me to do a guest post on Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen. Your Cheese Shop mysteries are such a delight, and they’ve taught me more than I ever knew about one of my favorite foods—cheese!

In my Grilled Cheese Mystery series, Carly Hale has opened her dream restaurant—a grilled cheese eatery tucked in the heart of Balsam Dell, Vermont. Now that summer has arrived, fresh-picked local raspberries are available at nearly every farm stand, along with locally made raspberry jam. Carly’s grill cook and future chef, Grant Robinson, loves to experiment with cheese and bread combos when creating a new sandwich. He tried this one with Brie, but ultimately it was the cream cheese that worked best. The blend of smooth cream cheese and sweet raspberry jam makes this the perfect choice for jam lovers. And, as Grant says . . . it’s so simple, it’s sinful. This recipe is for one sandwich.

Grant’s Raspberry Sizzle

Ingredients

• 2 slices whole grain bread (sourdough works well, too)

• Salted butter (preferably softened)

• 1 to 2 tablespoons cream cheese (depending on your preference and the size of the bread)

• 2 tablespoons raspberry jam

Directions:

• Butter one side of each slice of bread evenly with the salted butter. (Try not to skimp on butter, as you want the sandwich to have that crispy, crunchy outside)

• On the un-buttered side of one slice, spread the cream cheese, then evenly spoon the jam over that.

• Place the other slice on top, butter side facing out. Press down gently so that the two slices stick together.

• Place in a skillet over medium or medium-low heat. Grill each side until browned to perfection and the cream cheese and jam are warm.

Enjoy this treat with a cup of your favorite tea, hot or iced, or any other beverage that makes you smile!

And since today is Father’s Day, I’d like to give a shoutout to my own dad, who passed away at the age of 91 in 2017. In his heyday, he was the best gardener in his small Massachusetts town. As he aged, he gave up planting pumpkins and corn, but he continued growing tomatoes, sweet onions, garlic, carrots, and a few other veggies I can’t remember. At the edge of his garden was a long row of raspberries that grew on their own every year. Dad spent a lot of time trimming them and fussing with them. Neighbors and friends knew they were always welcome to stop by for raspberries or anything else in his garden—so long as they were willing to pick their own. This photo of him in his garden is circa 1985.

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads and father figures out there, and to my own wonderful dad. Do you like to garden? What’s your favorite thing to plant?

Raised in a sleepy town in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, Linda Reilly is a dyed-in-the-wool New Englander and a lover of all things cheese. In addition to the Grilled Cheese mysteries, she is the author of the Deep Fried Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime) and the Cat Lady Mysteries (Kensington Lyrical). She currently lives in southern New Hampshire with her two feline assistants, who frequently assist with editing by prancing over her laptop. When she’s not pounding away at her keyboard, she can usually be found prowling the shelves of a local bookstore or standing over the stove making a melty grilled cheese.

Linda Reilly - Web page and social media links:

https://www.lindareillyauthor.com

https://www.facebook.com/Lindasreillyauthor

https://www.instagram.com/lindasreillyauthor/

https://www.bookbub.com/authors/linda-reilly

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6588314.Linda_S_Reilly

Teaser for BRIE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR:

With the summer heat sizzling, grilled cheese restaurant owner Carly Hale is thrilled to have Ross Baxter delivering her sandwiches to local seniors. She’s never met a more polite or hardworking young man, and she brushes it off when one of her more difficult customers complains about him. But when Ross returns to the woman’s home to make another delivery and finds her dead body, the police immediately peg him as the prime suspect. Carly soon learns that the victim had an estranged stepson and stepdaughter, both of whom needed money to get their lives back on track. Worse still, in her younger days the dead woman had a reputation for preying on other women’s husbands, leaving broken marriages in her wake—and a list of suspects a mile long. But Ross’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon, leaving Carly hungry for any clue she can dig up. Until she comes face-to-face with the killer, and realizes this time she may have bitten off more than she can chew . . .

GIVEAWAY!

 Linda is giving away a signed, printed copy of BRIE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR to one lucky person who comments below. (U.S. only) 

                              

Gluten-Free Rum Cake #Recipe by @LibbyKlein #Father'sDay

 Libby Klein My husband loves rum. He was in charge of liquoring the fruitcake last Christmas and the end result had to be eaten with a spoon well away from an open flame. So for Father's Day, I thought this would be the perfect dessert for him. I've seen versions of this that include the use of Coke-Cola, but I went traditional. There is so much you can do with this recipe. Add a little lemon or lime zest. Maybe some Maraschino cherry juice. Or Pineapple and coconut. It makes a good jumping-off point for just about any cocktail-infused cake you can think of. Just keep the liquid amounts the same. What would you add to make the perfect cake for yourself or your loved ones?

Gluten-Free Cuban Rum Cake

Ingredients

For the Cake:
2 cups granulated sugar
½ cup unsalted butter softened

½ cup vegetable oil
3 cups gluten-free flour 
4 large eggs room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ cup heavy cream
¾ cup Rum – I used Bacardi gold

For the Buttered Rum Sauce:
¼ cup unsalted butter
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar 
¼ cup rum 
¼ cup heavy whipping cream 
2-3 dashes Angostura bitters optional
1 pinch salt

Directions

For the Cake:

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a (10- to 15-cup) Bundt pan with baking spray or butter and flour it.

Combine gluten-free flour, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl then whisk together.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter, oil, and sugar, on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined after each addition. Add vanilla, beating just until combined.

With the mixer on low, add flour mixture alternating with rum and heavy cream, beginning and ending with flour mixture just until combined.

Pour batter into pan and bake for 65 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Invert onto a cool rack and let cool completely. Glaze-cooled cake with half of Buttered Rum Sauce. Serve with remaining sauce.

For the Sauce:

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add remaining ingredients, stirring until fully combined. Bring to a boil. Boil, stirring occasionally for 4-5 minutes. Transfer mixture to a heat-proof bowl or measuring cup; let cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally. Use immediately or store chilled in an airtight container for up to 1 week. Warm slightly before using.

Gluten-free baker Poppy McAllister and her aunt Ginny are looking forward to a quiet, homey Christmas at their B&B in Cape May, but unfortunately, death isn’t taking a holiday this year . . .

Ever since Thanksgiving, Poppy and her pals have been left with an unsolved mystery of the romantic kind. But at least this mystery isn’t the kind that involves murder. That all changes when the body of a fish supplier is discovered in the kitchen of her ex’s restaurant—and he’s frozen, not fresh.

For once, it’s not Poppy who tripped over the corpse, yet she can’t escape being drawn in since the victim has a note taped to him reading Get Poppy. Figures—an engagement ring isn't labeled, but the dead guy is addressed to her. Now, while Aunt Ginny plans a tree-trimming party and pressures Poppy to decode a mysterious old diary, the amateur sleuth is asked to “unofficially” go undercover at the restaurant to help the police. Until then, the only crime Poppy had been dealing with was Figaro’s repeated thefts of bird ornaments from the tree; now it looks like it’s going to be a murder-y Christmas after all.

 

Libby Klein grew up in Cape May, NJ where she attended high school in the '80s. Her

classes revolved mostly around the Culinary sciences and Drama, with one brilliant semester in Poly-Sci that may have been an accident. She loves to drink coffee, bake gluten-free goodies, collect fluffy cats, and translate sarcasm for people who are too serious. She writes from her Northern Virginia office where she serves a very naughty black smoke Persian named Sir Figaro Newton. You can keep up with her shenanigans by signing up for her Mischief and Mayhem Newsletter on her website. www.LibbyKleinBooks.com/Newsletter/

Alvina's Crumb Cake #FathersDay @LucyBurdette #recipe

Alvina's Crumb Cake, passed down from Bob Isleib to his family 

With father's day coming up soon, it's hard not to think of my sweet dad--I still miss him a lot. He was a great dad, and an interesting, funny man who was crazy about his family.

My dad and his darling wife, Mary Jane

My father did not cook much, but he was proud of the two recipes in his repertoire. One was his easy but controversial method for making pie crust, which he used to make occasional apple pies.

The other was this recipe for coffee cake. I love having the recipe card in his handwriting--a treasure in my box. Although I've canvassed my living relatives, no one is completely sure who Alvina was.

I made a few tweaks to his recipe including using cake flour which makes a finer crumb. I also added butter and brown sugar to the topping, and reduced the oven temperature. (I remember the cake often coming out crispy.)


Ingredients

2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter, softened
4 cups flour, cake if you have it
4 tsp baking powder
3 beaten eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup Milk

 


1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 stick butter
1 tsp cinnamon
1/3 cup additional flour

Preheat the oven to 350.

Pulse the sugar, 2 sticks of butter, and flour together. (I used a stand mixer—small lumps are acceptable, even encouraged.) Remove one cup of this mixture for topping and in another bowl, cut in 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 stick of butter, and 1/2 cup brown sugar. Set that aside.

To the original  mixture, add 4 heaping tsp baking powder and 3 beaten eggs. Mix well.

Mix in the milk and vanilla—do not overbeat.

 

 Pour into a well-buttered 9 by 13 inch pan and sprinkle crumbs over top. Bake for 35 or so minutes, or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out dry.

 

This is also delicious with a handful of fresh blueberries folded in before baking.

When she is not blogging and cooking, Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mysteries!

Fatal Reservations, the sixth book in the series, will be in bookstores on July 7, but you can certainly order it now! And, to begin the countdown and launch the celebration, we will be giving away one copy of the new book--leave a comment with your email to be entered in the drawing.

Strawberry Shortcake--with a Twist

LUCY BURDETTE: I know Father's Day has flown past, but I couldn't resist a shout-out to two fabulous fathers, my dad on the left and my father-in-law on the right. We miss them so!

And I wanted to make something special but not too complicated to help celebrate Father's Day for John. 


It's hard to resist the idea of strawberry shortcake, right? Especially since last Saturday was "National Strawberry Shortcake Day!"Fresh strawberries, crisp, warm

biscuits, homemade whipped cream. The problem is the reality often doesn't quite match up with that fantasy. I'd rather pass than gobble a bread-y supermarket biscuit. And whipped cream out of a can? Just can't do it. 

But as I was making biscuits for dinner the other night, adding a little white whole wheat flour instead of all white, and whirring the oats so they had just enough texture, I thought--now these would be perfect for strawberry shortcake! They are whole grain, but not in an obnoxious aren't I healthy way, and they soak up the strawberry juice without disintegrating into mush:). 

For the biscuits: Make a recipe of the Cottage Oat biscuits a la Jane Brody--recipe right here. Or, if you were clever enough to freeze some, take a few out to thaw.

For the whipped cream:

1 cup heavy or whipped cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 big ripe strawberry, mashed
1 tablespoon powdered sugar

I decided to experiment with adding a little strawberry to the cream so it would come out slightly pink:). So I mashed one big strawberry and mixed it with the sugar. I was worried about making the whipped cream watery, but next time I think I'd use two strawberries. So whip the cream until it's thick, add the vanilla, whip in the strawberry-sugar mixture. You can do this ahead and refrigerate.

For the strawberries, themselves:

 2 cups of strawberries, cleaned and sliced
1 Tbsp sugar

My sister has always taught me that if you rinse fruit and veggies that aren't organic in a bowl of water to which white vinegar has been added, you lose pesticide residue. (I almost always listen to her LOL, so you probably should too!)

Slice the strawberries, stir in the sugar, refrigerate until you're ready to put everything together.


Warm the biscuits, split them open and heap with strawberries, then add the pink whipped cream.  Voila! A celebration fit for a king!

Photo showcases strawberries

Better shot of the biscuit

MURDER WITH GANACHE, the fourth Key West mystery, is in stores now. DEATH WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS will be out in December.

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