Matcha Muffins Recipe by Gigi Pandian

Please welcome guest author Gigi Pandian with a recipe and giveaway for 8 book-themed recipe cards! Gigi’s fifth Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery, The Ninja’s Illusion, came out earlier this month. Welcome Gigi!

DON'T FORGET to leave a comment below for a chance to win a set of 8 book-themed recipe cards!

GIGI PANDIAN: One of my favorite things about traveling is that it can be a culinary adventure as much as a cultural one. All of my Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mysteries take historian Jaya Jones from her university in San Francisco to a different foreign destination—so far Scotland, India, France, Italy, and now Japan. I got to visit Japan last year while researching the book, and here’s a recipe inspired by the flavors of Japan.

I began learning how to cook after a cancer diagnosis left me with food restrictions. I didn’t want to give up eating wonderfully, so I took classes to learn how to recreate my favorite dishes, plus plenty of new ones. This is one of my new favorite recipes—

Unfortunately, I’m not the only one in my household who holds this opinion, so the muffins tend to disappear all too quickly!

Matcha Muffins

Green Tea adds a unique flavor to these honey-sweetened muffins.

Dry Ingredients

·      1/2 cup all-purpose flour

·      1/2 cup oat flour (if you don’t have oat flour, use 1 cup of all-purpose flour instead of the split)

·      1 tsp baking powder

·      2 tsp matcha (powdered green tea)

·      1/4 tsp salt

Wet Ingredients

·      3/4 cup coconut milk

·      1/4 cup honey

·      1/4 cup coconut oil, melted

·      1/2 tsp vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 400ºF, and line a muffin tin with 9 cupcake liners. Mix dry ingredients in one bowl, and wet ingredients in another. Stir dry mixture into wet, careful not to over-mix. Scoop into muffin tin, filling only about halfway since they’ll rise. Bake for approximately 12 minutes.

THE NINJA’S ILLUSION: A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery

Historian Jaya Jones travels to Japan in hopes of solving the mystery of a trading ship that disappeared over 200 years ago—until she’s blown off course and must sacrifice her quest to save the life of her best friend. A travel-themed cozy that’s perfect for fans of Elizabeth Peters.

“[A] highly entertaining, fast-paced fifth outing for spunky historian Jaya Jones…As usual, Pandian dishes up authentic history and cultural tidbits along with a first-class mystery. She also adds just the right light touch of romance.” 

—Publishers Weekly

ABOUT GIGI PANDIAN

USA Today bestselling author Gigi Pandian is the child of cultural anthropologists from New Mexico and the southern tip of India. She spent her childhood being dragged around the world on their research trips, and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and a gargoyle who watches over the backyard vegetable garden. Gigi's writes the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery Series and the Accidental Alchemist mysteries. Gigi's fiction has been awarded the Malice Domestic Grant and Lefty Awards, and shortlisted for Agatha and Macavity awards.

Learn more about Gigi at http://gigipandian.com/, sign up for her newsletter at http://gigipandian.com/newsletter/, and find her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GigiPandian

Gigi Pandian #Italian #recipe and #giveaway

Today our Mystery Lovers Kitchen welcomes Gigi Pandian with a new book featuring a cooking class and ghost stories in Italy—plus a recipe and a giveaway for a set of Gigi’s book-themed recipe cards with recipes from around the world!

GIGI PANDIAN: One of the best things about writing a cozy treasure hunt mystery series is that it gives me a perfect excuse to travel around the world and visit locations that aren’t the usual tourist spots. (Aberdeenshire, Scotland for Artifact. The southern tip of India for Pirate Vishnu. Nantes, France for Quicksand.) Venturing off the beaten path is great way to find the best local foods, with regional dishes that are often cooked by chefs who’ve lived in the area for generations.

The latest Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery, Michelangelo’s Ghost, takes place in Italy’s fabled Renaissance garden, the Park of Monsters—a spooky sculpture garden located in the middle of the Italian countryside. It’s in between Rome and Florence and not easily reached by train, so most visitors are Italian, even though everyone with an interest in the mysterious would enjoy it. I traveled there to get the setting right for a present-day mystery involving a centuries-old ghost story. The sprawling sculpture garden, surrounded by a wild forest, was as otherworldly as I imagined.

The nearby villa where I stayed offered cooking classes. I was in Italy for research and writing, but how could I refuse an Italian cooking class taught by a local chef? Especially since the chef selected the seasonal dishes based on what looked good in his hilltop vegetable garden next to the thoroughly modern kitchen inside a medieval walled village.

The cooking class made it into an important scene in the book—although I must admit my own class wasn’t interrupted by devious bad-guys disguised as a ghost, so I had to improvise when I wrote the scene! This is fiction, after all. However, many of the dishes I describe in Michelangelo’s Ghost were recipes I ate in Italy.

In spite of several food restrictions, I ate wonderfully in Italy. After being diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago, I completely changed the way I eat. I now eat close to a vegan diet, meaning one of the things I gave up was cheese—but there’s no need for sympathy! Over the last few years I’ve learned how to adapt recipes to turn them into healthier versions that are even tastier than what I ate before cancer, and also how to eat well while traveling. I brought the flavor of Italy home with me. Here’s one of my favorite easy Italian-style recipes I use regularly, because it’s both healthy and delicious.

RECIPE: DAIRY-FREE PARMESAN

 

A flavorful topping that takes 5 minutes to prepare and can be kept for weeks in a jar on the counter—though in my house it never lasts that long!

Ingredients

¾ cup roasted cashews

3 Tbsp nutritional yeast

½ tsp sea salt (more or less to taste)

½ tsp garlic powder (again, more or less to taste)

Directions

Blend all the ingredients in a food processor until the mixture is the consistency of grated parmesan cheese. Sprinkle on top of Italian dishes for added flavor. My favorite use is to sprinkle on top of pasta dishes, and it works great on both tomato sauces and olive oil pasta tossed with garlic and roasted vegetables.

Leave a comment below to enter to win a set of six book-themed recipe cards, with Gigi’s recipes inspired by Scotland, India, France, the U.S., and Italy.

MICHELANGELO’S GHOST: A Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt Mystery

“This book has everything a mystery lover could ask for: ghostly presences, Italian aristocrats, jewel thieves, failed actors, sitar players, and magic tricks, not to mention dabs of authentic history and academic skullduggery.” 
– Publishers Weekly

A lost work of art linking India to the Italian Renaissance. A killer hiding behind a centuries-old ghost story. And a hidden treasure in Italy’s macabre sculpture garden known as the Park of Monsters… Can treasure-hunting historian Jaya Jones unmask a killer ghost?

USA Today bestselling author Gigi Pandian spent her childhood being dragged around the world by her cultural anthropologist parents, and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and a gargoyle who watches over their vegetable garden. Gigi writes the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mysteries, the Accidental Alchemist mysteries, and locked-room mystery short stories. Gigi’s fiction has been awarded the Malice Domestic Grant and Lefty Awards, and short-listed for Macavity and Agatha Awards.

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Welcome our Guest Gigi Pandian!

Welcome guest author Gigi Pandian with 

some culinary alchemy 

and a book giveaway

Gigi Pandian is the USA Today bestselling author of the Jaya Jones Treasure Hunt mystery series (Artifact, Pirate Vishnu, and the forthcoming Quicksand) and the new Accidental Alchemist mysteries. Gigi’s debut mystery novel was awarded a Malice Domestic Grant, and her short fiction has been short-listed for Agatha and Macavity awards. A cancer diagnosis in her 30s taught her two important life lessons: healing foods can taste amazing, and life’s too short to waste a single moment. Gigi spent her childhood being dragged around the world by her cultural anthropologist parents, and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with an overgrown vegetable garden in the backyard.

Gigi’s latest novel, The Accidental Alchemist, is the first in a new cozy mystery series set in Portland, Oregon, featuring a centuries-old female alchemist and her French chef sidekick – who happens to be a gargoyle who was accidentally brought to life by a stage magician. The book involves plenty of culinary alchemy and includes recipes!

Read an excerpt here.

And read on to win a copy of The Accidental Alchemist.

***

I learned how to cook in earnest after a cancer diagnosis left me with frustrating food restrictions. I wanted to take care of myself, but at the same time I refused to eat boring food! My solution was to take cooking classes and learn how to cook delicious meals from scratch.

Through my culinary journey, I discovered that simple tricks could create the most delectable meals that had the added benefit of being healthy. Learning how to transform simple foods into something greater than the sum of their parts influenced my writing of The Accidental Alchemist, because cooking from scratch was fast becoming a central part of my life. I explored my own life transformations through the book, which was a lot of fun.

Below is my adaptation of a classic Scottish dessert, Cranachan, a rich pudding that usually gets its core flavor from heavy cream. In my version, you don’t lose any of the rich taste with a simple substitution. By putting in a little bit of effort to make cashew cream the day before you serve the dessert, you can have a mouth-watering treat that’s good for you – and it also looks beautiful to serve to guests. It was a big hit at my last dinner party!

Gigi’s Cranachan Scottish Pudding

Ingredients

• 1 cup rolled oats (aka old fashioned oats)
• 2 Tbsp honey
• 1 cup homemade sweet cashew cream (see recipe below)
• 1 Tbsp whisky (a bourbon works wonderfully here)
• 1 cup raspberries

Directions

Make your cashew cream the day before, so it thickens in the fridge. When you’re ready to put together your Cranachan, mix 1 Tbsp of whisky (or more, to taste) into the cashew cream.

Toast the uncooked oats in a skillet with the honey until the mixture smells toasty, approximately 5 minutes. Once it cools, layer the raspberries, cream, and toasted oats into 4 dessert cups.

Cashew Cream

Make this the day before you make Cranachan, so the cream can thicken in the fridge.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups raw cashews
• 1 cup filtered water (plus extra for pre-soaking)
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup
• Dash of salt or spritz of lemon juice

Directions

To soften the cashews, soak them in cold water for 8 hours, or in hot water for 2 hours. Rinse and drain. In a blender, blend all the ingredients together. A high speed blender works best to get the creamiest consistency, but any blender should do, as long as you give it enough time. (NOTE: You only need half of this cream for the Cranachan, but making this larger amount works best in a blender, especially if you aren’t using a high speed blender. Plus it’s always nice to have extra!)

I love using cashew cream as a substitute for heavy cream in all sorts of sweet and savory dishes, from cheesecake to macaroni and cheese.

Do you have a favorite culinary alchemy trick? If you’d like to win a copy of The Accidental Alchemist, which includes recipes, include your email address in your comment below.

Find out more about Gigi and her books on her website gigipandian.com, and connect with her on Facebook facebook.com/GigiPandian ,Twitter @GigiPandian, and Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/GigiPandian/.