Welcome Guest Blogger Lorraine Bartlett

A great big MLK welcome to the lovely and talented Lorraine Bartlett, whose newest Victorian Square Mystery ("The Walled Flower") was released this month ... and became an instant bestseller!

All for the English Ivy Inn …

Katie Bonner, the protagonist in my Victoria Square Mysteries, is a frustrated hostess.  All her adult life, Katie’s longed to open a bed-and breakfast inn.  Not only did she collect bric-a-brac and furniture to make her potential guests feel at home, but she collected recipes for hearty breakfasts and sumptuous afternoon teas, too.

Katie grew up in a home where afternoon tea often replaced supper.  Her beloved and elderly Aunt Lizzie made scones two or three times a week, so it was a natural that Katie would include them on her proposed B&B menu.

Except for one tiny detail.  Katie never got to open her English Ivy Inn.  (Well, not yet.)  Her late husband invested their life savings in Artisans Alley, a fine arts and crafts arcade, a going concern quickly going downhill.  (Don’t worry, Katie will fix that!)

Katie hasn’t given up on her dream, and in fact has collected many of her own recipes and other from her Artisans Alley vendors and friends on Victoria Square.  (You can find them in Recipes to Die for: A Victoria Square Cookbook.)  Here’s her Aunt Lizzie’s favorite scone recipe.

Ingredients

2 cups flour

¼ cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

¾ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold

¾ cup cream or milk

1 egg

½ cup raisins, sultanas, or currants

1 egg yolk

2 tablespoons cold water

Preheat oven to 350º. Sift the dry ingredients together. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles crumbs. Beat the milk and whole egg together. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir until well blended. Add the raisins, stirring until well mixed. Sprinkle the flour over a flat surface. The dough will be rather wet and will absorb the flour. Briefly knead the dough (once or twice) and pat down until the dough is ¾-inch thick. Cut out the scones with a biscuit cutter and place on a greased cookie sheet. Beat the egg yolk with the cold water. Brush glaze over the scones. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. Serve hot or cold with butter or clotted cream and jam.

Yield: 10-12 scones.

Until Katie’s luck (and financial situation) changes, she’s stuck at Artisans Alley, where murder and mayhem seem to break out at regular intervals.  Her latest adventure (Victroria Square #2) is hot off the press.  It’s called The Walled Flower.  I hope you’ll give it try.  (P.S.  There are recipes at the back of it, too!)

~~~~~

Lorraine Bartlett must be absolutely crazy. Why else would she write three different mystery series? In addition to the Victoria Square Mysteries, she writes the Jeff Resnick Mysteries as L.L. Bartlett, and the New York Times bestselling, Agatha-nominated Booktown Mysteries under the name Lorna Barrett.

You can find THE WALLED FLOWER at most bookstores and online. Please visit Lorraine’s website (www.LorraineBartlett.com) or her Dazed and Confused blog: www.LLBartlett.typepad.com.  You can also find Lorraine (and her many alter egos) at www.LLBartlett.com and www.LornaBarrett.com.

Welcome guest, Lorna Barrett!

Welcome our guest, Lorna Barrett!

Lorna is the New York Times Bestselling author of the Booktown Mystery series. Chapter and Hearse, the 4th book, is now available. Lorna also writes under the names Lorraine Bartlett and L.L. Bartlett. Visit her website at: www.LornaBarrett.com and her blog www.LornaBarrett.blogspot.com

Take it away, Lorna!

The Chemistry Of Cooking

By Lorna Barrett

I never did well in high school science class. Heck, who cared about that kind of stuff when there were books to be read? Fun books like “House of Many Shadows” and “Witch” by Barbara Michaels. Or the four biographies of Edgar Allen Poe that my school library owned. And in my junior and senior years, I read entire volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Science? Who cared when you could read about fascinating places, and pick up little known facts, or read about the excitement of Elias Howe inventing the sewing machine!

That said, I loved to bake. And until recently, I was a stickler for following directions to the letter. (Since I’ve been writing the Booktown Mysteries, and have needed to give my character Angelica interesting things to cook and bake, I’ve gotten a little bolder.)

There’s a reason combinations of ingredients work to make cakes and breads rise. It’s chemistry, pure and simple. Or, maybe it’s just magic. (I think I prefer the latter explanation.) You might want to substitute spices and flavorings, but messing with a recipe’s core ingredients (the ratio of flour to baking powder, for example), is just asking for trouble.

Then there are the clueless. In my latest Booktown Mystery, my heroine, Tricia Miles, is asked to bring some kind of breakfast food to a gathering of friends. Not having much experience in the kitchen, she pulls a book of her shelf and finds a recipe for blueberry muffins. How hard could blueberry muffins be to make?

Well … it turns out they can be quite difficult – especially if you don’t know what you’re doing and you don’t have the proper ingredients. Tricia substitutes with wild abandon and the results . . . well, let’s just say my readers find them amusing.

Here’s the recipe Tricia used as a guide. Maybe you’d like to try making them. But don’t mess with too many of the ingredients – if you want something edible, that is.

Blueberry Muffins

1 egg

½ cup milk

¼ cup butter, melted

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup fresh blueberries or well-drained frozen blueberries (thawed)

Heat oven to 400º Grease the bottoms of 12 medium muffin cups or line with paper baking cups. Beat egg; stir in milk and melted butter. Mix in remaining ingredients just until flour is dampened. Batter should be lumpy.

Fill muffin cups two-thirds full. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Immediately remove from pan.

Makes 12 muffins

Find out more about Lorna at her websbite, LORNA BARRETT and don't miss any books in the series! You can read excerpts of her books by clicking this LINK.

Enjoy reading!

Our Guest Author - Lorraine Bartlett

Welcome, LORRAINE!

Lorraine is a New York Times bestselling author.

She writes the Victoria Square Mysteries, featuring Katie Bonner, manager of Artisan's Alley. The first book, A MATTER OF MURDER, will debut in 2010.

As Lorna Barrett, she writes the Booktown cozy mystery series featuring Tricia Miles and her mystery bookstore, Haven’t Got a Clue--which includes her cat, Miss Marple. This series includes her bestseller, Murder is Binding. New out is Bookplate Special.

As L.L. Barrett, she writes the Jeff Resnick psychological suspense series.

To make Lorraine comfy in our cozy little format, I asked her the following questions. Her new Booktown novel, Bookplate Special, includes a restaurant. I had to assume she'd have a recipeto share, right?

What does your protagonist like to eat?
Tricia is very weight conscious. She allows herself to salads and tuna plates, a bagel for breakfast and lots of coffee. However, her sister, Angelica, eats and loves EVERYTHING and is always trying to get Tricia to broaden her food choices. Eventually, Tricia is going to do some serious thinking about her eating habits (book #4 in the Booktown Mystery series, Chapter & Hearse, which will be released on August 3, 2010.)


Is the food served at the restaurant in your book or does she cook it herself?
Most of the food is prepared by Tricia’s sister, Angelica, who opens a small café in Bookplate Special, The café is called Booked for Lunch. They only serve lunch—which is pretty much soup and sandwiches. Angelica loves to bake, too. The recipes included in most of the Booktown Mysteries are Angelica’s.


What/who is her favorite Food Network show/cookbook/celebrity chef?
Angelica would like to be the next Paula Deen, and probably wishes she was as young and skinny as Giada Delaurentus. (Although she secretly thinks Giadia has to be bulimic to be a cook and stay that impossibly thin.). Angelica’s appalled that Sandra Lee starts most of her recipes with box mixes. She thinks everything should be made from scratch.

What’s her favorite cheese?
I really couldn’t say. I’m not much of a cheese hound myself (I cook and/or eat mozzarella, parmesan, Swiss, and cheddar and that’s about it), but I’m sure Angelica would be quite knowledgeable if I did a bit more research.

Would you care to share a recipe with us?
I’d be delighted. I made these mini spinach quiches for Bookplate Special and had to make the recipe several times before I was happy with the amount of cheese. (I wanted more, More, MORE!) My husband was very happy with all those test batches and has encouraged me to make more of them.

Mini Spinach Quiches
½ cup butter or margarine, softened
1 package (3 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 slices bacon
¼ cup chopped green onion
2 eggs
½ cup half-and-half cream
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1 (10 ounce) package frozen spinach, thawed and well drained (use your hands to squeeze out the water)

In a small mixing bowl, cream butter and cream cheese. Add flour; beat until well blended. Shape into 24 balls. Press balls into the bottom and the sides of greased mini muffin cups.

Preheat oven to 350º degrees. In a skillet, cook the bacon until brown and very crisp; drain. Sautee the onions in the same skillet with the bacon drippings, cook for 5 minutes, or until tender, stirring constantly; drain. Place the onions in a medium bowl. Crumble the bacon into small pieces, and add in with the cooked green onion. Add the eggs to the bacon and onions; beat well. Stir in the cream, salt, nutmeg and the Parmesan cheese. Add in the squeezed spinach; mix well to combine. Divide the mixture into crust-lined cups (do not overfill).

Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown. Cool in pan on wire rack for 5 minutes. Serve warm or cool. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

Makes 24

Thank you, Lorraine, for offering such fun insights into your writing and a delicious recipe, to boot!

AND DON'T FORGET:

Win a $25 Gift Card to Williams-Sonoma gourmet food and kitchenware store! In early November, we're going to have an Iron Chef Week. Each of our mystery writing cooks will post a recipe with the same secret ingredient. To enter our drawing for the gift card, all you have to do is send an e-mail, suggesting a future Secret Ingredient to: MysteryLoversKitchen@gmail.com

NOTE: You must be a follower of our blog for your entries to count. Just click on one of the "follow" buttons in the right column and you're all set. One entry allowed per day per person. The winner will be announced right here on November 9th! (Again, if you're not following our blog, another winner will be selected...so be sure to follow!)