Cream of Cauliflower Soup @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: It’s the middle of September already?? What else can we say other than get ready for soup! This version of cauliflower soup is pretty healthy, not terribly labor-intensive, and oh so delicious.

Ingredients

One head cauliflower

One to three leeks

3 to 4 stalks celery

3 tablespoons butter

One large potato

One box good chicken broth

4 to 6 ounces of cheddar cheese, shredded

Fresh chives, and ground pepper for garnish

Clean the leeks well, then halve and chop them. Ditto with the celery. Sauté all this in about 3 ounces of butter with a splash of olive oil until soft. Meanwhile, core and chop the cauliflower into bite-size pieces. Once the other vegetables are soft, add the cauliflower along with the chicken broth and one large potato chopped into chunks.

Simmer until everything is soft, half an hour or so. Let the soup cool and then purée it with an immersion blender. Mix in the grated cheddar and heat everything up again.

Serve with chopped chives and several grinds of fresh pepper. You could add milk or cream or more butter to this, but you really don’t need it! Serve with a nice green salad and maybe a biscuit.

Lucy Burdette writes the USA Today Bestselling food critic mystery series! You can find them wherever books are sold...

(Oh no, I'm missing a couple!) Not to mention LUCY BURDETTE'S KITCHEN: RECIPES AND STORIES FROM THE KEY WEST FOOD CRITIC MYSTERIES...

Spotlight on Lucy Burdette: Inside the Mind of a Mystery Writer

LUCY BURDETTE: Another year has flashed by and that brings another wonderful opportunity for a spotlight right here on our blog. Last year, my characters staged a takeover—they demanded to know what business I have writing about a food critic, whether I play favorites with my characters, and why I insist on putting them in danger. In 2022, I told you about my road to becoming a mystery writer—winding and bumpy!

This time around, A POISONOUS PALATE, Key West mystery #14, hits bookshelves on August 6, and Key West mystery #15 is due September 1 (ULP!) So I decided to share some thoughts about a topic I wrestle with every time I begin a new book: How to keep this long series fresh. I know that series readers (including me!) like to read about familiar characters and places. This can be a comfortable place to retreat when the world feels so scary and unpredictable. But I don’t want to be bored and I sure don’t want to bore you.

I start by thinking about Hayley’s stake in getting mixed up in murder. Since she’s a food critic, not a cop, she has no legitimate reason for crime solving—being nosy isn’t enough. So how do I make sure readers find her believable? In the first book, AN APPETITE FOR MURDER, Hayley was the suspect in a death involving a poisoned key lime pie. She had to poke around or end up in jail. In the second book, DEATH IN FOUR COURSES, Hayley finds the victim at an important foodie reception and a dear friend of hers is implicated in the murder. She’s very motivated to help clear his name. Ditto with book four, MURDER WITH GANACHE. Her parents are visiting the island for the first time, along with her stepbrother, who disappears into the spring break crowd. They can’t leave him in trouble, so the chase is on. Each book tackles her involvement in a different way.

I also like to watch my characters grow and change, and I love introducing new facets of Key West in each book. For example, THE KEY LIME CRIME, #10 in the series, takes place at Christmas, a magical time in Key West. I had the most fun introducing Hayley’s new mother-in-law Helen to Key West and Hayley, and having the two of them find a body hidden in a Santa suit. (This idea came from an actual decoration that we spotted on someone’s porch.) 

I found inspiration for #12, A DISH TO DIE FOR, when I took a tour of the real Key West Woman’s Club. While there, I was gifted a copy of the second edition of their cookbook. Inside that book, I discovered so many nuggets of history that fired up my imagination. But how would I use this? I decided that Hayley’s mother, Janet, would be hired to cater a murder victim’s memorial service reception at the Woman’s Club, using recipes from their vintage Key West cookbook. Hayley and her octogenarian neighbor, Miss Gloria, sign on to work with her, hoping to cook up some clues by observing the mourners. (Now, believe it or not, I’m editing the new edition of this cookbook, but I’ll save that story for another day.)

With A POISONOUS PALATE, I experimented with several new things—moving the action north on the Keys to Big Pine Key and flashing back to an old murder from the 1970’s that had never been solved. I hope you enjoy reading this installment as much as I enjoyed writing it. Now, I’m off to work on the knotty details of #15!

Readers: What keeps you reading a long series, and maybe more important, what makes you stop reading? Leave a comment to be entered in the drawing for a copy of A POISONOUS PALATE.

Lucy Burdette's Kitchen is available now!

Celebrate Lucy Burdette's Kitchen with Strawberry Cream Pie

 

LUCY BURDETTE: Long before I imagined I’d write a foodie mystery, I fell in love with Diane Mott Davidson’s series featuring caterer Goldie Schultz. Davidson didn't just dump descriptions onto her pages, food and cooking were woven into the pages to become part of her story. I always finished a book wishing I could have been friends with caterer Goldy, sitting in her kitchen, tasting her food. She and her detective husband Tom believed that serving good food demonstrated comfort and love. Plus, a lot of good detective work occurred while they cooked and ate.

 With fourteen books so far in my Key West series, each with recipes at the back of the book, I've had to do a lot of cooking to keep up with Hayley. I loved the idea of pulling them all together along with snippets from each book. Luckily for me, Crooked Lane Books agreed and LUCY BURDETTE'S KITCHEN will be out this week! To celebrate, I will share a recipe from the book, strawberry cream pie in a chocolate graham cracker crust. (Sorry about the photos, they are oldies but goodies!)

One of Hayley Snow’s favorite restaurants in Key West (mine too!) is called Seven Fish. The place has quite a cameo in the opening chapter of An Appetite for Murder: 

After sampling the sautéed grouper sushi rolls, the yellowtail snapper in a light curry cream sauce, the grilled mahi-mahi with roasted potatoes, the meatloaf, and the banana chicken, Hayley and her dining partner can't bear the idea of ordering dessert.

I think this was a big mistake because I would hate to miss their strawberry cream pie. I studied it last time I had it and it seemed to be mostly whipped cream and berries--and a chocolate crust of course. Here’s my version of their delightful confection.

Here's my version of the strawberry cream pie:

Ingredients for the crust

1 package chocolate graham crackers, crushed to crumbs (about 1 and 1/4 cups)

4 Tbsp butter, melted

2 Tbsp sugar

Whir the crackers to fine crumbs--in your food processor is easiest. Stir in the sugar and melted butter and combine well.

Press the crumb mixture into a pie pan (mine is 10 inches) and tap it firmly up the sides of the pan into a crust, using your fingers, the back of a spoon, or a water glass. Bake the crust for 15 minutes at 350 and let it cool.

Ingredients for the filling

1 and 1/2 lbs strawberries (best made in strawberry season)

2 cups whipping cream

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Wash, hull, and slice the strawberries, and then set them aside.

In one bowl, whip the cream cheese. In another, whip the cream and the vanilla until stiff. Add the sugar and whip that in. Gradually mix the cream cheese with the whipped cream until it's all nicely combined. (You may cut back on the sugar if you prefer the dessert even less sweet--and depending on how ripe your strawberries are.)

 

In the chocolate crust, alternate two layers of strawberries with layers of whipped cream, ending with the third layer of strawberries, artistically arranged.

Chill thoroughly. Serve and sit back to watch your guests swoon.

This and more available in Lucy Burdette's Kitchen!

To celebrate, I'm giving away a dish towel printed with Lucy Burdette's roasted shrimp recipe. Leave a comment to be entered in the drawing!

Coming on August 6, the 14th Key West food critic mystery: A POISONOUS PALATE!

How to Make a Salad that Feels Like a Celebration @lucyburdette

LUCY BURDETTE: after posting the recipe a couple of weeks ago about a tomato dumpling salad, I had salads on my mind. Why don’t I think of them more often for a tasty main course? I did some searching in our index and found that I actually have made quite a few salads, and some of them are memorable. But what makes them feel hearty and celebratory?

In order for a salad to sticks to the ribs, you’ll need to add protein. That can be in the form of cheese, nuts, beans, meat, or combination of all of the above. For cheese, my favorites are some good blue cheese, fresh, mozzarella, or the mild feta cheese I get at our farmers market.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Baby's house salad – this is one that I made copying the salad that we always get at our favorite pizza place in Key West, Clementes.

Panzanella, a.k.a. Italian bread salad. I could practically eat this every night. Love the croutons, love the fresh peppers, Love the tomatoes, love the added mozzarella.

Peach and cucumber salad: Wait till the peaches and cukes are ripe from the farmers market and add your best feta cheese.

Buffalo chicken salad – I used to order this at Archie Moore’s in New Haven and now you can make it yourself at home. If you can’t find their buffalo wing sauce, I’m sure there are other brands that would work.

Another restaurant knock off, this time, a Caribbean salad from Paseo’s (sadly no longer located in Key West.)

My big fat Greek salad: speaks for itself.

Salad for lunch: put out a smattering of different ingredients and let your guest pick and choose

Grilled steak salad, with or without the steak. You’ll see one of the photos is missing the meat and that could be so easily filled with some marinated beans.

Another summer salad, watermelon and cucumber with feta cheese.

Hope you find some inspiration there! For any of these, if you feel starved for carbs, add a tasty, homemade biscuit! 

Don’t forget to pre-order LUCY BURDETTE’S KITCHEN, Recipes and Stories from the Key West Food Critic mystery series...

Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including USA Today bestselling and Florida book award winning A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. You can order that wherever books are sold. 

If you’re all caught up, try Lucy’s first women’s fiction title, THE INGREDIENTS OF HAPPINESS.

Also follow Lucy on Facebook, and sign up for her mailing list right here. 

Not So Superior Burger @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: I’ve recently subscribed to a substack from the cookbook/writer Jenny Rosenstratch. I love her writing and I like her decision to lean vegetarian, at least during the week. In one of those recent newsletters, she described a trip to the East Village in New York to the home of the superiority burger. It sounded so amazing! But on the other hand, what were the chances of convincing John to truck into the city for a veggie burger? Not that great.

So I tracked down two versions of this no meat burger recipe made of chickpeas and quinoa and various other ingredients (many of them). As I alluded to, the recipe includes multiple ingredients, many pans, and results in what is more or less a crumbly pile. The end result was certainly good enough to eat, with lots of ‘burgers’ leftover to add to our freezer, but I will probably not make them again. If I do end up in the East Village one of these days and the line is not around the block, I would love to taste the real superiority burger that people rave about.

For this recipe, I leaned on one I found in the Washington Post and another in Forbes magazine. I made a few tweaks as per usual!

Ingredients 

One medium or two small yellow onions

2 teaspoons fennel seeds, toasted and ground

1 teaspoon chili powder

Salt and pepper

One cup cooked chickpeas (you can use a can, but better still is cooking a bag of dried chickpeas ahead of time and stashing one cup containers in your freezer)

2/3 cup quinoa

Three small carrots

1/2 cup Panko

3/4 cup pecans (the other recipes called for walnuts, which I do not prefer)

One lemon

1 tablespoon hot chili sauce of your choice.

1/4 cup potato starch

One and a half cups water +2 tablespoons, divided

Toasted buns, mustard, pickles, lettuce, avocado, all the fixings of your choosing

Simmer the quinoa in a cup and a half of water for about half an hour until the water is absorbed. Set this aside to cool and fluff up.

Chop the onions and the carrots and sauté them until soft in a bit of oil. Add the toasted ground fennel seeds, and the chili powder to the sauté, and continue cooking until everything is fragrant. Add the chickpeas and cook them until warm then mash them in with the other vegetables and spices. (I used the bottom of a metal measuring cup, but use the implement of your choice.)

Toast the pecans lightly, and grind them. Add these to the cooled quinoa and the ingredients from the frying pan. Mix in the Panko and lemon juice.

In another small bowl, stir the potato starch with 2 tablespoons of water, adding a little more if needed to create a thick slurry. Mix this into the quinoa. Scoop out balls of the veggie burger mix and sauté them in a bit of oil, about three minutes per side. 

Serve on a nice bun with condiments of your choice.

This made nine burgers for me, so I wrapped and froze the leftovers. Phew!

Don’t forget to pre-order LUCY BURDETTE’S KITCHEN, Recipes and Stories from the Key West Food Critic mystery series...(No, you will not find this veggie burger recipe in that book!)

Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including USA Today bestselling and Florida book award winning A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. You can order that wherever books are sold. 

If you’re all caught up, try Lucy’s first women’s fiction title, THE INGREDIENTS OF HAPPINESS.

Also follow Lucy on Facebook, and sign up for her mailing list right here. 

Rhubarb Cinnamon Loaf Cake @LucyBurdette

LUCY BURDETTE: We have a couple of plants in our Connecticut garden that really signal spring. Our shad trees blossom briefly—this is supposed to mean the shad (fish) are running in the river. Can’t vouch for that one! The chive plant is gorgeous in its greenery, and the rhubarb plant goes crazy about this time of year. I always feel badly if I don't use it a couple of times, so this is my first foray. I tweaked a recipe for apple cinnamon cake, adding some extra sugar because rhubarb is very, very tart. Next time I'd add even a bit more, plus some butter/sugar crumbles on top...

Ingredients

2/3 cup brown sugar, divided

½ tablespoon cinnamon

1/3 cup white sugar, plus two teaspoons

1/2 cup butter softened

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup milk or buttermilk

2 cups fresh rhubarb, chopped (about 5 short stalks)

1 tbsp melted butter

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or spray an 8x4 loaf pan. Fold a piece of parchment paper so it fits inside the pan, and butter that too.

Combine 1/3 cup of brown sugar with cinnamon in small bowl and set aside.

Cream white sugar, remaining brown sugar, and butter until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla.

Stir together flour and baking powder. Add to egg mixture alternating with milk, starting and ending with flour. Do not over mix. Sprinkle the extra sugar on the cut rhubarb pieces.

Pour half of batter into pan, sprinkle with half the chopped rhubarb and half the remaining cinnamon mixture.

Stir the remaining rhubarb into remaining batter and scrape this into pan. Top with remaining cinnamon mixture.

Bake approx. 5-55 minutes. Check until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let cool 10 minutes, then use the parchment to lift the cake out and set it on a rack to finish cooling. Serve with ice cream, whipped cream, or exactly as it is!

Don’t forget to pre-order LUCY BURDETTE’S KITCHEN, Recipes and Stories from the Key West Food Critic mystery series...

Lucy Burdette writes the Key West food critic mystery series including USA Today bestselling and Florida book award winning A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS. You can order that wherever books are sold. 

If you’re all caught up, try Lucy’s first women’s fiction title, THE INGREDIENTS OF HAPPINESS.

Also follow Lucy on Facebook, and sign up for her mailing list right here.