“Light” Chicken Marsala by Sherry Harris

A very warm welcome to our friend, Sherry Harris. Her recipe today is making me hungry! It's the perfect dish for a cold winter night. Sherry writes the Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mysteries. The eighth book in this delightful series, SELL LOW, SWEET HARRIET, comes out on December 31st! What a great way to read into the New Year.

Thanks for having me back to celebrate the release of Sell Low, Sweet Harriet, the eighth book in the Sarah Winston Garage Sale mysteries. If you’ve followed the series you know that Sarah isn’t a very good cook and either eats at her good friends the DiNapolis’ restaurant or eats a Fluffernutter sandwich. But in Sell Low, Sweet Harriet when the DiNapolis talk about food and love, Sarah decides to try to make Chicken Marsala, her boyfriend’s favorite dish.

If you want to make a gluten free version of this recipe buy gluten free chicken stock, skip dredging in flour, and serve on zoodles.

Ingredients

1 ½ pounds thin cut chicken breasts (or pound your own)

½ cup flour

2 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoon olive oil

6 garlic cloves minced

½ cup chopped onion or shallots

16 ounces slice fresh mushrooms

1/3 cup sweet Marsala wine

1/3 cup dry Marsala wine

1 cup chicken stock

Salt

Pepper

Your favorite pasta (cook during the sauce making stage)

Instructions

1.     Preheat the oven to 200 degrees

2.     Place a piece of wax paper on the counter that is long enough to hold all the chicken

3.     Put the flour in a flat bowl with salt and pepper to taste. Dredge the chicken in the flour, shake off excess, and put on wax paper.

4.     Heat  ½ butter and ½ olive oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add chicken and cook until golden on each side about three minutes per side. Transfer to a baking sheet and put in oven to keep warm while you make the sauce.

5.     Add the rest of the butter and olive oil to the pan and melt. Add the onion and cook for one minute. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add mushrooms and salt and pepper to taste. Cook for five minutes stirring occasionally. Sprinkle mushroom mixture with 2 teaspoons flour left over from dredging. Cook, stirring constantly for 30 seconds. Add chicken stock and Marsala wine. Cook until thickened about five minutes.

6.     Return chicken to sauce, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for five minutes.

7.     Put pasta in a bowl, top with chicken and sauce.

Zoodle option!

 

Sherry Harris is the Agatha Award-nominated author of the Sarah Winston Garage Sale mystery series and the upcoming Chloe Jackson Sand Dollar Saloon mysteries. She is a past president of Sisters in Crime, and a member of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, the New England Chapter of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers.

In her spare time Sherry loves reading and is a patent holding inventor. Sherry, her husband, and guard dog Lily are living in northern Virginia until they figure out where they want to move to next.

Website: Sherryharrisauthor.com
Blog: Wickedcozyauthors.com

Leave a comment below with your email address to enter to win a copy of 

SELL LOW, SWEET HARRIET! 

 

Pizza So Easy Even Sarah Could Make It -- Guest Sherry Harris

LESLIE: Some cozy protagonists love to cook, some not so much. But everybody eats, right? So it's great fun to see how the non-cooks among the characters we know and love manage on their own. Our friend Sherry Harris has a great solution, a fairly free-form pizza recipe that offers just the right amount of flavor and flexibility! And she's celebrating the release of I KNOW WHAT YOU BID LAST SUMMER, fifth in the Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mysteries, out February 27th from Kensington Books.

Sherry is offering a signed copy to one lucky reader! Leave a comment below for a chance to win. 

Pizza So Easy Even Sarah Could Make It 

Thanks Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen for being brave enough to ask me back. Apparently my earlier recipe for Fluffernutter Cake didn’t make anyone sick. Woo-hoo. I write the Sarah Winston Garage Sale mystery series. My protagonist, Sarah Winston, isn’t exactly known for her cooking. She either eats at her favorite restaurant, DiNapoli’s Roast Beef and Pizza, or she makes a Fluffernutter sandwich. But sometimes a girl has to do something other than that.

So for Sarah and all the other people out there who like an easy, delicious recipe, here is my husband’s Garlic Pizza. He came up with the idea because our daughter isn’t a huge fan of tomato sauce. It’s been a hit ever since.

My husband makes his own crust using the recipe that came with the food processor. You can either make your crust or use a store-bought one. (I still want to try it with a cauliflower crust.)  After the crust dilemma is decided you only need two ingredients – garlic and a decent mozzarella cheese, about 14-16 ounces. We’ve found through some unfortunate experiences that bagged pre-shredded mozzarella just doesn’t cut it for this recipe.

Preheat your oven to 430 degrees (Note from Leslie: I checked, and yes, Mr. Sherry confirms he bakes at 430 degrees!)

Shred the cheese.

We always use fresh garlic – a lot of it! My husband uses six to eight large cloves. Remove the skin of the garlic. We put it in a jar and shake it around but you can also squish it out with the backside of a garlic press or a large knife. (For Sarah, the fewer sharp object around the better.)

Cook the crust for five minutes. We use a pan with holes in the bottom. My husband cooks it for three minutes on the top rack and two on the bottom.

Put the minced garlic directly on the hot pizza crust, and then spread it around with your fingers.

Top with the shredded mozzarella – add as much as you like!

Bake for ten to fourteen minutes until the crust is golden brown (or GB as we call it) on the bottom and the cheese is nicely melted. My husband cooks it on the top rack for six minutes and the bottom for four.

Slice and enjoy! We often add fresh tomatoes on top or a bit of crushed red pepper. Anything works – we’ve tried everything from avocado to left over pork. But usually we eat it just as it is.

Pizza -- the all-American food! What's your favorite? Tell us in the comments for a chance to win a signed copy of I KNOW WHAT YOU BID LAST SUMMER. (U.S. addresses only) The winner will be chosen Tues morning, March 6.)

From the cover of I KNOW WHAT YOU BID LAST SUMMER:

FOUL PLAY IN THE GYM

When it comes to running a successful garage sale, Sarah Winston believes in doing her homework. She also believes in giving back. But when she agrees to manage an athletic equipment swap, she doesn't bargain on an uncharitable killer. The day of the event, the school superintendent is found dead in the gymnasium.

HAS SARAH PLAYING DEFENSE
Suddenly the murder suspects are the school board members—including the husband of a very difficult client who's hired Sarah to run a high-end sale and demands she do her bidding. In between tagging and haggling, Sarah studies the clues to see who wanted to teach the superintendent a lesson. But as she closes in on the truth, the killer intends to give her a crash course on minding her own business . . .

SherryHarris is the Agatha Award nominated author of the Sarah Winston Garage Sale mystery series. The fifth book, I Know What You Bid Last Summer, was released in February 2018.

Sherry is the Vice President of Sisters in Crime National, a member of the Chesapeake Chapter of Sisters in Crime, the New England Chapter of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers.

In her spare time Sherry loves reading, is a patent holding inventor, and is a former model. (Okay, it was just the one time at Talbots last year, but it was fun.) 

Sherry, her husband, and guard dog Lily are living in northern Virginia until they figure out where they want to move to next.

Visit her website, join her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter, @SHarrisauthor. Sherry blogs with the Wicked Cozy Authors. 

Fluffernutter Cake Roll from Sherry Harris!

A very warm welcome to Sherry Harris. Sherry writes the Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mysteries. What a fun theme! We'll all be thinking mystery when we stop by a garage sale now.

Don't miss her book giveaway at the bottom!

Heeeeeere's Sherry!

Fluffernutter Cake Roll

Thank you so much for having me today! Sarah Winston isn’t much of a cook. Her go to meal when she’s at home is a fluffernutter sandwich, the official sandwich of Massachusetts. A fluffernutter is made using white bread, Marshmallow Fluff, and peanut butter. The sandwich is served at school lunch programs across the state. A state senator once suggested it wasn’t healthy and shouldn’t be served which created an uproar.

I pondered how to create a delicious dessert based on the fluffernutter sandwich. I came up with a cake roll. The sponge cake takes the place of white bread. I based the fluffernutter filling on a fluffernutter icing recipe from the Marshmallow Fluff website.

Cake:

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla

¾ cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

powdered sugar

Pre-heat oven to 375. Line a 15x10x1 inch pan with waxed paper or aluminum foil. Grease liner well. Beat eggs on high speed for five minutes. Gradually add sugar. Change to low speed and add vanilla and water. Gradually add flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat until just smooth. Pour into pan and spread until evenly distributed.

Bake 15 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. Loosen from sides, turn onto a dishtowel sprinkled with lots of powdered sugar. Gently remove wax paper or aluminum foil. Immediately roll cake in the towel from the narrow end. Leave until completely cool – 45 minutes to an hour. Unroll cake and spread fluffernutter filling across the cake. Roll the cake back up (sans dishtowel) and sprinkle with additional powdered sugar.

Fluffernutter Filling

2 cups Marshmallow Fluff (not marshmallow crème)

½ cup peanut butter

1/3 cup butter softened

½ teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup powdered sugar

2T milk or half and half

Mix the Fluff, peanut butter, and butter on low speed until well blended. Alternate adding milk and powdered sugar. Add vanilla and salt beat until smooth. Spread over cake. Notes: for a less sweet filling don’t add the powdered sugar, vanilla, milk, and salt. You can adjust the peanut butter from ¼ to ¾ cups depending how strong a peanut butter flavor you want. You don’t need to use all the filling. 

Sherry Harris started bargain hunting in second grade at her best friend’s yard sale. She honed her bartering skills as she moved around the country while her husband served in the Air Force. Sherry uses her love of garage sales, her life as a military spouse, and her time living in Massachusetts as inspiration for the Sarah Winston Garage Sale series.

Sherry is giving away a copy of A GOOD DAY TO BUY to one lucky winner! To enter, leave a comment with your email address so she can contact you if you win. Good luck!