Shakshuka from @MaddieDayAuthor plus #Giveaway

 MADDIE here, with a yummy easy summer recipe.

It is still summer, right? The tomatoes in my garden seem to think so! My alter-ego's newest Quaker Midwife Mystery, Taken Too Soon, takes place at exactly this time of year on Cape Cod in 1889. I'm not sure if they ever heard of Shakshuka, which is eaten for breakfast in Israel. But after my son and his wife made it for a vegetarian dinner, I wanted to give it a try.

Shakshuka

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large chopped onion, 

1 green bell pepper

2 minced garlic cloves

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon paprika

Salt and pepper to taste

5 cups chopped ripe tomatoes

4 large eggs (raw)

2 tablespoons fresh basil, chopped

Feta cheese

Directions

Heat oil in a large heavy skillet or pan. Add chopped onions and bell peppers and saute until tender, at least five minutes.

Add the garlic and saute for not more than a minute. Add the seasonings and tomatoes and cook covered for about 15 minutes, then uncover and cook until the shakshuka sauce has thickened.

Using the back of a wooden spoon make four evenly spaced indentations in the sauce. Crack the eggs and add one in each indentation.

Lower the head to medium-low, cover the skillet, and allow the eggs to cook briefly until the whites are settled (shakshuka eggs are supposed to be runny, but if you like your eggs hard, you can let them cook a bit longer).

Sprinkle with chopped basil and crumbled feta (if you want - I forgot the feta).

Serve hot with fresh bread and a glass of wine.

Readers: What's your favorite egg dish? Have you ever had Shakshuka? I'll send one commenter a signed copy of Candy Slain Murder!

My most recent book is my alter-ego's Taken Too Soon, the sixth Quaker Midwife (written by Edith Maxwell)!

In this book, midwife Rose Carroll travels to Cape Cod with her freshly minted husband on a modest honeymoon - which turns into an investigation into the murder of her aunt's ward.


Following on its coattails is Candy Slain Murder, the eighth Country Store mystery - up for preorder now! You guessed it, the story takes place at Christmas, with Robbie Jordan back in South Lick, Indiana. She digs into the mysterious skeleton of a woman who went missing a decade earlier, and then the woman's twin's murder nearly right in front of Robbie's eyes.

Isn't that a fun cover! You'll be hearing more here about the recipes in the back.

I hope you'll visit Edith Maxwell and me on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.