A very warm welcome to our friend, Heather Blake! Heather writes the Wishcraft Mysteries and A Witch to Remember is the 9th book in the series!
Heather is giving away a copy today, and because I have a book coming out tomorrow, I'm throwing in The Diva Sweetens the Pie, too.
Don't forget to enter at the bottom of the post!
In my latest release, A Witch to Remember, the ninth book in
the Wishcraft series, my main character, Darcy Merriweather, has instituted
family-and-friend dinners on Sunday nights. Big meals, shared with loved ones,
to catch up on the week behind and to start the week ahead off right. (Of
course in Darcy’s world nothing ever goes quite right, and let’s just say that
there’s only so long cheesy bread can keep in the oven.)
The inspiration for Darcy’s dinners came straight from my
husband’s family. They always had weekly spaghetti dinners growing up. Once I
joined the family, I found something so comforting about knowing that every weekend
we’d be together, enjoying my mother-in-law’s amazing spaghetti sauce and
meatballs. There were plenty of laughs and lots of love (and I didn’t have to
cook—bonus!).
In my family growing up, we didn’t have weekly extended-family
meals, but it seemed like we celebrated every good life event under the sun
with a barbecue. Having a baby? Barbecue! New job? Barbecue! New house?
Barbecue! Graduation? Barbecue! I even had a barbecue after my second wedding
(same man—a church wedding a year to the day after we were married by a justice
of the peace).
To this day, when there’s some sort of big family event happening,
we tend to barbecue, and this recipe (also my mother-in-law’s!) is always on
the table. It’s an easy dish to throw together, and in my opinion, is even
better the second day as leftovers.
At some point over the past decade, our weekly family dinners
stopped happening, and I miss them. Maybe it’s time to reinstate them—perhaps as
a weekly barbecue?
Does your family have celebratory barbecues or weekly
dinners?
Macaroni Salad
1 lb box elbows
1 green pepper, diced
1 large yellow onion, diced
1 cup green olives, sliced in
half
4-5 stalks celery, diced
½ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup milk
¼ cup apple cider vinegar
¾ tsp. sugar
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. garlic powder
*Adjust sugar, salt, pepper,
garlic powder to taste
1. Cook
the elbows according to the directions on the package. Drain and rinse in cold
water.
2. Toss
elbows with the remaining ingredients and chill in the refrigerator for at
least an hour.
*Note from Heather: This makes a lot
of macaroni salad, at least 8 servings. These pictures are from a half-batch.
Heather
Blake, aka Heather Webber, is the author of more than twenty-five novels. She
loves to read, drink too much coffee and tea, birdwatch, crochet, and bake. She
currently lives near Cincinnati, Ohio, and is hard at work on her next book.
To enter the giveaway to win a copy of A Witch to Remember and a copy of The Diva Sweetens the Pie, please leave a comment with your email address so we can notify you if you win. Good Luck!
