Mussels with White Wine and Tomatoes #Recipe @PegCochran

 

I love mussels.  Living in Michigan, our fish counter has them sometimes and sometime they don't.  I was thrilled to find this pack of frozen mussels in the shell in Aldi.  They are pasteurized and already cooked in brine.  They just need heating with some other ingredients to bring out the flavor.  Hubby doesn't care for mussels so I saved them and made them one night when he was away.  I was pleasantly surprised!  I thought the mussels were excellent and they were so easy to prepare.  I served them over spaghetti.

1 package frozen mussels
A bit of olive oil
1 small onion, minced
1 or 2 garlic cloves or according to taste, minced
A splash of white wine or dry vermouth
1 can diced tomatoes

 

 

 Heat olive oil in a skillet, add onion and garlic and sauté until onion is translucent.  

 

 

Deglaze the pan with a splash of white wine or dry vermouth. Simmer for a minute or so to reduce the liquid.

 

Add one 14-ounce can of diced tomatoes and simmer for several minutes so tomatoes absorb the flavor. 

 

 

Add mussels (no need to thaw), cover and steam for approximately six minutes.  Mussels will open as they heat.

 

Serve over pasta of your choice or with some crusty bread to soak up the sauce.

"A Fatal Footnote is a delightful romp in the English countryside sure to entertain any cozy mystery reader."  Open Book Society

Writer-in-residence Penelope Parish will need to use every trick in her quaint British bookshop to unravel a murderous plot that threatens to ruin a ducal wedding.

The wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Upper Chumley-on Stoke has all the makings of a fairy tale, complete with a glowing bride and horse-drawn carriage. But it wouldn't be much of a story without a villain, and as American Gothic novelist Penelope Parish is coming to learn, happy-ever-afters are as fraught in this charming British town as they are in her books.

When the Duke's former girlfriend is found murdered at the reception it's up to Penelope and her newfound family at the Open Book bookshop to catch the killer before they strike again.

 

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Murder in the Margins has everything: England * Charming town * Book shop * Writer-in-residence * Royalty * Cute detective * Murder!

 

 

The plot thickens for American gothic writer Penelope Parish when a murder near her quaint British bookshop reveals a novel's worth of killer characters.

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Pasta with Mussels #Recipe @PegCochran

I'm sure there are some people who would consider craving mussels a bit strange!  And I wouldn't blame you.  But for some reason last Friday I decided that that was what I wanted for dinner!  Hubby doesn't care for mussels but he was away for the weekend so the timing was perfect.

This recipe is from Jamie Oliver although tweaked a bit to accommodate what I had to work with and how I wanted to cook this.  He is a big proponent of doing four things at once (while the water boils, chop the garlic...) while I like to have my ingredients ready beforehand or I feel like I'm one of those entertainers trying to keep a dozen plates spinning at once.  I cut the recipe in half but I will give you the ingredients for making this for two as in the original recipe  It still made quite a lot.  (And yes, I ate it all--I didn't think it would keep all that well for lunch the next day.)

Ingredients:

extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, sliced
1 onion, chopped (I added this from another recipe)
1 kg washed and debearded mussels (this is about two pounds)
1 - 2 pinches red chili flakes
1 anchovy fillet or a squeeze of anchovy paste
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
splash of white wine (added from another recipe)
250 g linguine (I made 4 ounces for myself so make this 8 ounces)
parsley, chopped
salt & pepper to taste

Start the water boiling for your pasta.  When it boils, add pasta and cook until al dente.  I would cook the pasta when the sauce was almost done because "the sauce waits for the pasta, the pasta never waits for the sauce."

Heat the oil in a skillet and add the garlic and onion.  (I had minced jarred garlic so that is what I used.)   Ideally don't let the garlic brown.  Add the chili flakes (I added them to the finished dish) and the anchovy.  (I didn't have anchovies and didn't want to buy a whole can for one fillet so I used a squeeze of anchovy paste.)  Squeeze the cherry tomatoes over the pan and toss them in.  (I forgot to cut them in half.)  Add the splash of white wine if using.

Add the washed and debearded mussels to the skillet.  Cover and cook until the mussels are open.  Discard any mussels that don't open.

Drain your cooked linguine (cooked al dente) reserving a bit of pasta water in case you need it (I didn't.)  Return pasta to pan and add the mussels and sauce.  Give it a good stir.  Put over a low burner and cook for a minute or two.  (Although I don't see why you couldn't add the pasta to the skillet you cooked the mussels in instead of dirtying up the pasta pan which just takes a swish of hot water and soap to clean.)

Sprinkle with chopped parsley, add salt and pepper to taste and serve!

On her blog, The Farmer’s Daughter, Shelby McDonald is growing her audience as she posts recipes, gardening tips, and her experiences raising two kids and running Love Blossom Farm in the small western Michigan town of Lovett.

Working the farm is demanding but peaceful—until that peace is shattered when the minister’s wife is murdered on Shelby’s property during a fund-raiser for a local church. But the manure really hits the fan when Shelby’s good friend veterinarian Kelly Thacker emerges as the prime suspect. Shelby decides to dig in and find the murderer by herself. As more suspects crop up, she’ll have to move fast—before someone else buys the farm. . . .

INCLUDES DELICIOUS RECIPES

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Coming Soon!  Available for Pre-Order Now!

Mussels with Cider and Cream

I was going to be industrious and bake something using summer’s bountiful fruits and vegetables—but have I mentioned our local heat wave? Day 6 and counting. Or is it Day 7? So I started thinking about cooler recipes, ones that don’t involve any heating up an oven or standing over a fire.

And then I remembered the mussels in my freezer.

Back in 1999, my daughter and I traveled to Ireland alone (my husband was in South Korea at the time), landing at Shannon and driving south along the coast toward Leap, where we’d be staying. Along the way we stopped in Bantry for lunch. There’s a nice harbor there, and looking out across the water I asked, “what’re those things?” As it turned out, those were mussel beds.

I filed that thought away, and it was a few years later I was in my local market and saw they had packages of frozen mussels, ready to heat and serve. I read the fine print, and found they came from Bantry, which is in West Cork. [Note: while the company that packages these flourishes, they’re getting their mussels from China these days. But they still taste good.]

When I was growing up, and visiting Long Beach Island in New Jersey in the summer, mussels were those annoying things you cut your toes on. Now people see them in markets and say, “what the heck do I do with those?” Or “Where’s the food in them? They’re all shell!” I’ll admit they’re kind of labor-intensive for the amount of mussel you get out, but they do taste good.

And you can buy them shelled! Perfect for a very quick summer meal. Here’s one I adapted from a more traditional Irish recipe, modified for ready-to-eat mussels.

Mussels in Cider

Ingredients:

1 package frozen mussels (the 8-ounce package served two of us; the brother was enough for a larger package)
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed or minced
2 oz finely-diced pancetta
2 Tblsp butter
1 cup hard cider
1/4 cup heavy cream
Small handful of chopped parsley
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

In a medium-size saucepan, brown the pancetta pieces over medium heat until they are golden and sizzling. Add the butter, then the shallot and garlic. Cook for about 3 minutes, until the shallot is soft.

Add the cider and let bubble for a few minutes (what little alcohol there is will evaporate). Add the mussels and let them steam for a few minutes.

Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the cream and parsley, season with salt and black pepper. And there you have it!

Serve with some nice artisan bread to sop up the liquid.

Bakes locally in Plymouth

If you've never tried mussels, this is a simple way to start! Using mussels in the shell looks more impressive, but they're kind of messy.

Here's a version I had in Dublin. The green stuff
is samphire, which grows on rocks along the
shore. It tastes kind of like asparagus.

Soon I'll switch gears to the next Orchard Mystery, which is Seeds of Deception (I'll be writing the next in the series shortly, but it's only a glimmer of an idea at the moment, involving an organic orchard and poison).

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Welcome Guest @BarbaraRoss with Genevieve's Mussels #recipe #giveaway

 Today we're thrilled to bring back Barbara Ross, who is celebrating her third Maine Clambake Mystery, Musseled Out with a lovely recipe--and a giveaway of the new book! Welcome Barbara!

 

Barbara Ross: I’m excited about Musseled Out, the soon-to-be-released third book in my Maine Clambake Mystery series.

The book takes place in the run up to Columbus Day weekend, the traditional end of the season at the Snowden Family Clambake. Julia Snowden has successfully saved the business from bankruptcy and finally has time to think. Maybe too much time. Will she go back to her venture capital job in Manhattan, or stay in Busman’s Harbor, Maine?

There’s a fly in the ointment, though. Shifty David Thwing, The Mussel King, has been scouting for a place in town to offer a “dining experience.” Thwing’s executive chef, Genevieve Pelletier, is a full-on cooking prodigy, and it looks like they’ll provide formidable competition for the clambake. So when Thwing is found sleeping with the fishes, Julia’s brother-in-law, Sonny, becomes suspect #1.

I enjoyed creating the character of chef Genevieve Pelletier. My husband, Bill Carito, as always my cooking advisor, enjoyed creating her signature mussel dish.

Genevieve’s Signature Mussels

Genevieve Pelletier has built the reputation of her restaurants on her mussels, and if you make this dish you’ll see she certainly deserves the praise she gets for them. Genevieve serves this hearty dish as an appetizer, but it’s more than capable of carrying a meal as the entree.

6 ounces chorizo, divided. Half diced, half sliced into thin rounds

2-3 cloves garlic, chopped

¾ cup onion

¼ cup celery, diced

¼ cup red pepper, diced

salt and pepper 

½ Tablespoon smoked paprika

1 cup diced tomatoes

½ Tablespoon chopped fresh thyme

½ cup white wine

½ Tablespoon Dijon mustard

½ cup heavy cream

1-1½ pounds mussels, scrubbed and de-bearded

1 Tablespoon chopped parsley for garnish

Heat the olive oil on medium heat in a wide saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. 

Add the diced chorizo. Cook until lightly browned.

Stir in garlic, onion, celery, and red pepper.  Add salt and pepper to taste. Stir in smoked paprika. Sauté for three to four minutes.

Stir in tomato and thyme, cover pot, and simmer together for three to five minutes.

Add wine and let bubble on high heat for about a minute.

Stir in mustard and heavy cream and cook another minute. Taste and add additional salt or pepper, if necessary.

Add mussels, cover pot, and cook for five minutes, stirring once halfway through.

Spoon mussels into bowl, pour sauce over, and garnish with parsley

Barbara Ross is the author of the Maine Clambake Mysteries, Clammed Up, Boiled Over and Musseled Out (which will be released on April 28). Clammed Up was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and was a finalist for the Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. Both Clammed Up and Boiled Over were nominated for the RT Book Reviews, Reviewer’s Choice Best Book Award for Amateur Sleuth (2134 & 2014).

Barbara writes on the big front porch of the former Seafarer Inn at the head of the harbor in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. She blogs with a wonderful group of Maine mystery authors at Maine Crime Writers and with writers of New England-based cozy mysteries at Wicked Cozy Authors. You can reach her at her website www.maineclambakemysteries.com

Don't forget to leave a comment with your email to be entered in the drawing for Musseled Out...