Shrimp Quesadillas from @MaddieDayAuthor #giveaway

MADDIE DAY here with an easy and delicious recipe for you.

Shrimp Quesadillas

Note: I used flax tortillas because that's what I had in the house, but these are better with flour tortillas. I also didn't have ripe avocados for guacamole, but it's a great additional topping. You can also substitute lobster, chicken, beef, or refried beans for the shrimp.

Ingredients

1 pound frozen shrimp, thawed, shelled, and cut in half

Juice of ½ lime

½ teaspoon chili powder

½ teaspoon powdered cumin

Olive oil

1 small onion, minced

½ red bell pepper, seeded and minced

4 flour tortillas

1 cup grated pepper jack or Monterey Jack cheese

Salsa and sour cream to garnish

 

Directions

Mix lime juice, chili powder, cumin, and oil in a bowl. 

Add prepared shrimp and toss. Refrigerate covered until ready to cook, no more than 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, sauté onion on medium low heat in a tablespoon of oil in a skillet. Add pepper and sauté until softened. Remove to plate.

 

Add 1 tablespoon oil and increase heat to medium high. Drain shrimp and quickly sauté until just past translucence. 

Remove to the vegetable plate.

Add 1 tablespoon oil. On one half of each tortilla, place a few tablespoons (depends on the size of the tortilla) of filling, sprinkle with cheese, and fold over.

Fry two at a time, pressing down with spatula, until lightly browned on one side, then flip and fry other side. (Sorry, forgot to grab a photo of this stage! 

Enjoy with any combination of sour cream, salsa, and guacamole.

This recipe has nothing to do with Christmas, but I'd love to give away two ARC of Christmas Scarf Murder, the new novella collection that includes my "Scarfed Down!"

Readers: Do you do the Feast of Seven Fishes at Christmas? What's your favorite Mexican food?

My most recent release is Batter Off Dead, Country Store Mystery #10, out now!

My next release is Murder in a Cape Cottage, the fourth Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery.

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell 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. 

Chicken Quesadilla from @MaddieDayAuthor, plus #giveaway

Maddie Day here, with another easy and delicious Cali-Mex recipe to celebrate the coming release of my seventh Country Store Mystery, Nacho Average Murder!

In chef Robbie Jordan's next adventure, she's hanging out in her home town of Santa Barbara. She loves the chicken quesadilla she eats so much, she puts it on the Specials menu after she gets back to her country store restaurant in southern Indiana. It's a super easy dish to fix for lunch or dinner, and you can add or subtract spiciness per your taste.

After June 30, I'll send one commenter a signed copy of the book (paper if US, ebook if elsewhere)!

Chicken Quesadilla

Ingredients

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, minced

1 green pepper, diced

Two boneless chicken thighs, trimmed of fat

Cumin

Chili pepper

Salt

4 flour tortillas

(Option) Chopped fresh or pickled Jalapeños

8 ounces pepper Jack cheese, grated (Option: use regular Monterey Jack if you don't like the peppers)

1 avocado mashed into your favorite guacamole recipe, or commercial guacamole

Salsa

  

Directions

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a cast iron skillet. Sauté onions and green peppers until tender. Remove to a plate.

Sprinkle cumin, chili pepper, and salt on chicken and rub in. Turn and repeat.

Heat second tablespoon of olive oil in the same pan. Sauté chicken on both sides until cooked. Remove, cool slightly, and shred.

Spread chicken, vegetables, and cheese in equal portions on one half of each tortilla. Fold over and press down.

Heat last tablespoon of olive oil in same pan. Saute one or two quesadillas at a time on both sides, just to warm.

Serve hot with salsa and guacamole.

 I'll send one commenter a sign copy of the book (paper if US, ebook if elsewhere)!

Readers: This is basically a grilled sandwich. What's your favorite grilled sandwich?

My next book is Nacho Average Murder, which comes out June 30 and is the seventh Country Store Mystery.

Robbie Jordan is temporarily leaving Pans ’N Pancakes, her country store in South Lick, Indiana, to visit Santa Barbara, California—where wildfire smoke tinges the air, but a more immediate danger may lie in wait . . .

The next book after that is Taken Too Soon, the sixth Quaker Midwife (written by Edith Maxwell), up for preorder now!

I hope you'll visit my alter-ego 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.

Quesadillas on the Grill

by Peg Cochran

Finally grilling season is here to stay in West Michigan.  We seem to have gone from ten foot piles of snow to summer in the space of a couple of days.  Spring was SHORT this year!

I was looking for something different to grill when I came up with the idea of quesadillas for dinner.  I checked some recipes and then decided to combine a couple of them to create my own variation.  Some were way too detailed for the mood I was in (late Sunday afternoon) and some didn’t have any meat in them, and I wanted these to be a main course not a snack.

I treated myself to a jar of Adobo Seasoning—something new for me.   It added a nice flavor to the chicken although I used it sparingly since the first ingredient listed is salt. 

This recipe is adaptable to your needs.  I grilled two chicken breasts (check out those grill marks!) and ended up using only one for two people and saving the other for lunches.

Sprinkle the chicken with Adobo seasoning and grill until your thermometer reads at least 165 degrees.

While the chicken is grilling, place a pepper of your choice (red, green, yellow, orange) on the grill.  Keep turning it until the skin blisters and blackens.  Remove from the grill and place in a plastic bag and allow it to steam until cool enough to handle.  Remove the charred skin and cut the pepper into thin strips. 

Cut grilled chicken into strips approximately the same size as the pepper strips.

Grate a good handful of cheese—I chose Monterey Jack, but you could use the cheese of your choice.  

 Place one tortilla on the grill and quickly arrange chicken and pepper on top and sprinkle with cheese.  Place another tortilla on top and press down with a spatula.  When the bottom tortilla is golden, flip them to grill the top tortilla.  (Next time I think I will put the fillings on half the tortilla and fold it in half to grill—easier to turn.) 

When the other side is golden, remove from grill.  Serve with toppings of your choice:  salsa, avocado, sour cream, salsa verde.  I like to put my toppings on top because, well, they are called “toppings.”  My husband likes to open the quesadilla and put his inside.  Kind of a you say tomato and I say “tom-ah-to” kind of thing.  

I served the quesadillas with a black bean salad.  No recipe, I just mixed a can of rinsed black beans, about a cup of corn, a half an avocado cut into small pieces and then tossed it with a lime/olive oil/cilantro dressing.  Perfect!

Trying a new seasoning.  Sprinkle on the chicken before grilling

Grill pepper until charred, steam in plastic bag and then remove skin

Black bean, corn and avocado salad makes a great side dish

Add caption

I have a new series coming in August 2015--the Cranberry Cove series.  I'm really excited about it and can't wait for you to become a part of Cranberry Cove!


Visit my website or join me on Facebook!  I'm also on Twitter @pegcochran

Happy Cinco de Mayo! Felicidades!

First a little history: The holiday of
Cinco De Mayo, The 5th Of May,
commemorates the victory of the
Mexican militia over the French army
at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. It is
primarily a regional holiday celebrated
in the Mexican city of Puebla
and throughout the state of Puebla, with
some limited recognition in other parts of
Mexico, and especially in U.S. cities with
a significant Mexican population.
It is not Mexico's Independence Day,
which is actually September 16.
This year is especially important as Mexico will be celebrating its bicentennial!

And now onto the food! First off, we have the Hub's wonderful
tequila-lime salsa. If you missed it last time, it's worth checking
out. I am a salsa snob, and I have to say the Hub's is the best
I've ever tasted! Also, we have my very own enchilada casserole.
This is a fabulous dish to whip together using chicken, turkey or
beef. It's easy and delicious!

Another recipe I like to use because of its versatility is one for
a quick oven baked quesadilla. It can be made with chicken or
beef, I tend to use beef, and my favorite part of making it is
shopping for the ingredients. My sons and I like to shop at the
Ranch Market in Phoenix. It's a wonderful market that always
makes me feel as if I'm in Mexico (but the drive is much shorter).
The dudes and I spend a lot of time in the tortilleria,
watching the tortillas being made and then it's on to the
meat counter for our carne asada. I enjoy so much about the
Hispanic culture in the Southwest. The art and history of our
neighbors to the south is truly fascinating. And the food, well,
I am pretty sure I can never leave the Valley of the Sun, because I
simply can not give up Mexican food. I am addicted.

Oven Baked Quesadillas

Ingredients:

2 lbs carne asada, broiled and diced
4 cups shredded cheddar cheese
8 whole wheat tortillas
pico de gallo
guacamole
sour cream

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Put a tortilla flat on a baking sheet.
Layer on cheddar cheese and
carne asada, fold tortilla over.
Repeat three more times until
you have four folded tortillas.
Bake for 6-8 minutes until the
quesadillas are heated through
and crunchy on the outside.
Garnish with pico de gallo, sour
cream and guacamole
as desired. Makes 8.

FELICIDADES!
Jenn


And now our contest news...

Congratulations to Stacy from Louisville!
You've won Riley's Williams-Sonoma’s Ultimate
Grilling Rub Collection!!!

Here's your chance to enter Julie's May Contest!

Julie’s first book in the Manor of Murder Mystery series, Grace Under Pressure, debuts June 1st! To help launch the book and to celebrate its release, she's running a very special contest: Pre-order Grace Under Pressure any time before May 31, 2010, and you're eligible to win a $25 gift certificate from Mystery Lovers Bookshop! (and if you've already pre-ordered, you just need to let Julie know!) No receipts required. Just email Julie at JulieHyzy@gmail.com with the date that you pre-ordered and the name of the bookstore you ordered it from, and your name goes in! (Please put "CONTEST" in the subject header. Thanks!)

Here are a few helpful links to get you started: Mystery Lovers Bookshop (free shipping on book orders over $10!) - The Poisoned Pen (my local mystery bookstore) - Barnes & Noble - Amazon.com