Showing posts with label recipes. Show all posts

Monday, February 10, 2025

Salmon with BBQ Sauce & Peaches #recipe from Korina Moss

Korina Moss: I used to like the Firecracker Salmon at Outback Steakhouse, so I attempted to recreate it. But since I like to make everything easy peasy, this one is only 5 ingredients. As always, you can add or subtract ingredients to suit your taste. The first time I made this, I didn't have peaches, so as you can tell, they're not in the photo above. But I knew it would add a lot to it, so you'll see it in the later photo when I made it a second time. I think mangos would also go well with it.

Ingredients:

1 pound fresh salmon filet (if you use frozen, thaw first)

2 TBL your favorite jar BBQ sauce

1 tsp Brown sugar

1 tsp garlic powder

peaches - I used packaged, sugar free. You can also used canned or fresh.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 500°

Put foil on baking sheet or pan

Spray foil with nonstick cooking spray

Put salmon on top

Mix bbq sauce, brown sugar and garlic. The bbq sauce I used this time is quite sweet already, so I didn't use the brown sugar. If you use a tangy bbq sauce as I've used in the past, then I suggest using some brown sugar.

Spread sauce on salmon

Drain peaches

Dot peaches on top

Bake for 8-12 minutes until salmon is at 145°. Enjoy!

Readers: What's your favorite kind of fish?

KORINA MOSS is the author of the Cheese Shop cozy mystery series set in the Sonoma Valley, including the Agatha Award winner of the Best First Novel, Cheddar Off Dead and the Agatha Award finalist for Best Contemporary Novel, Case of the Bleus. Listed as one of USA Today’s Best Cozy Mystery series, her books have also been featured in PARADE Magazine, Woman’s World, and Writer’s Digest. Korina is also a book coach and freelance developmental editor specializing in cozy and traditional mysteries.

Korina’s latest book, Fondue or Die, is one of the current nominees for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel. The awards will be announced at the Malice Domestic fan convention on April 26th. If you’d like to attend, more information may be found here.

Her next book, Bait and Swiss, is available on April 29th and may be preordered from your favorite bookseller through Macmillan Publishers. To find out more about the Cheese Shop Mystery series and subscribe to her FREE monthly newsletter, visit her website and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

Korina is also a book coach and freelance developmental editor specializing in cozy and traditional mysteries. Using her experience writing her award-winning series for a Big 5 publisher, she has the inside track on what editors, agents, and readers are looking for in a mystery. Whether you're a new writer hoping to be traditionally or independently published, or you're an established writer wanting some guidance with a manuscript, she can help you strengthen your book. You can find more information on her website and contact her at korinamossauthor@gmail.com.

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Sloppy Joes #recipe by V.alerie Burns @vmburns

VMBurns: I used to start each new year with the same resolution, LOSE WEIGHT. I've stopped making resolutions. In fact, I no longer use that evil four-letter D-word (diet). Now, I vow to make better choices. Hopefully, those choices will result in weight loss or better health. Back when I was dieting, I ran across a Weight Watchers recipe for Sloppy Joes. I've adapted the recipe a smidge, and it's now my favorite Sloppy Joe recipe because it's super easy and very flavorful.

SLOPPY JOES

INGREDIENTS

1 - 1 1/2 lb hamburger

1 onion, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 1/2 Cups Ketchup

2 tsp yellow mustard

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Chop the bell pepper and onion and cook on medium heat until softened.

2. Add the hamburger.

3. Break up the hamburger and brown until no longer pink.

4. Drain the mixture and then return to skillet.

5. Add the remaining ingredients.

6. Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

Not concerned about calories or losing weight? It's still yummy, but go ahead and add butter to your bun and toast it with a slice of cheese.

READERS: Did you make any New Year's Resolutions this year? Answer Yay or Nay in the comments for a chance to win a copy of KILLER WORDS.

V. M. Burns
My most recent release is KILLER WORDS, Mystery Bookshop Mystery #7.
Valerie Burns
Bookstore owner and mystery writer Samantha Washington comes to the aid of the cop who once arrested her own grandmother . . .

Sam and Nana Jo are back in sleepy North Harbor, Michigan, where Sam is eagerly awaiting the publication of her first book. In search of more immediate excitement, Nana Jo hits the casino with her fellow Shady Acres Retirement Village gal pals—but they get more than they bargained for when they witness Detective Bradley Pitt decking mayoral candidate John Cloverton.

As Sam well knows, mystery novels are full of brilliant detectives, genius sleuths, and hero cops. Detective Bradley Pitt—aka “Stinky Pitt”—is another story. In the past, the dull-witted detective has mistakenly accused members of Sam’s family for crimes they didn’t commit. Now, it’s his turn: when Cloverton turns up dead, he’s arrested. With his predilection for polyester, Pitt has been wanted by the fashion police for years, but Nana Jo knows her former elementary school math student would never commit murder—it doesn’t add up. Somebody’s framed the flatfoot to take a fall, and Sam and Nana Jo must step in to restore the reputation and good name of Detective Pitt.

Monday, August 2, 2021

Ice Cream History by Maya Corrigan

Potluck Monday: A Brief History of Ice Cream

Nothing says summer like ice cream. The jingling bells of the Good Humor man’s bicycle with an attached freezer cart was the first sign of summer when I was growing up. Does anyone else remember ice cream vendors on bicycles? Replaced by ice cream trucks, they’ve become part of the long history of ice cream, which includes inventions patented by women.

The first recipes for frozen treats made with dairy appeared in France and Italy in the late 1600s. The earliest use of the English term “ice cream” is in a 1672 document from the court of King Charles II, who built an ice house in London, possibly so he could eat the dessert. Ice cream remained a treat only for the crème de la crème of society in England and across the Atlantic. Alexander Hamilton and his wife served it to George Washington. One of the ten surviving recipes that Thomas Jefferson wrote down was for vanilla ice cream.

Making the frozen dessert in those days required putting it on ice and manually stirring and scraping it at intervals for several hours. In 1843 Nancy M. Johnson applied for a patent on her Artificial Freezer. Her sealed cylinder inside a container of ice had a mixing blade that could be cranked to churn and scrape the ice cream mixture while it froze.

Five years later, William Young modified the design to make the container rotate. Like other commodities, ice cream was industrialized and mass produced in the latter half of the 19th century. By the early 20th century, U.S. factories were churning out vast quantities of ice cream. The sweet treat got a boost during Prohibition when saloons and bars were repurposed as ice cream parlors.

Victorian celebrity cook Agnes Marshall wrote the first books devoted to ice cream recipes: The Book of Ices (1885) and Fancy Ices (1894). She also patented an improved ice cream machine that could freeze a pint in five minutes. Mrs. Marshall promoted her cooking classes and her invention in The Book of Ices. A page of it is reproduced here.

Below are links to recipes for frozen treats that have appeared on Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen. The book giveaways associated with those posts are long over.

But until Wednesday, Aug 2, you can enter a giveaway for Vicki Delany's new Tea by the Sea Mystery, Murder in a Teacup, and my latest Five-Ingredient Mystery, Gingerdead Man by commenting on yesterday's post. You can probably scroll down to it from his post.

Cleo Coyle's No-Churn Ice Cream
Cleo's Coffee Ice Cream

Lucy Burdette's Meyer Lemon Ice Cream

Daryl Wood Gerber's Peach Ice Cream

Guest Meri Allen's Frozen Margarita Sorbet

Do you have childhood memories associated with ice cream?

🍦🍦🍦

Maya Corrigan writes the Five-Ingredient Mysteries featuring café manger Val and her live-wire grandfather solving murders in a Chesapeake Bay town. Maya lives in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Before writing crime fiction, she taught American literature, writing, and detective fiction at Northern Virginia Community College and Georgetown University. When not reading and writing, she enjoys theater, travel, trivia, cooking, and crosswords.

Visit her website to sign up for her newsletter. One subscriber wins a book each time a newsletter goes out. Check out the easy recipes, mystery history and trivia, and a free culinary mystery story on the website.

Book covers of the 7 Five-Ingredient Mysteries by Maya Corrigan

Sunday, July 11, 2021

Welcome Guest Elizabeth J. Duncan--Chicken Salad with Dried Mango #recipe #giveaway

Leslie Karst here, and I'm pleased to welcome special guest Elizabeth J. Duncan back to the kitchen. The author of two series, the Penny Brannigan mysteries set in North Wales, and Shakespeare in the Catskills, featuring costume designer Charlotte Fairfax, Elizabeth is a two-time winner of the Bony Blithe award for Canada's best light mystery. In pre-pandemic days, she divided her time between Toronto, Canada, and Llandudno, North Wales. And yes, there's a GIVEAWAY! Take it away, Elizabeth:

Summer eating is in full swing, and what could be better than an easy update on classic chicken salad? Whether you’re packing for a family picnic or entertaining friends at lunch on the porch, patio, or balcony, this tasty salad is sure to become a seasonal standby. Delicious served on a bed of lettuce, topped with toasted slivered almonds, or as shown here, delightful as a sandwich filling.

And this recipe fits in well with today's trend of substituting whatever you've got in your pantry.

(Note: quantities listed below were halved for my single-person household but you can make in any quantity you wish.)

Chicken Salad with Dried Mango (serves six)

4 cups cooked chicken breast (Rotisserie is just fine)

1 cup red grapes, halved

1 cup green grapes, halved (or all one colour if that's what you have on hand)

1/4 cup sliced green onion

1 cup chopped celery

1/4 cup dried apricots, chopped. (I substituted dried mango)

2 tablespoons honey

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (I substituted equivalent amount of honey mustard)

3/4 cup mayonnaise

Salt and pepper, to taste

In a large bowl combine the first six ingredients. In a small bowl, combine the mayonnaise, honey mustard, salt and pepper. Pour into chicken mixture and toss to coat. Refrigerate until needed.

GIVEAWAY:

I usually spend October to March in Wales, so my thoughts are already turning to winter travel plans, pandemic permitting. Do you normally get away in the winter, and if so, where?

Comment below (be sure to include your email address) to be entered in a competition to win a signed hardback copy of On Deadly Tides, #11 in the Penny Brannigan series. Entries welcome from Canada and the U.S.

About On Deadly Tides: With a picturesque black and white lighthouse, pebble beaches and stunning views of sea and mountains, the island of Anglesey off the coast of North Wales is the perfect place for an idyllic mid-summer painting holiday. And watercolour artist, businesswoman, and amateur sleuth Penny Brannigan is enjoying the retreat enormously - until she discovers the body of a New Zealand journalist on a secluded beach just as the tide is going out, threatening to take the body with it.

The post mortem reveals the victim died from injuries "consistent with a fall from a great height," and the death is ruled accidental. But Penny thinks there's more to the story. Curious how the victim came to such an untimely end at this most inhospitable spot, she uncovers a link to a mysterious disappearance several years earlier.

And as her holiday romance with a wildlife photographer turns to love, she learns some truths about herself, too, that surprise her. As the winds of change blow through Penny's own life, she sets sail on a friendly tide for a future she never dreamed possible, in a beautiful place she never imagined

To connect with Elizabeth:

Website: www.elizabethjduncan.com
Twitter: @elizabethduncan
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/elizabethjduncan

Monday, January 4, 2021

Comic Book Carbonara from Cleo Coyle for #NationalSpaghettiDay

From Cleo Coyle: When I first met my husband, he whipped up a fantastic spaghetti carbonara that has since become part of our menu. Because Marc is part Italian, I assumed his recipe came from his family's kitchen. Not so. Marc informed me that he adapted the recipe from one he found in a 1980's comic book.

My husband's comic book pasta was inspired by Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!, launched in 1983. Fans of this series include Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Chabon, who hailed Flagg as a precursor to the cyberpunk genre of science fiction.

Flagg is not for everyone. It presents a hard-boiled look at life in 2031—after nuclear war and an economic collapse leave things a tad chaotic in the USA. How bad do things get in Chaykin's 2031? One example: The broken down piano player who inhabits the local lounge is Princess Diana's oldest son. :)

Carbonara also appears

in On What Grounds, our

first Coffeehouse Mystery,

now in its 20th Printing.

Click here to learn more.

As for today's recipe, spaghetti carbonara happens to be the favorite dish of Rubin Flagg, the comic book's hero. The recipe was published in the same issue that Rubin cooked it up.*

Recipes included in fiction?

Wow, is that a good idea or what?!

As it happens, spaghetti carbonara is not only part of my personal history with my husband, it's also part of our publishing history because it plays a diverting role in our first Coffeehouse Mystery, On What Grounds. When two alpha male characters argue about the proper way to prepare the dish, our amateur sleuth (Clare Cosi) breaks up the deadlock before cleavers are thrown.

As far as this dish's actual history, read more about it in my recipe note below...

*Also note that Rubin Flagg's nostalgic recipe appears in the original publication and not reprint editions. Fans of the recipe often search for it, and we hope our adaptation below will give you joy!

Comic Book Carbonara

Adapted by Cleo Coyle from the
comic book series American Flagg!

To download a free PDF of
this recipe that you can print,
save, or share, click here.

Cleo Coyle has a partner in
crime-writing—her husband.
Learn about their books
by clicking here and here.

A Recipe Note from Cleo

Spaghetti carbonara may not have originated in Italy. Some say Italian immigrants developed it in America during the Great Depression, which is easy for me to believe since my father, who grew up during that era, remembers the "old timers" throwing lard into the skillet to start everything from sautéed vegetables to pasta sauce.

Others believe the dish was created during World War II, when ingredients common to American GI's—bacon, powdered eggs, and powdered milk—were handed out to hungry Italian citizens during the American occupation. (More on the history of this dish here.) Today the people of Italy make this dish, which they call pasta alla carbonara, with raw eggs instead of cream. (The cream version is more commonly found in the USA, France, Spain, and the UK.) Italians also use pancetta or guanciale (types of Italian bacon). To each his own, as they say. And, when it comes to this mutable recipe, our favorite is below.

One last note: With bacon and cream, you'd think this dish would be heavy, but it's very light and so delicious that a single bowl truly satisfies. Paired with a spinach or tomato salad, it's a complete meal for us. In the summer, we might whip this up as a late lunch or early dinner. In fall and winter, tomato soup, broccoli rabe, and garlic bread make nice pairings.

BTW, the colorful pasta you see in my pictures is Garden Delight spaghetti from Ronzoni. The semolina (durum wheat) is enriched with tomato, carrot, and spinach. The flavor and texture are very nice and the (comic book!) colors let our eyes eat first.

Comic Book Carbonara

Adapted by Cleo Coyle from the
comic book series American Flagg!

Ingredients

12 - 16 ounces spaghetti (usually 1 package)
8 ounces bacon (we use 5 thick-cut bacon slices)
6 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon butter
4 tablespoons heavy cream (+ a tiny bit extra, just in case)
1/4 cup grated Pecorino Romano (or Parmesan) cheese
(optional) Ground pepper to taste

Directions:

Step 1 – Make your favorite spaghetti according to package directions. FYI - As mentioned in my note above, the colorful pasta you see in my pictures is Garden Delight spaghetti from Ronzoni. The semolina (durum wheat) is enriched with tomato, carrot, and spinach. The flavor and texture are very nice and the (comic book!) colors let our eyes eat first.

Step 2 – While your pasta water is coming to a boil, begin to make the cream sauce. Into a large skillet, slice up the bacon. We simply snip the bacon slices into 1/4-inch to 1/2-inch pieces using kitchen shears. Turn up the heat to medium and begin to sweat the bacon pieces. After a few minutes, as the fat begins to render (but long before the bacon browns or crisps), toss in the garlic.

Sweat the bacon and toss in whole garlic cloves...

Step 3 – When the bacon is browned and cooked through (but not crisp or dry), remove the garlic cloves and drain the bacon grease out of the pan. Set aside and finish cooking your spaghetti. When the spaghetti is completely drained, set aside and finish the sauce.

Step 4 – To the pan with the cooked bacon, add a tablespoon of butter. As soon as the butter melts, stir in the cream. Simmer the mixture until it thickens. If the sauce breaks, simply add a bit more cream and stir again.

Remove the garlic, drain the bacon fat,
toss in a pat of butter and the cream...