#recipes | The Stiletto Gang

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November 16, 2021/in Uncategorized/by Saralyn Richard

’Tis the Season for Food, Food, Food

by Saralyn Richard

Holidays
and food have a symbiotic relationship. You can’t have one without the other.
The same can be said for mysteries and food, at least in the two Detective
Parrott mysteries, Murder in the One Percent and A Palette for Love
and Murder.

The former
begins with a December birthday weekend retreat at a country mansion in the
lush Brandywine Valley. The guests indulge in a gourmet dinner consisting of
nine courses and wine pairings. The menu for this elegant party is stunning. It’s
one of the elements readers remember most about the book, and several book
clubs have replicated the menu to add authenticity to their book discussions.

A Palette
for Love and Murder is set on and around Thanksgiving. Local favorites are
included on the menu, and throughout the book. All of the characters, whether
they are part of the wealthiest one percent or the people who serve them, consume
interesting and delicious meals. To give you a hint, do mushroom-barley soup or
pumpple cake from the Flying Monkey Bakery tickle your fancy?

If you’re
watching your diet, don’t worry. Reading mysteries burns calories. Sitting on
the edge of your seat and reading those heart-thumping scenes will take care of
whatever snacking you might do while reading. And turning pages into the night
helps, too.

The
Detective Parrott mysteries are temporarily unavailable on Amazon, but can be
purchased online at http://murderintheonepercent.com
on the bookstore page.

Saralyn Richard is the
author of the Detective Parrott Mystery Series, as well as A Murder of
Principal and the upcoming release, Bad Blood Sisters. A
member of the Author Talk Network, Saralyn enjoys meeting with readers through
book clubs, organization meetings, and other speaking engagements. Join her
next Tuesday at 5 pm Central for the Facebook Live event, Cooking with
Blackbirds. And if cooking is your thing, grab the pdf booklet, Epicurean
Feasts, featuring the dishes from the gourmet dinner party in Murder in
the One Percent. All you need to do is sign up for Saralyn’s monthly
newsletter to receive this and other special offers. Subscribe at http://saralynrichard.com.

Recipes to Die For

September 2, 2021/in Uncategorized/by The Stiletto Gang

By Mary Lee Ashford

What is it with food in mysteries? Or I should say, “What is it with culinary mysteries?” as that’s the proper term for the sub-genre.

As a long time reader of culinary mysteries, from Joanne Fluke’s Hannah Swensen books to Diane Mott Davidson’s Goldy Bear catering stories there’s a wide variety. Some of the main character’s are great cooks like Hannah (current book Triple Chocolate Cheesecake Murder) and some are not. Such as our own Debra Goldstein’s Sarah Blair. Check out Debra’s latest Four Cuts Too Many!

In my Sugar and Spice series, it’s sidekick Dixie that’s the blue-ribbon baker while my main character, Sugar’s expertise is on the business side of things as assembler of their community cookbooks. Though she likes to think she’s an expert taster as well.

In my opinion the brilliant thing about food in mysteries is that food brings people together. We talk over coffee and pie, and gather around family dinner or community events. This creates all kinds of opportunities for sharing information (which can include a clue) or overhearing private exchanges (which can often point to a suspect).

Food can also sometimes lead to conflict. Is there a secret family recipe? Is there an element of competition? In Game of Scones, the first book in the Sugar and Spice series, there’s a disagreement over who makes the best scones. And wouldn’t you know, there’s room for only one recipe in the town’s centennial celebration community cookbook. You can see where this is going, right? I won’t give too much away but very soon someone is missing and someone is dead.

One of the fun things about culinary mysteries, at least for the author is the chance to try out new recipes. Game of Scones found me trying all kinds of different scone recipes. And with Risky Biscuits, you guessed it… tons of biscuit recipes. Who knew there were so many? I have a good friend who is an actual, honest-to-goodness blue-ribbon baker and I called upon her skills to perfect the biscuits and gravy recipe featured in the back of that book. Then came Quiche of Death which meant the testing various types of quiche. Check out my Pinterest boards for the books to find some of the recipes that were part of the research.

About those recipes often featured in the back of the books. What are your thoughts on them? Do you check them out? Have you ever tried out a new recipe you found in the back of a culinary mystery? Did you find a new favorite? If so, please share!

Currently Kensington Books is featuring Game of Scones for only $1.99 in all ebook platforms so if you have not yet read the first in the series, here’s your chance to take advantage of this great deal. If you’ve already read the book, thank-you! If you’ve left a review, double thanks! I

To celebrate the deal, I’ll be doing a giveaway of a Game of Scones tshirt Just leave a comment below to be entered in the drawing! I’ll draw a winner by midnight Friday and announce the winner on Saturday. Good luck!

Mary Lee Ashford is a lifelong bibliophile, and avid reader, and supporter of public libraries.

In addition to writing the Sugar and Spice series for

Kensington Books, she also writes as half of the writing team of Sparkle Abbey, author of the national bestselling Pampered Pets mystery series from Bell Bridge Books.

Prior to publishing Mary Lee won first place in the Daphne du Maurier contest, sponsored by the Kiss of Death chapter of RWA, and was a finalist in Murder in the Grove’s mystery contest, as well as Killer Nashville’s Claymore Dagger contest.

She is the founding president of Sisters in Crime – Iowa and a past board member of the Mystery Writers of America Midwest chapter, as well as a member of Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers of America, Kiss of Death the RWA Mystery Suspense chapter, Sisters in Crime, and the SinC internet group Guppies. She loves encouraging other writers and is a frequent presenter for writers’ groups.

Mary Lee has a passionate interest in creativity and teaches a university level course in Creative Management to MPA candidates, as well as presenting workshops and blogging about creativity.

She currently resides in the midwest with her husband, Tim and cat, Zoey. Her delights are reading and enjoying time her two sons and their lovely wives as well as her crazy awesome grandchildren.

Follow her on Facebook for morning coffee posts and Recipes to Die For:

Mary Lee Ashford

Recipes to Die For

Turkey pileup on aisle 10!

December 3, 2020/in Uncategorized/by The Stiletto Gang

by Sparkle Abbey

Like most of the
world, we “canceled” our traditional Thanksgiving gathering. Instead, we celebrated
with only the family members we lived with, which was 2-4 people, and Zoomed
with the rest of the family. And while the
size of the turkey was reduced from the typical twenty-two pounds to a paltry
ten pounds, one of us doesn’t know how to cook a Thanksgiving meal for less than
10 people. So we were left with a pileup of turkey, ham, stuffing, glazed carrots,
green beans, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and gravy, corny cornbread, and
rolls. What to do with all that leftover food?

The truth is, you
can only eat so many boring ham or turkey sandwiches, right? Eventually, even
we have to get creative and transform those bland leftovers into something we want
to eat. Plus, we need room in the fridge
for Christmas cookies and fudge. After a quick Google search, we actually found
a couple of recipes we liked, that was not only super easy to make but pretty
quick to throw together. Sorry, we didn’t take any photos of our actual dinners,
but we promise the meals were delicious!

Enjoy!

Easy Shepard Pie
Serves 2

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped leftover
turkey
1 cup gravy
1/2 cup frozen
mixed vegetables
1 cup stuffing
1 cup mashed

Directions:

Preheat over 350 degrees.
Grease two
ramekins with cooking spray.
Combine chopped
turkey with gravy.
Layer equal
amounts of ingredients in each ramekin in the following order:

     Turkey and gravy
     Frozen vegetables
      Stuffing
     Mashed potatoes

5. Place ramekins
on a baking sheet, place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes or until potatoes
slightly brown.

Serve warm.

Turkey Tortellini
Soup
Serves 4

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive
oil
1/4 cup chopped
sweet onion
1/4 cup thinly
sliced celery
1/4 cup thinly sliced carrots
1 teaspoon minced
garlic
3 cups turkey stock
or chicken broth
2 cups chopped or
shredded leftover turkey
1 (9-oz.) pkg.
refrigerated tortellini of your choice
1 (5-oz.) pkg. fresh
spinach
1/2 teaspoon kosher
salt
1/2 teaspoon black
pepper
Shaved Parmesan
cheese

Directions:

Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high.
Add onion, celery, and carrots; cook, stirring
often, until vegetables begin to soften, 8 to 10 minutes.
Add garlic. Stir for about 1 minute.
Add turkey/chicken stock and cooked turkey, and
bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, and simmer 10 minutes.
Add tortellini, and simmer until tortellini are
cooked per directions on the package. Usually 6-7 minutes.
Stir in spinach, salt, and pepper. Remove from
heat. Top each serving with shaved Parmesan cheese.

Leftover Ham & Cheese Brunch Bake

Ingredients:

10 eggs
1 1/2 cup milk
2 tsp Dijon mustard
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves, plus more for garnish
1 tsp garlic powder
Salt & pepper
4 cups of cubed bread (Crusty bread, like French bread works best.)
8 ounces of chopped ham
1 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese (Can be regular cheddar or white cheddar.)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, mustard, thyme, & garlic powder.
Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper.
Butter a large baking dish. Add bread and top with ham and cheese.
Pour egg mixture over the top.
Bake until eggs are cooked through – approximately 45 to 55 minutes.
Reserve a little of the thyme for garnish and add it before serving.

Note: The bake is even better if you make it the night before, cover with foil, and refrigerate overnight

Here are the links to the original recipes:

https://www.today.com/food/sandra-lee-uses-thanksgiving-leftovers-make-shepherd-s-pie-t200150?cid=sm_npd_td_tw_ma

https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/turkey-tortellini-soup-greens

Sparkle Abbey is actually two people, Mary Lee Ashford and Anita Carter, who write the national best-selling Pampered Pets cozy mystery series. They are friends as well as neighbors so they often get together and plot ways to commit murder. (But don’t tell the other neighbors.)

They love to hear from readers and can be found on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, their favorite social media sites. Also, if you want to make sure you get updates, sign up for their newsletter via the SparkleAbbey.com website

Creating Fictional Food

February 4, 2019/in Uncategorized/by The Stiletto Gang

Congratulations to Dianne Casey! You’ve won the Clicking Our Heels prize of two books by Linda Rodriguez: Every Last Secret and Dark Sister. Please DM your mailing address through the Stiletto Gang Facebook page and we’ll send the books to you ASAP!

Judy Penz Sheluk

Let me start by saying I’m a terrible cook. I can make a decent veggie lasagna, and my mac and cheese is better than most, but that’s about where my repertoire ends. No one knows this better than my long-suffering husband, Mike (who is, by the way, an excellent cook), but he came into our relationship eyes wide open. The first time he stayed overnight, I asked him what he wanted for breakfast. I expected him to say cereal, or toast and peanut butter, but he asked for scrambled eggs. When he caught me looking in my trusting Betty Crocker cookbook for the recipe—yes I needed a recipe—he could have cut and run. But he stayed, probably thinking my culinary abilities would improve with age.

Fast forward three decades, and I’m now writing murder mysteries. And while I don’t write the sort of cozy that includes recipes in the book, food definitely plays a part.

In my latest book, Past & Present, my protagonist, Callie Barnstable makes homemade croutons and a tourtiere (for those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a French Canadian meat pie, traditionally served around the Christmas holidays).

Have I ever made croutons? Of course not. There are perfectly good ones available at any grocery story. What about a tourtiere? A pie of any sort? Another no (unless you consider one of those Bisquick Impossible Pies a pie…I’ve made a few of those with limited success).

Now, you might be thinking, “how can a terrible cook create fictional food, let alone write about it?” Well, the internet helps with the plethora of recipes, but I do have to tweak anything I find to make it my own. And photos…I either have to make it, get a friend to make it (yes, I have resorted to that with Tourtiere — I don’t eat beef or pork), or find a royalty-free photo online (wikipedia commons and morguefile are both good resources). In the end, though, it’s mostly about letting my imagination run wild, sort of like creating a fictional town, character or setting. And what can be more fun than that?