Friday, September 29, 2017

FOODFIC: Please Welcome Caroline Clemmons, Author of The Texan's Irish Bride



Thank you, Shelley, for inviting me to your fun blog. One of the things all characters (as well as readers and writers) do is eat. Usually, authors don’t dwell on the food served. In his or her head, though, the writer knows all the delicious recipes that will be prepared.

In my book The Texan's Irish Bride, Dallas McClintock hosts a huge party for his family and friends and for the wedding of his brother-in-law and one of the Traveler lasses. This group includes the McClintock family and that of his bride, Cenora O’Neill McClintock.

Dallas prepares his secret chili recipe for the party. Yes, he keeps it a secret but—shhhh—I’ll share it with you.* Now that the weather is cooling in most areas, chili is a welcome meal on a cold night. (I love it year round.) It’s easy to prepare in large batches for a party. If there’s any left over, chili freezes well for a quick meal later.

Chili is a favorite for entertaining at our house. I provide dishes of tortilla chips, grated cheese, minced spring onions, pinto beans, cornbread muffins, butter, and honey as well as serving potato salad and other chilled salads. In my opinion, chili is a traditional Southwest food that has gained popularity throughout the United States.

When I wrote The Texan's Irish Bride, book 1 of the McClintock series, I did a lot of research. After its release, many readers asked for a book about Finn O’Neill, older brother of Cenora. Once again, I dug into research for book 2, Finn's Texas Bride. Book 3, McClintock's Reluctant Bride, didn’t require as much research. In November, I’ll release the fourth book in this series, Daniel. This book has me immersed in research to be as factual as possible in Daniel’s treatment. I hope you’ll read and enjoy this entire series (and my other series, too). To get you started, The Texan's Irish Bride is free (links below).


Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Caroline!



Through a crazy twist of fate, Caroline Clemmons was not born on a Texas ranch. To compensate for this illogical error, she writes about handsome cowboys, feisty ranch women, and scheming villains in a small office her family calls her pink cave. She and her Hero live in North Central Texas cowboy country where they ride herd on their rescued cats and dogs. The books she creates there have made her an Amazon bestselling author and won several awards.



You can find Caroline here:






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*Dallas McClintock’s Fandango Chili con Carne
[usually shortened to Chili]
From The Texan's Irish Bride  By Caroline Clemmons

5 lbs. Chili meat or ground beef, or combination of 4lbs. Beef or Venison and 1 lb. Pork sausage (I use only beef in a combination of 2 lbs. chili meat and 3 lbs. ground beef)
1 15 0z. Tomato sauce
1 can Stewed tomatoes
3 Tspn Chili powder [adjust to taste]
1 tspn. Ground comino [cumin]
1 tspn. Cayenne
1 tspn. Salt
1 tspn. Pepper
1 tspn. Paprika
I medium Onion, finely chopped
3-5 Garlic cloves, minced [or garlic salt].
¼ cup Brown sugar (Dallas’ secret ingredient)

Sear meat in a large skillet, pouring off the excess grease as the meat cooks. As meat nears browning, add onions and garlic to let them brown also. Mix the remainder of the ingredients except brown sugar with the meat in a large heavy kettle or dutch oven. Bring to a boil and then quickly reduce the heat to simmer. Stir frequently. Adjust seasonings to taste as chili cooks.

As the chili simmers slowly, more fat will reduce out and float to the surface. Skim off this fat each time before you stir the chili.  Discard the fat. About fifteen or twenty minutes before serving, add brown sugar and stir. This chili can be cooked in an hour, but the flavor is best if simmered very slowly for two or three hours, stirring every thirty minutes.

Serve with cornbread or tortillas and pinto beans. Texans don’t add beans to the chili con carne while it’s cooking.

Friday, September 22, 2017

FOODFIC: Please Welcome Jenn Brink, Author of Silver Bells



Demoralized from her latest titanic failure, Jessica is back under her parent’s roof in Silver Bells the stand-alone third novel in the Jessica Hart series.  Our heroine isn’t the kind of girl who doesn’t eat.  She uses food as her security blanket in this comedic New Adult mystery series.
 
With the bedroom that she never completely moved out of and family gossip driving her straight into the arms of the mashed potatoes, Jessica needs an out (either that or a larger pants size).  Why, oh why, does it have to be the holidays?!  Can’t a girl enjoy a massive breakup and life crisis during bikini season?

Worried about the amount of pumpkin pie going straight to her hips, Jessica takes off with side-kick Barbie on a mission (okay it’s not their mission but… details) to save Christmas.  There isn’t enough comfort food to keep Jessica’s emotions in check as she teams up with the yummy hunk of muscles who won’t quit haunting her daydreams.
 
The list of missing persons keeps growing as Jessica searches for clues and dinner, while struggling to suppress her desires.  When the bullets start flying, there’s no time to stop and eat (I mean understand her feelings).  Jessica is hoping for a miracle, but did someone order pizza?
 

Keep the hot chocolate flowing and don’t skimp on the booze, not if you fear the sobered up wrath of Barbie, as these cousins search from the North Pole to the Caribbean for Jolly Ole Saint Nick and a new life-plan.


Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Jenn!



You can visit Jenn here:




Friday, September 8, 2017

FOODFIC: Please Welcome Dina Santorelli, Author of Baby Grand



Mob storylines usually involve a smorgasbord of Italian food—pasta, sauce, bread, lots of bread, and all kinds of pastries. In my mind’s eye, when I think of books and movies about organized crime, I picture bulky, menacing-looking guys stirring big pots of sauce and probably the most memorable line from The Godfather: “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli.”

In Baby Grand, the first book in my thriller trilogy, a bunch of mob guys are living temporarily in the home of a man named Don Bailino, who has just orchestrated the kidnapping of the baby daughter of New York Governor Phillip Grand. Bailino has also abducted a down-and-out writer named Jamie Carter whom he then forces to care for the child while he and the others work to delay the execution of mobster Gino Cataldi, who is on death row.

Rather than have the usual smells of tomato sauce, basil, and oregano permeate Bailino’s home or have the mobsters hang out in front of a pork store, a la The Sopranos, or make frequent visits to a local Italian bakery, I keep the food spare—and, overall, quite healthy. Cheerios (for the baby, perhaps). Apples. Grapes.

The reason? Don Bailino isn’t your everyday mobster.

In one scene, he bakes brownies—carefully using a knife to coat the top of a brownie with frosting, an image that makes him seem more like Martha Stewart than a mob guy. I did this to depict the complexity of Bailino, a guy who uses knives to kill but also to bake. A guy who can be as sweet as he is ruthless. A man who is meticulous about his work, be it in the kitchen or in a back alley.

Bailino eventually presents those brownies to Jamie Carter who is upstairs in his bedroom. What will Jamie do? And where is the baby?

I could tell you what happens next, but I’d have to kill you.


Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Dina!



You can find Dina here: