Super Super SUPER Simple Recipes

-->

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: So--there are recipes and recipes. For instance, there is the gorgeous voluptuous Julia Child French Onion soup that honestly takes hours and HOURS but it's fabulous, but did I say it takes hours?
And then there are tomato Santas. 

And tomato porcupines. I think that's a potato at the base. 

(I saw these on Funny Food Recipes on Facebook--and it is totally addictive.)

Look at these sailboats! HOW did they think of these?

Anyway. They count as cooking, right? Just ask the amazing and talented Debra Goldstein. Deb is incredible, a real friend of Jungle Red and a truly stalwart member of the writing community. She was president of the Guppies! Fabulous.  AND she was a judge. so she knows everything, and now she's got another wonderful new book. 

But she--her main character at least--knows her limitations. And thats in the realm of...cooking.


Finding Recipes to Avoid Freaking Out in the Kitchen 
            by Debra H. Goldstein

Some people are afraid of spiders, some fear dead bodies. Cooking from scratch petrifies me. 

The irony - I love to entertain. 

Early on I realized there were two easy solutions to my dilemma: host dinners at restaurants or have caterers, long gone before the guests arrive, make their dishes in my serving pieces. This still left me with a problem when I was asked to bring a dish to an event where everyone was expected to contribute to the table. It didn’t take too many instances to educate my friends to automatically assign me bread, soda, paper products, or anything else that needed to be purchased from the grocery store.

Sarah Blair, the protagonist of my Kensington cozy mystery series, shares my fear of the kitchen. For her, cooking from scratch is more frightening than murder. Luckily, she has a twin sister, Emily, who is a gourmet chef. Emily usually comes to the rescue when Sarah needs to serve something, but when she doesn’t, watch out.

For example, in One Taste Too Many, the first book in the series, Sarah knew starting over after her ten-year marriage, from which she only emerged with RahRah, her Siamese cat, would be messy. Things fell apart completely when her ex dropped dead, seemingly poisoned by a taste of Emily’s award-winning rhubarb crisp. 

With RahRah wanted by the woman who broke up her marriage and Emily wanted by the police for murder, Sarah had to figure out the right recipe to crack the case before time ran out. Unfortunately, for a gal whose idea of good china is floral paper plates, catching the real killer and living to tell about it potentially meant facing a fate worse than death – being in the kitchen.

In Two Bites Too Many, the newly released second Sarah Blair mystery, things are looking up for Sarah following her unsavory divorce. Settled into a cozy carriage house with RahRah, she’s managed to hold on to her law firm receptionist job and – if befriending strays at the local animal shelter counts – lead a thriving social life. In fact, Sarah has it more together than her enterprising twin whose plans to open a gourmet restaurant hit a real dead end.

When the president of the town bank is murdered after icing her twin’s business, all eyes are on the one person at the scene with blood on her hands – Sarah’s sharp-tongued mother, Maybelle. Determined to get her mom off the hook and help Emily’s business endeavors, Sarah must gather the ingredients of the crime together quickly to bring the true culprit to justice and once again avoid doing time in the kitchen.

To prep both books, I had to overcome my fear of the kitchen long enough to find recipes using pre-made ingredients that were also funny. 

My favorite one, Jell-O in a Can, which I’ll share with you today, was popular in the 1950’s.

1 20 oz. can of sliced pineapple (the recipe recommended Dole pineapple as it was an ad for Dole and Jell-O)

1 3 oz. pkg. of Jell-O gelatin, any flavor choice

1 cup boiling water

Optional: 1 banana or other type of fruit

Open the can and pour off the pineapple juice but leave the pineapple in the can. Dissolve the Jell-O in boiling water and permit it to cool slightly before pouring the Jell-O and water mixture into the can, over the pineapple. If desired, place the banana or other fruit in the center of the rings of pineapple.

Chill until set.

To serve, run a knife around the inside of the can and tip it out. (Before rimmed flip-top cans, one pushed the jelled mixture through and out using the bottom of the can.) Slice between the pineapple rings and serve.

After all these years, I doubt I’ll ever be comfortable in the kitchen, but I know, especially now that Kensington and I have inked a new deal to continue the series through at least book 5, I’m going to have a ball finding comical, but doable, recipes using pre-made ingredients to share.

HANK: Oh, I have to say. I adore you, Debra, but that sounds AWFUL. :-)  But the book deal? DEE-licious.  Hurray!

(I do like these:)

How about you, Reds and readers? What are some easy fun recipes? Let's say: four ingredients. And they don't have to be as cute as this!

************************************

Judge Debra H.Goldstein writes Kensington’s Sarah Blair mystery series (One Taste Too Many, Two Bites Too Many). She also authored Should Have Played Poker and IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue. Her short stories, including Anthony and Agatha nominated “The Night They Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place,” have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies including Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Weekly. Debra serves on the national boards of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and is president of the Southeast Chapter of MWA and past president of SinC’s Guppy Chapter. Find out more about Debra at www.DebraHGoldstein.com .

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Taste-Many-Sarah-Blair-Mystery/dp/1496719476

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Bites-Many-Sarah-Blair-Mystery/dp/1496719484

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/one-taste-too-many-debra-h-goldstein/1128297322

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/two-bites-too-many-debra-h-goldstein/1130055243

How Two Non-Cooks Write Culinary Mysteries by Debra Goldstein and Barbara Ross

JENN McKINLAY: Today, two culinary mystery authors, Barbara Ross and Debra Goldstein, confess their lack of kitchen know-how on this edition of Jungle Red Writer's author confessions. Pull up a chair, kids, this is going to be good! Seriously, welcome Debra and Barb! We're delighted to have you with us. 

Side note: I am a baker but I don't enjoy regular day to day cooking, so I feel ya!

Barb: Debra Goldstein and I have discovered we have many things in common since we decided to do a joint blog for our books released on December 18. Debra’s book is One Taste Too Many, the debut in her Sarah Blair Mystery series for Kensington. (So exciting!) My new book is Steamed Open, the seventh in my Maine Clambake Mysteries. One thing Debra and I have in common is though both of us write culinary mysteries, neither of us is much of a cook.

Let’s go back to the beginning, Debra. How did your life evolve to make you a “cook of convenience,” as you so cleverly call it in your series?

Debra: Growing up, my mother made dinner between five and six p.m. My sister shadowed her in the kitchen while I opted to unload the dishwasher at five-fifteen, set the table at five-thirty, say “hello” to my dad at five-forty-five and come to the table after the six o’clock conclusion of Perry Mason. My sister learned to cook from scratch while I learned courtroom procedure and short-cuts that held me in good stead in my later career choice.

Barb: I’m laughing at the idea of you learning legal procedure from Perry Mason. I would have liked visiting your courtroom. So given all that, how did you come to write a culinary mystery series?

Debra:I love reading cozy mysteries (yours are some of the best!). When I decided I wanted to write, I thought about how cozy mysteries usually center around food or crafts – two areas in which I’m challenged. Somewhat frustrated, I realized there had to be readers who, like me, preferred bringing take-out in, making dishes using pre-prepared ingredients, or buying quilts, scarfs, and other already finished crafted items. When I researched and found recipes like Jell-O in a Can, I knew there was no shortage of material for a fun culinary cook of convenience mystery series. 

Considering your technical background and admitted reliance on your husband for recipe preparation, how did you come to write a culinary mystery series?

Barb: When my agent first brought up the idea of a series centered around a clambake, he characterized it as a culinary mystery.  I ignored him and wrote a proposal and sample chapters that didn’t include recipes. After all, if you’ve ever been to a clambake, it’s the same meal every time, and much of the meal isn’t practical to cook at home. Eventually, my agent caught on and made me put in recipes. By then I was too in love with the setting and characters to turn back.

Okay. So now we know you, like your main character Sarah, are a cook of convenience, how do you make readers’ mouths water when they read your book?

Debra: My first goal was to write a fun book that combined a good plot with recipes true cooks and cooks of convenience could both appreciate. Using my experience raising night and day twins, I opted to have my protagonist be a cook of convenience while her twin sister is a gourmet chef. This gave me the ability to introduce recipes, even for the same dish, all readers could salivate over. A good example is the contrast between Sarah’s Spinach Pie made with Stouffer’s Spinach Souffle and her twin’s farm to table version.

Seven books in a series is quite a feat – what workarounds did you use to keep readers’ mouths watering considering the limits of a clambake’s menu?

Barb: You’ve already alluded to my major workaround. My husband is a great cook. I decided early on that since most of them couldn’t come from the clambake, I would provide recipes from the other meals my characters ate in the course of the story. I tell my husband Bill the type and circumstances of the meal. He figures out the recipe, and then we taste test so I can describe it accurately.

What’s the most embarrassing/funny/crazy thing that’s happened as a result of the mismatch between your series focus and your own culinary shortcomings?

Debra: Last year, after writing about food, I got the brilliant idea to make matzah ball soup from scratch for our family Seder. While buying my ingredients, I grabbed a bag of Passover approved noodles. The day of the Seder, I spent all day bringing my soup to perfection. I tasted it and knew I’d nailed it. As the Seder service began, for an extra touch, I threw in the noodles. When we finally reached dinner, I removed the pot’s cover and watched the liquid whoosh away. Our first course was chicken flavored noodles sans soup. 

How about you? Most embarrassing moment?

Barb: Possibly the librarian who decided my husband and I absolutely had to cater her annual board meeting. I explained several times in several ways that Bill and I are not my characters Julia and Chris and she would surely regret her insistence.Or there was the panel I was on this year at Bouchercon. The moderator was a last minute sub, and she did a great job. Unfortunately, she’d prepared a whole slew of questions about cooking, and not one author on the panel was a cook. She was great, though, and it made for a very funny panel.

How about you, Reds and Readers, are you a culinary wizard or do you fake it 'til you bake it?

About the authors

 Judge Debra H. Goldstein is the author of Kensington’s new Sarah Blair cozy mystery series, which debuted with One Taste Too Manyon December 18, 2018. She also wrote Should HavePlayed Pokerand 2012 IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue. Her short stories, including Anthony and Agatha nominated “The Night They Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place,” have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies including Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Weekly.Debra is president of Sisters in Crime’s Guppy Chapter, serves on SinC’s national board, and is president of the Southeast Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Find out more about Debra at www.DebraHGoldstein.com.

Barbara Ross is the author of seven Maine Clambake Mysteries. The latest, Steamed Open, was released December 18, 2018. Barbara’s novellas featuring Julia Snowden are included along with stories by Leslie Meier and Lee Hollis in Eggnog Murder and Yule Log Murder. Barbara and her husband live in Portland, Maine. Visit her website at http://www.maineclambakemysteries.com

Piece (or Two) Of Cake!

HANK:  Why is a raven like a writing desk? The famous riddle, of course, that the Mad Hatter asks Alice.

Today another riddle. An easier one.

First, do you know Debra Goldstein? She’s terrific, and hilarious, and retired from the judge’s bench to be an author.

Hey.  She’s brave –that was quite the life choice, right? And smart, and terrific.

And her essay gave me the answer to this riddle: 

Why is a book like a cake?

THERE WILL BE CAKE

             by Debra H. Goldstein

Celebrate! You can bet if I’m celebrating anything, there will be cake.

Birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, nice weather, rain, and TGIF are all good excuses for cake. 

Some of my favorite “just for the sake of it” desserts include P.F. Chang’s Great Wall of chocolate (chocolate with raspberry sauce) and Cheesecake Factory’s Linda’s Fudge Cake.

 For a quick “invited to dinner at last minute and the hostess requested dessert rather than wine,” my local Publix offers a moist, well-decorated white cake available with a variety of fillings and icings. 

If in doubt, I know I can never go wrong bringing an ice cream cake.

Of course, there are the specialty bakers whose products combine flavor with artistic decoration. 

The tasting process for my daughter’s wedding cake was quite extensive before a final decision was made. Nothing matches that cake, but other ones also have meant a lot to me – my thirtieth birthday surprise road to life sheet cake, the twin cakes my twins smashed on their first birthday, the one my office staff and I shared the day I left the bench, and the cakes I associate with writing.

When my first book, Maze in Blue, was published, I was the keynote speaker for an evening where funds were raised to reopen the library in my old high school.

 In a decision that was a travesty for students, the school system had eliminated all school libraries and art programs to resolve a financial crisis. Community outrage resulted in a wide-spread grass roots campaign to reverse the decision. Volunteers created invitations, flyers, radio and TV spots advertising what time the school band would play, when barbecue would be served, and my talk. 

Every media announcement highlighted “And, there will be cake.”

No matter how I tried, I couldn’t figure out the significance of the cake reference. True, a sweet treat is always a nice way to end an evening, but in this case everyone was receiving a copy of my book. How could there be anything sweeter than that?

As I worked on my remarks on writing, I tried to think of a way to tie them to “And, there will be cake.” There were obvious similarities:

   1.    Cakes are usually made by combining flour, sugar, eggs, butter or oil, a leavening agent and liquid. A written work requires mixing ideas, words, punctuation, grammar, and editing.

   2.  Bakers often add flavorings, candies, coconut, or nuts to enhance texture and taste. Dialects, local expressions, expanded descriptive settings, and extra adjectives do the same for writings.

    3.    Cakes can be made in all shapes and sizes. A story can be told in as few words as Hemingway’s “For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.” to the multi-volume, and still expanding, saga of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series.

   4.  Rather than make a cake from scratch, one can, as a matter of convenience, use a box mix. Writers often agonize over creating an original work, like the structural twist used in Gone Girl, but they can always rely on the tried and true three act formula.

   5. Writers often embellish characters by adding personality quirks or clothing oddities. In a mystery, clues may be hidden or obscured by red herrings. Bakers do the same thing with frosting. Not only can icing cover imperfections, but balloons, flowers, and other decorations offer personalization of the final product.

   6.  Cake varieties are endless. Sponge, gooey butter, chocolate, layered, and flourless are only a few that exist. Mystery, historical, biography, and literary barely scrape the surface of available writing genres.

I was ready with my comparisons until I saw the cake. At that moment, I understood why they had advertised “And, there will be cake.” Although I viewed the signing as an evening with a mission, the community was celebrating coming together to work for a common goal. They hoped their actions, like the words of a good book, would combine well.

When a prominent wedding cake maker offered to provide the evening’s dessert, it was accepted because her presence added to the credibility of their efforts. 

Although it meant a lot to me that with all the things she could have put on the cake, she chose to commemorate my book, what was more important was the unifying impact her cake had on the volunteers. Because everyone knew the quality of her work and the value of what she was giving, “And, there will be cake,” spoke volumes.

Recently, my second book, Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery was released. I take joy from the positive reviews it has received, but a box of cookies sent to me for the book’s launch and a cake my friends made for a special Mah jongg game playing/signing party captured my ongoing celebration.

The written word is meant to be celebrated. Whether the book being read or displayed is mine or one written by someone else, the words the author strings together create a reason for cake. 

What do you think? Is there a cake or book you particularly enjoyed? For a chance to win a randomly awarded copy of Should Have Played Poker, leave a comment!

HANK: We need cake today! I am having cataract surgery…so I am celebrating Debra’s wonderful attitude. I am celebrating my coming ability to see—crossing fingers. And darling Debra’s continued success!

(And does this mean a cupcake is like a short story?)

(And the answer to why is a raven like a writing desk? I have one idea…although I guess Lewis Carroll meant there to be no answer.)

What’s the best cake you ever had? Any cake secrets?

********************** 

Judge Debra H. Goldstein is the author of Should Have Played Poker: a Carrie Martin and the Mah Jongg Players Mystery (Five Star Publishing - April 2016) and the 2012 IPPY Award winning Maze in Blue, a mystery set on the University of Michigan’s campus. She also writes short stories and non-fiction. Debra serves on the national Sisters in Crime, Guppy Chapter and Alabama Writers Conclave boards and is a MWA member. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, Joel, whose blood runs crimson.