Sourcebooks Casablanca Romance Authors

--> It’s almost Christmas, and I’ve been to several parties all with yummy food and drinks. Here are some of my faves of this season. For you! Candy Cane Martini Shot of vodka Shot of Peppermint Schnapps 1 oz. carbonated tonic water 2 candy canes crushed ice For the kids! Reindeer Root Beer Root Beer Pretzel Twists Icing Candy Eyes Red M&Ms If you’re going to be drinking, you need to eat something. One of my favorite appetizers is Pumpkin Pie Dip . 1 can pumpkin ¾ cup brown sugar 6 oz. Greek yogurt 6 oz. whipped topping 1 tsp vanilla 1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice 1/8 tsp cinnamon Mix it all together and serve with apples, pears, and cinnamon graham crackers. Have a happy holiday!

" If any one element of French cooking can be called important, basic and essential, that element is soup." --Louis Diat, chef for the Ritz-Carlton After a mostly mild summer, with just a few hot days here and there, we're having our first real heat wave in my neck of the woods. Naturally, that presents a challenge when it comes to mealtimes, since one cannot subsist on ice cream--alas!--and an endless array of salads and cold sandwiches can pall faster than you'd think!  Fortunately, I discovered a solution nearly a year ago, during a similar hot spell:  vichyssoise, a cold soup that is simple, delicious, and doesn't require tons of exotic ingredients. There are countless variations on it, but in the end, the basics come down to stock (or broth), potatoes, leeks, and milk or cream. What I didn't know when I started researching the recipe was that vichyssoise has an interesting history. Despite the name, it originated not in France, ...

It’s almost Christmas, and I’ve been to several parties all with yummy food and drinks. Here are some of my faves of this season. Candy Cane Martini Shot vanilla rum Shot Godiva chocolate liqueur Shot peppermint schnapps Candy cane for garnish Butter Rum Coffee 1 shot butterscotch schnapps 1 shot vanilla rum 1/2 shot Irish Coffee Whipped topping for garnish If you’re going to be drinking, you need to eat something. One of my favorite appetizers is Pumpkin Pie Dip . 1 can pumpkin ¾ cup brown sugar 6 oz. Greek yogurt 6 oz. whipped topping 1 tsp vanilla 1/8 tsp pumpkin pie spice 1/8 tsp cinnamon Mix it all together and serve with apples, pears, and cinnamon graham crackers. Have a happy holiday!

When the pantry jars are full of mince-meat and the shelves are laden with sweet spices for a cake, When the butcher man sends up a turkey nice and fat to bake, When the stores are crammed with everything ingenious cooks can make, It's Thanksgiving Time! --Langston Hughes, from “Thanksgiving Time” It’s Thanksgiving Week, and for those of us who celebrate it, I’m not even going to pretend it’s not All About The Food. OK, it’s also about community, family, closeness, and finding things to be thankful for in trying times. And food! Mashed potatoes will be on a lot of menus, and, despite their being such a simple dish, there must be a million and one variations on how to prepare them! And countless debates on which way is best. Electric mixer, ricer, or hand-held potato masher? Russets, Red Roses, or Yukon Golds? Skin-on or skin-off? Milk, broth, or cooking water? Hot milk or cold? My earliest memories of making mashed potatoes involve Russets: starc...

Do you ever notice how some books can make you hungry? For example, I'm a fairly healthy eater, but I can't read any of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series without craving fast food. Fries, fried chicken, pizza, cake. Stephanie Plum can pack it away! I think I gain five pounds just reading about all she eats. In my upcoming The Great Estate, the hero learns to cook. Not a typical skill for an Edwardian earl, but there it is. He makes gnocchi with sage butter to impress his estranged wife. Desperate times... You can find a similar recipe here and make it yourself, just in case you're craving gnocchi after reading (and I apologize in advance). Martha Stewart's Gnocchi with Brown Butter and Sage  The Great Estate is coming on August 4th, but you can preorder now: Amazon:  http://ow.ly/P3M9T BN:  http://ow.ly/LP1gG   iTunes:  http://ow.ly/LP1lc BAM:  http://ow.ly/P3NiR   It took nearly losing Sophia for Gabriel to realize he had allowe...

November may not be the shortest month of the year, but it always seems to fly past--possibly because it’s one of the busiest. Holidays, elections, shopping at its most insane (Black Friday, anyone?), personal challenges like the Great American Smoke-Out and National Novel Writing Month . . . finding the time to relax, reflect, and simply be in November is an ongoing challenge, even with that extra hour we regain when Standard Time resumes. This year, after a challenging summer, I’m trying to take autumn slow and easy. That doesn’t mean being less productive--while I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo, I am on course to finish my WiP this month--but rather to enjoy the journey and not stress out so much about the destination or how fast I get there. And to savor whatever comforts the season has to offer. I count cooking among those comforts. As the weather cools and the days grow shorter and darker, I find the kitchen one of the pleasantest places to be. Especially when someth...

Lemon Tree...and Feline Guardian! Just as there are certain colors and smells that you automatically associate with specific seasons, so are there particular flavors. So if autumn tastes like pumpkin, ginger, and cranberries, winter like peppermint and chocolate, and summer like strawberries and peaches, spring--at least to me--tastes like lemons. And right now, with the warmer weather coming in, Southern California's lemon trees are putting out bumper crops of sunny yellow fruit! And enthusiastic cooks like me eye the laden branches with mingled speculation--and acquisitiveness! Because lemons are among the most versatile of ingredients, finding their way into all kinds of dishes: hot, cold, savory, sweet, liquid or solid. Whether it's avgolemono soup or lemon cream pasta or lemon meringue pie, lemon enlivens any springtime menu. Today I'm sharing a recipe for madeleines, those pretty scallop-shaped cakes that you can now find as overpriced three-packs at your loca...

For someone who has repeatedly mentioned how much she enjoys cooking, it seems odd in retrospect that I have yet to share any recipes here.   With autumn settling in, temperatures dropping, Thanksgiving just around the corner, and people beginning to crave hearty, savory fare, now is the perfect time to remedy that. So here are three favorite, flavorful recipes that will stick to your ribs in cold autumn weather and make the house smell wonderful as they cook. (DISCLAIMER: I can't claim to have invented these recipes so much as added my own touches and innovations here and there. But I'm certainly prepared to give credit where credit is due.)     Rosemary White Bean Soup (Adapted from Ina Garten's recipe) INGREDIENTS 1/2   lb. dried white beans (Garten uses cannellini beans, but as I've always had difficulty finding those, I substitute Great Northern Beans) 2 cups thinly sliced yellow onions (I usually find half a large on...

September 19 marks this year's Mid-Autumn Festival. Held on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month, during the full moon, this traditional Chinese festival celebrates a successful harvest, close family ties, and hopes for the future. Friends and family gather together to express thanks for their good fortune and (being only human) to pray for a little bit more, whether in conceptual or material form (wealth,  health, longevity, a spouse, children, a book contract . . . well, you get the idea!) Lotus Seed Mooncake with Egg Yolk, photo by a vlxyz Chinese culture being what it is, food is, of course, involved. Particularly mooncakes--rich, dense pastries boasting a variety of fillings, including lotus paste, red bean paste, taro, nuts and seeds, ham, and candied melon. Some also contain yolks of salted duck eggs for additional richness, though those are something of an acquired taste! Insanely caloric, mooncakes are traditionally cut into pieces, distributed among a ...