COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR BARBARA RAFFIN AND SAUSAGE & EGG BISCUITS TO GO

Award winning author Barbara Raffin writes paranormal, contemporary and historical, all containing romance and some with suspense. Her latest book, Finding Home, made the finals of Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award Contest, Wisconsin Romance Writers' Write Touch Award, and is a BTS eMag's Red Carpet Review nominee for 2014. You'll find Barbara most mornings in her home-based office where her window overlooks the wooded beauty of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Learn more about Barbara and her books at her website and blog.

I'm currently working on Book Four of my St. John Sibling Series with Book Three, Craving a Hero coming out in October of 2014. This is my first series and I'm having a blast discovering the stories of these five remarkable siblings who grew up living a nomadic lifestyle, yet have stability with parents who created a home for them wherever in the world they lived.

When I was writing Book Two, Finding Home, I realized the St. John Siblings weren't the characters with the big issues. It was the people they fall in love with who each need a healing dose of St. John love. Even in Taming Tess, Book One, which is a modern day Taming of the Shrew story, while big brother contractor Roman St. John may need to loosen up, it's the career minded architect Tess whose father has betrayed her and who needs to learn not all men believe women belong in the bedroom not the boardroom.

Even middle brother Dane St. John, the golden boy action movie star in Craving a Hero, into whose lap all good things fall, needs to learn what it feels like to almost lose something, or rather someone, he truly loves. Yet it's Conservation Officer Kelly Jackson, the love of Dane's life who comes along at the wrong time, who must face down her fear of abandonment in the most emotional book of this series so far.

But, it's Finding Home, set in an old Victorian Farmhouse turned restaurant by the only female St. John sibling, Dixie, that's the perfect focus of this blog. Owner Dixie is as sweet as her homemade cinnamon buns, while Chef Sam Ryan is like the breakfast sandwiches in my recipe: tasty, multi-layered, and a little rough around the edges with a tendency to be eaten on the go.

Sam so badly wants a family, he's willing to do anything the uncle who raised him requests, and Uncle Stuart wants Sam to dig up dirt on Dixie, Sam's cousin's widow, so Uncle Stuart can gain custody of Dixie's son Ben. But, practically from the minute Sam meets Dixie, he knows there's no dirt to dig up and his modus operandi to run from responsibility kicks in.

But Somehow, every time he tries to run, he can't seem to make himself leave Dixie, her family, and her barnyard of cast off animals. Sam not only finds the right family for himself In Finding Home, but this family black sheep even manages to stand up to his uncle and make things right for the woman he's fallen in love with. He even faces down her quartet of protective brothers. Ya gotta love Sam.

As for that breakfast sandwich I liken Sam to… It's as satisfying and yummy as he is.

Sausage Egg Biscuits to Go

Ingredients:

8 pack tube of Pillsbury Biscuit dough (original, flaky, buttermilk, another brand, your choice,)

1 lb. bulk sausage (I use Italian, but you can use whatever kind you like)

2-3 eggs

salt and pepper

a dollop of milk

enough butter or butter substitute to lubricate your pan when frying eggs.

Tip: you can also bake your own biscuits, use croissants, or English muffins

Preheat oven per direction on biscuit container. Bake biscuits according to directions on package. While biscuits are baking, divide bulk sausage into eight thin patties no large than the size of your biscuit. Fry on medium heat.

Split baked biscuits in half. Set cooked sausage patties aside.

Whisk eggs, add dollop of milk, and salt and pepper while butter is melting in 8”-9” frying pan on medium heat. When butter sizzles, pour half the egg mixture into the pan. Add remaining egg. Use spatula to lift edges of egg and tilt pan so some of the uncooked egg slips under the cooking egg. This will help eliminate the hard crust on the frying side (unless you like your eggs like that.) Cut egg into four wedges and flip each wedge to finish cooking. Don't worry if it isn't perfect. It'll still taste great.

Layer a sausage patty on the bottom slice of biscuit, fold egg on top of sausage, and cover with biscuit top. Add optional cheese or a slice of tomato. Use your imagination and create what you like.

Let those biscuits you don't eat immediately cool, wrap the leftover biscuits in paper toweling, and store in a plastic bag in the fridge. Reheat 35-45 seconds in a microwave.

Finding Home

When life handed Dixie Rae Carrington lemons, she made lemonade. When life handed Sam Ryan lemons, he ran. Good thing for him he's run head long into love with Dixie, the one woman who can teach him how sweet lemons can be. Now he just has to hope she doesn't find out what really brought him into her life.

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