#COOKING WITH CLORIS--JALAPEÑO CHEDDAR CORNBREAD FROM AUTHOR JODI RATH

Moving into her second decade working in education, Jodi Rath has decided to begin a life of crime in The Cast Iron Skillet Mystery Series. She splits her time between working as an adjunct for Ohio teachers and creating mischief in her fictional writing. Learn more about Jodi and her books at her website.    

Fiction or Reality?

Being someone who has wanted to be a writer for the last forty years, now that I can pursue my dream, I do it with a vengeance. I spent twenty years in education as a high school English teacher. Before that, I worked as a Vice President of a credit union. Before that I worked in communications and advertising. All of these jobs were more than an eight-hour workday. Teaching was by far the most challenging and time-consuming as it took a toll on me mentally and drained my energy, but that’s a good thing. A teacher needs to care about her students, and I cared a lot. I was not able to entirely leave education when I dived into writing.

Here I am at age 46 with a whole new career path as a business owner. My business is split into the education side, where I teach up to ten online courses working with Ohio teachers. Also, I write on deadline monthly for multiple educational blogs and affiliations. The other side of my business is writing my culinary cozy mystery series, The Cast Iron Skillet Mystery Series. I also work as a marketing consultant for authors in my spare time.

So far, I have had success with book one, Pineapple Upside Down Murder, which came out in November of 2018. Book two, Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread Murder, comes out June 21st. Currently, I’m working on Turkey Basted to Death, a Thanksgiving book, which is really fun but weird writing about Thanksgiving in June. That book will come out on November 18th.

While I thought education won with the most multi-tasking and hours put into a job, I was completely wrong. My current business, while enjoyable—and often feeling like play—has me working sixteen to eighteen-hour days, seven days a week. I used to be someone who went to bed and woke up at the same times every day. Now, I sleep and work at various times within any twenty-four-hour period.

As a kid, teen, and throughout my twenties, I would fantasize about the day I could be a full-time writer—and here I am—AND, it’s working. I’ve found that a lot of me comes through in my protagonist, Jolie Tucker. Also, I tend to write a lot about my family and friends in my series. It is fictional—mostly. All of the cats on the covers of my books are based on one of the sixteen cats that my hubby and I have had over our seventeen years together.

My latest book, Jalapeno Cheddar Cornbread Murder, has a spicy twist to the plot. I loved testing out tasty cornbread recipes, then playing with the recipes to find one that matched my love of cheese and spicy food.

I’ve come a long way from crunching numbers as a VP of a credit union or creating ads for campaigns or spending days creating lessons and delivering them. But the truth is every single thing I’ve done over the last twenty-six years has contributed to helping me make this business successful. I’m still an educator; I market my work and work with other authors in marketing; I keep my financial profits and expenditures monthly and do quarterly reviews of my business; I write for education; I write a fictional mystery series. So my reality has become the fiction I write; yet, the fiction I write is partially my reality also. What a wonderful world!

Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread

Ingredients:

2 jalapeño peppers, seeds* removed and diced

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup fine cornmeal

1 tbsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp kosher salt (1 tsp. if using fine salt)

4 large eggs

1 cup cooked corn kernels plus enough cream, milk, or buttermilk** to equal 1 1/2 cups

1 cup grated cheddar cheese*** plus bit more for top before baking

3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

2/3 cup sugar

*see Notes

Place diced jalapeños in a 10-inch top diameter cast iron skillet in cold oven on middle rack. Preheat oven to 400°F. Check periodically to make sure jalapeños aren’t burning and to give them a quick stir. Remove from skillet when lightly browned and allow to cool. Return skillet immediately to oven.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, lightly beat eggs. Whisk in corn/cream mixture and cheddar cheese. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix butter and sugar with a wooden spoon**** until butter absorbs the sugar. Add the egg mixture and mix until just combined. Stir in the cooled jalapeños. Mix in the dry ingredients until barely incorporated.

Remove skillet from oven and lightly coat with nonstick spray. Spoon batter into hot pan and quickly top with a bit more grated cheddar cheese. Bake cornbread until top is golden brown and springs back when gently pressed, 25-28 minutes when baked in a 10-inch skillet (may be longer if your skillet is smaller). Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

Recipe Notes

*If you like your food extra spicy, leave the seeds in the jalapeños.

**This means you add the corn kernels to a measuring cup first, then pour in the milk until the milk rises to the 1-1/2 cup level. (I was not able to find buttermilk at my local store. If you have the same problem, then you can add one tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar for every one cup of milk.)

***I’m a cheese lover—I added an extra half-cup of cheese!

****I tried the recipe mixing with a wooden spoon and again using my Kitchenette mixer. Call me crazy, but I truly believe it tasted better when using the wooden spoon to stir ingredients.

This recipe was adapted from seasonsandsuppas.ca and foodiecrush.com.

Jalapeño Cheddar Cornbread Murder

A Cast Iron Skillet Mystery, Book 2

Welcome to Leavensport, Ohio where DEATH takes a delicious turn!

Financial fraud of elderly villagers in Leavensport, an urban sprawl threat to the community, disastrous dates, cross-sell marketing gone wrong, and another murder?

Jolie Tucker is ready to try dating again. Well, she has no choice—since her family auctioned her off to the highest bidder. Her best friend, Ava, has agreed to a double date, but both friends find out hidden secrets about their partners as well as deception by one of the village’s own, who will soon be found dead. This plot is sure to be spicy!

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#COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR KB INGLEE

KB Inglee lives in Delaware and works at two Living History Museums. She writes short historical mystery fiction. Her episodic novel The Case book of Emily Lawrence is set in the second half of the 19^th century. Learn more about KB and her books at her website.

When I began working as an historic interpreter at a living history museum, I had no idea how much fun it would be. I started because a novelist of my acquaintance told me I needed to do the things my character did in order to have the writing ring true.

My favorite programs involve livestock, fiber arts, and milling grain. I am not a cook. I could burn boiling water. In spite of that, now and then, I have been co-opted into cooking on an open hearth or in a wood fired oven.

It's fun for the kids to cook, and they love having their cookies at the end of the session. But we hope they will learn something along the way.

Some of the differences between cooking now and cooking then are:

One would never break an egg directly into the preparation. A farm fresh egg might include a partially formed chick or be rotten. Always break your eggs into a cup before adding them to the more expensive ingredients, like flour and sugar.

A stable baking powder came along in the second half of the 19^th century. Before that you had to add baking soda and cream of tartar separately as you are cooking. That way they will do the work you hope they will, leavening your mixture.

All measurements are all approximate. The level measure was popularized in the 1890s by Fannie Farmer. At home I use a cup measure but always measure teaspoons and tablespoons by pouring the dry ingredient into my palm, and the liquid ingredient directly into the batter.

The only way you have to measure the heat of a wood fired oven is by sticking your hand into the oven. An experienced cook knew what cooked at everything from a few inches (quick breads) to a whole arm (a pot of stew).

I can't always put my finger on why having done the activity makes writing about it more authentic, but I have spotted it in books I have read. Clearly the author of A Simple Murder, by Eleanor Kuhns, is a weaver. She doesn't spend a lot of words on the process, but somehow the descriptions have the feelings as well as the facts of the matter. It is a wonderful story about an itinerant weaver, by an author who knows her stuff. On the other hand she doesn’t know much about milling so the mill section is sketchy and feels more distant.

Emily, the protagonist in The Case Book of Emily Lawrence, tries not to cook. She takes after me in that respect. She is an okay baker, but rather messy. She used a wood stove, and later a gas stove. She has never mentioned this to me, but I suspect that after a day at work, she would take her food down to her landlady to cook on the stove that she had been using all day. Trying to light a wood stove late in the afternoon and have it heat properly is nearly impossible.

I have a scene in one of my colonial period short stories in which they have to put a child down the chimney of a house rather like the ones in Plimouth Plantation. My experience with open hearth cooking tells me exactly what he is stepping down into, so while the scene has nothing to do with cooking, and is only a few words long, I saw it exactly in my mind as I wrote it.

Common Jumbles (Snickerdoodles) adapted from The Quaker Woman's Cookbook. The recipes are by Elizabeth Ellicott Lee. They were edited for modern cooks by William Woys Weaver.

2 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 pound butter

2 eggs

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp cream of tartar

Sugar and cinnamon for coating cookie balls before putting in oven.

Elizabeth Lee listed the ingredients but gave no instructions. A proper cook wouldn't need them. Cream sugar and butter. Mix flour, baking soda and cream of tartar. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture. Add eggs and stir until all is mixed.

Take a dollop about the size of a quarter and roll it into a ball. Roll each ball in a sugar cinnamon mixture. Place in the pan. Bake at 350 until golden. You can make this in a Dutch oven in your fireplace or campfire for an even better taste.

Cranberry Cornbread

Cranberry Cornbread is based on a recipe from Boston Cooking School Cookbook by Fanny Merritt Farmer. I use cornmeal from Newlin Grist Mill, stone ground using water power, as it had been in the 1700s. I added cranberries from a private bog on Cape Cod, because I though cranberries and cornbread would be a good combination.

Mix together:

3/4 C cornmeal

1 C wheat flour

1/3 C sugar

3 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

Add: 

1 C milk

1 egg well beaten

2 T butter, melted

Cranberry mixture:

1 C fresh cranberries

Molasses to taste (that means I never measure it, I just pour it in) half a cup or so

Clean berries and put into a small pan, add molasses and water to equal one cup. Cook over medium heat covered until all the berries have popped open. You may need to reduce it a bit more. Pour berry mixture into cornbread and cut it in until you have a marbled surface and every bite will have some cranberry and some plain cornbread in it. I bake mine in a nine inch round pan, at 350 degrees for 20 minutes and cut it in pie shaped wedges.

The Case Book of Emily Lawrence

Emily Lawrence knows it isn't easy being the first-- and so far--only woman detective in late 19^th century Washington DC. With the support of Charles, her husband and business partner, and her own talent for observation and scientific research, Emily tackles the most baffling cases, helping the police solve robberies, kidnappings, and even murder.

Although the work is exciting it is also dangerous: Emily and Charles must balance their pursuit for the truth, with the desire to protect each other. As she gains skills and experience, Emily discovers that the investigations closet to home are often the most challenging.

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ebook