#COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR M.S. SPENCER

M. S. Spencer has published ten romantic suspense and murder mystery novels. She has two fabulous grown children and an incredible granddaughter and divides her time between the Gulf Coast of Florida and a tiny village in Maine. Learn more about her and her books at her blog.

My new release, Whirlwind Romance, features a heroine who makes jellies and jams from wild fruits she gathers in Florida. 

Up until my thirties, I traveled a great deal, living in many countries with amenities that many would consider below standard. So it wasn't until I married and settled down in an old farmhouse with an acre of land that I could indulge my fantasy growing my own food. We planted apple, plum, peach, fig, hazelnut, and cherry trees; gooseberries, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries; all kinds of vegetables, including an ill-fated attempt to grow artichokes; and finally, lots and lots of herbs. I built a formal herb garden and planted thyme, lovage, rosemary, chives, tarragon, sage, and lemon balm. The one thing I couldn't get to grow was mint. Yes, the gardeners among you will scoff, but it took me years to get a plot to flourish. When it did, I had to do something or it would take over the entire acre.

So I called upon my sister-in-law, to whom Whirlwind Romance is dedicated. She directed me to an old recipe for mint jelly. Once the mint invasion was under control and I'd mastered the technique, I spent whole summers working up recipes for herb jellies. It was great fun. Despite the fact that I'm not really fond of jelly, they made excellent Christmas gifts.

As I started Whirlwind Romance, I thought about what my heroine, Lacey Delahaye, would do for a living. She lives alone in Florida, her one son grown. What could she do? I thought of the innumerable ecosystems in Florida, from pine uplands, to coastal plains, to palm hammocks—all of which are host to many wild fruits, most of which can be made into jelly. Ah hah! She'd be a jelly maker.

For fun, I added the recipes to each chapter. I hope you enjoy them as much as you do Lacey and Armand's love story.

For your cooking pleasure, here is one of her recipes:

Sea Grape Jelly

Sea grapes are tall, multi-trunked trees with round leaves that grow along Florida's coastal areas. The clusters of grapes ripen in the summer and should be picked when fully purple.

Makes 4-6 pints

8 cups ripe sea grapes

4 cups water

5 cups white sugar

1 box powdered pectin

1/4 cup lime juice

1/2 teaspoon butter

Wash grapes. Place in large pot with the water and cook over medium heat until the skins are soft. Press the pulp through a sieve. Place the pulp in a jelly strainer or two layers of cheesecloth and let drip. Add water to the clear juice to make 5 cups.

In a large pot, bring the juice, lime juice, pectin and butter to a rolling boil, stirring constantly. Add the sugar and bring again to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil exactly one minute. Remove from heat, skim off any foam, and ladle into hot, sterilized jelly jars to within 1/4-inch of the top. Wipe rims and place the two-piece canning lids on the jars but do not tighten completely. Turn the jars over and leave upside down for five minutes on a padded rack. Turn upright and tighten the lids completely.

Alternate method: Process filled, tightly closed jars in boiling water for 15 minutes. Cool.

Whirlwind Romance

Pirates, Puritans, propaganda, and princes—pieces of the puzzle in the whirlwind romance between a beautiful jelly maker and a mysterious castaway.

In the aftermath of a hurricane, Lacey Delahaye finds herself marooned on an island on the Gulf coast of Florida with a mysterious man. They are immediately drawn to each other, but before Armand can confess his identity, they are kidnapped and taken to a tiny island in the western Caribbean. With the help of her son Crispin and a cadre of loyal followers, she and Armand must face down pirates, power-mad ideologues, and palace intrigue, if they are to restore the once idyllic tropical island to its former glory.

Buy Links:

paperback 

ebook 

#COOKING WITH CLORIS--PEPPER JELLY WITH GUEST AUTHOR C. HOPE CLARK

C. Hope Clark spins her tales Southern like she loves her food, her men, heck, you name it. Hope lives on the banks of Lake Murray in central South Carolina, that is when she isn’t wandering the sands of Edisto Beach where her current series takes place. Her recent release is Edisto Jinx, book two in the Edisto Island Mysteries. Learn more about Hope and her books at her website. 

Whenever a new book comes out, reviews follow close behind. Edisto Jinx is an October release, again starring Callie Jean Morgan, a broken and flawed ex-detective relocated to the beach to regroup and reboot her life’s purpose. Of course fate slings all kinds of opportunity in the guise of tragedy at her to challenge her decision as to just what that purpose is. I love flawed characters. And I love digging out the best and worst of them, the juxtaposition making the plot oh that much sweeter.

Such journeys aren’t limited to novels. Life is better for all of us when we endure calamity and turn it into character growth. While horrible experiences aren’t pleasant when they occur, in hindsight, we’re often grateful for the experience, and what it molds us into.

It’s the highs and lows that give color to our lives. The lows hand us lessons that, if we’re smart, we apply to the days ahead. And if we take the moment to deeply appreciate the most excellent times when we’re flying high with mile-wide smiles, we can spot those dark-day lessons in our success.

I am Southern, and I serve no food to guests without proper spice and correct balance of flavors. Plenty of highs and lows there, too. Nothing bland. No, ma’am and no sir. My spice cabinet is amply stacked and loaded to address whatever comes out of my garden, hen house, or husband’s latest deer hunt excursion. Herbs hang on the wall, drying in bunches.

This time of year the garden is in transition. Winter crops still mature; crops that include collards, turnips, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli. Summer crops have borne their fruit and wilted down to the soil where I’ll either pull up the stalks or till in the compost. But one crop tends to weather the transition with vigor and style, as if waving at the autumn leaves to say, “Hey, look at me. I can do color, too.”

This is the time of year that my peppers explode in flavor and hues. While they grow in the summer, they come into their own in September and continue a prolific level of production until that first hard pumpkin frost. And when they are at their peak, there aren’t enough recipes on the planet to use them all up. I try, though, and my favorite means of savoring my peppers is in pepper jelly.

The thought of uniting peppers in a sweet jelly causes a mental train-wreck to the uneducated, but to those of us who know better, the heat and the sweet make a profound combination. You can use the jelly in a sweet recipe, or take it over to the savory side on cheese. The simplest way to serve it is by simply dumping a half cup of it over a bar of cream cheese as a spread during football games. Goodness knows you can’t have enough finger foods for a tailgate affair, and this stuff goes fast. Better bring two bars of cheese, and double the jelly.

Something magical happens on your tongue when you take a bite of pepper jelly. The sweet hits you first, then slowly the pepper heat creeps in. You take another bite: sweet then heat. It’s addictive, and if you’re a cheese aficionado to boot, your calorie counting effort crashes and burns.

Do you still have ample pepper jelly once the cream cheese is gone? Use it like any other jelly in preparing meat dishes.  Pork takes on an especially impressive taste. Shrimp becomes decadent, and burgers are to die for. But goodness gracious, you ought to taste the marinated chicken wings! You can even use it on ice cream, peanut butter, in mixed drinks, and in salad dressings.

Soon you can’t do without it. Never made jelly? Well, this is one of the simplest recipes to learn by. And an extra special side benefit is its beautiful green color. Pick your peppers green, yellow and red and you have a kitchen product worthy of a Christmas gift. Enjoy!

Pepper Jelly

1 cup finely chopped peppers (choose peppers of choice – I use 1/3 cup each of jalapeno, banana and bell peppers – don’t worry, the sugar cuts a lot of the jalapeno heat – just don’t use the seeds)
1 pkg. Certo gel pectin

1-1/3 cup bottled apple juice

2 T. apple cider vinegar

1 drop green food coloring

4 cups sugar

1/2 tsp. butter

Measure peppers into a six to eight-quart saucepan. Stir in apple juice and vinegar. Measure the exact amount of sugar and stir it into the pepper mixture in saucepan. Add the butter to reduce foaming.

Bring mixture to a full, roiling boil, constantly stirring. Roiling means the boiling won’t stop even while you stir. Boil for one minute. Add the pectin. Return to a boil. Remove from heat. Skim any foam off with a metal spoon, but the butter should take care of most if not all.

Ladle quickly into prepared Ball or Mason jars, filling to within 1/8” of top. Prep your jars before you start cooking the mixture by placing them in hot water, boiling them and the two-piece metal ring covers for at least ten minutes. Leave the waiting jars in the water as you fill each jar.

Wipe any trace of jelly off jar rims and threads. Screw the two-piece lid on each jar. Screw tightly. Place jars back in the hot boiling water bath, covered by one to two inches of water, and bring to a gentle boil. Cook five minutes. Remove jars to a towel to cool completely. After the jars cool, check seals by pressing the lid. If lid springs back it is not sealed. Refrigerate. If the lid is firm, it can be stored for up to a year. (Thus the reason you use new lids.) After 24 hours, store in a cool, dry place. Once opened, keep refrigerated. Lasts up to three weeks.

Edisto Jinx

Is it a flesh and blood killer—or restless spirits?

According to a local psychic, beautiful Edisto Beach becomes a hotbed of troublemaking spirits every August. But when a visitor dies mysteriously during a beach house party, former big-city detective Callie Morgan and Edisto Beach police chief Mike Seabrook hunt for motives and suspects among the living. With tourists filling the beaches and local business owners anxious to squelch rumors of a murderer on the loose, Callie will need all the help she can get—especially once the killer’s attention turns toward her.

Buy Links

paperback 

ebook 

COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR AND JELLY MAKER TERRY SHAMES

Terry Shames has abiding affection for the small Texas town where here grandparents lived, the model for the fictional town of Jarrett Creek in her Samuel Craddock mysteries. Her second Samuel Craddock novel, The Last Death of Jack Harbin, will be out in January 2014. Learn more about Terry and her books at her website.

In my second Samuel Craddock mystery, The Last Death of Jack Harbin, coming January 7, I have an old friend come to visit Samuel while he’s making plum jelly. Here’s the excerpt:

“Come on into the kitchen, I’m making jelly,” I say. “I got some plums the other day and they were yelling to be put up or thrown out.”

“Well aren’t you a sight in your pretty little apron.” She hugs me tight.

She steps around me to the stove, where the jelly is bubbling. Opening a drawer, she takes out a spoon and sticks it into the brew, then waves it around to cool it. She tastes the jam and smacks her lips in approval. My late wife, Jeanne, was the cook in our household, but somewhere along the line I became the maker of jams and jellies, and I’m pretty proud of what I come up with.

“We’re going to have to talk here in the kitchen,” I tell her. “If I leave it too long, it’ll set up too hard.”

“Samuel, I may not be the world’s best cook, but even I know you have to be careful with jelly. My mamma drilled that into me every year when she canned.” She grins and a ghost of her outgrown, mischievous self flits across her face. “And every year she’d leave me to watch a batch and the phone would ring or somebody would come by, and next thing you know I’d forget all about it and I’d be in big trouble.”           

There’s a story behind why I chose plum jelly for this scene. My mother tried to make plum jelly, and it always turned out to be either too tart, too sugary, or, in the worst case I can remember, so stiff you couldn’t stir it with a knife.  And here’s the funny part. I love making chutneys, jams, and jellies, and they always turn out great—except plum. Failing at plum jelly is in my genes! So I decided my character, Samuel Craddock would be able to make terrific plum jelly.

Here’s a recipe from The New Settlement Cookbook. Try it. Maybe you’ll have more success than I did.

Plum Jelly

Use under-ripe tart plums. Wash the fruit and remove the stems. Cover fruit with water. Simmer until the plums are very soft. Strain the juice. Use 1 cup sugar to 1 cup juice. When juice boils, add sugar and cook until it jells. Pour into hot, sterilized glasses and seal.

I’m adding a recipe for Ginger Apples from the same book, because I know this recipe works—and it’s apple season:

1 quart tart apples                         

2 cups water

2 cups brown sugar             

6 pieces ginger root (1/2-3/4 inch pieces)

1 lemon

Pare, and cut the apples into small squares. Grate the rind of the lemon. Boil water, sugar and lemon juice five minutes or until clear. Add apples and ginger and cook slowly two or more hours until thick and brown. Pour into jars and seal.

A Killing at Cotton Hill: A Samuel Craddock Mystery

Samuel Craddock has a reputation as the best lawman the town of Jarrett Creek ever had. The current chief of police is incompetent, so when Dora Lee Parjeter is murdered, Craddock steps in to investigate. He discovers that a lot of people may have wanted Dora Lee dead—the conniving rascals on a neighboring farm, her estranged daughter and her surly live-in grandson. And then there’s the stranger Dora Lee claimed was spying on her. During the course of the investigation the human foibles of the small-town residents—their pettiness and generosity, their secret vices and true virtues—are revealed.

Buy Link

ebook 

paperback