Silk & Shadows

What I Did On My Summer Vacation
By Jessa Slade

My summer started with a family road trip to bury my grandfather with full military honors at Arlington Cemetery. He has a lovely spot next to an apple tree with a peek-a-boo view of the Washington Monument.

Although the reason for our gathering was somber, we had a wonderful reunion with the whole clan where we spent several days at a cottage on a back channel of Chesapeake Bay, harassing the blue crabs and eating Maryland Madness ice cream (lemon ice cream with raspberry swirl, chocolate chips and white chocolate; yes, sounds like madness, but tastes like summer).

Speaking of tastes of summer, I returned home to the first cucumbers of the season. Being a lazy homemaker, I invented this great pickle recipe:

• Take 1 cucumber.
• Slice it thin.
• Put it in an empty jar of store-bought pickle juice.
• Let sit for three days.
• Eat.

This only works two or three times before you leach all the flavor from the pickle juice. As lazy recipes go, I think I’ve hit a new personal low.

The pickle juice had only just gone bland when I departed for two reader conventions: RomCon in Denver was a laff riot with events like Build-A-Hero (pictured below, where I contributed the rippling abs, thankyewthankyewverymuch) and Authors After Dark in Philadelphia.

AAD, which is geared specifically for paranormal readers, is in NEW ORLEANS next year! On Bourbon Street! A seven minute walk from Cafe Du Monde beignets! You’re coming too, right?

Scarcely had I returned home (again) when I left (again) on a long weekend writing retreat up in Washington state.

To prove I was working reeeelly hard (shuh, right):

And now I am back at my computer (again) ready to work hard (really, this time). As a welcome home present — to you! – we’re giving away some book treasures from my travels and from some of my favorite book friends.

At the end of the week, Random.org will choose a winner from our newsletter subscribers. If you are already subscribed, just say hey. If you aren’t signed up yet, you can do that from the upper left corner, right up there, see it? One winner will get a party pack of Laurie London, Erin Kellison and Elisabeth Naughton. And I bet I can find some goodies for two more winners too, so go sign up.

We’re glad to be back! How about you? Eager for the change of seasons, or are you clinging to summer with both hands and all ten summer-pedicured toes?

First off, congratulations to Sharon Ashwood for her RITA win with UNCHAINED! The RITAs are the Romance Writers of America’s Oscars, so this is wonderful acknowledgment of her Dark Forgotten book. AND she gets a golden statue!

Currently working on: My tan
Mood: Summery!

Summer doesn’t officially arrived in the Portland area until the first week of July, but it’s here now! I’m typing this outside, sitting in the shade, actually, because it’s finally warm The raspberry bushes are kickin’ out the berries so of course I had to use them in a holiday dessert.

Happy Fourth of July! (For those in the U.S.) Happy Summer! (For those in the Northern Hemisphere.) Happy Monday! (For pretty much everybody, I think.)

Red, White & Blue Cupcakes

Start with a box cake mix. I’m sure there are times when baking from scratch is called for. Mixing up festive cupcakes for people who will be drinking beer all day is not one of those times. I’ve enthused before about the Cake Mix Doctor‘s cookbooks. I recommend the chocolate cake mix cookbook and choosing one of the recipes with pudding in the mix as well as sour cream/yogurt for extra scrumptiousness.

The fun of cake mix doctoring is the doctoring part anyway. For these, I injected the cupcakes with a raspberry/strawberry coulis and then made a barrier wall of buttercream frosting around the top of the cupcakes and backfilled the interior with the coulis.

Berry Coulis

• 1 cup of raspberries
• 1 cup of strawberries (or whatever berries you have)
• 1 cup of sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon (about 4 Tablespoons)

Mix all ingredients the day before to let the flavors blend if you have time, then blender/food processor it all together into berry soup. Sample repeatedly over vanilla ice cream, because you’re the cook, and cooks deserve to sample. (Some people take out the seeds, but the beer drinkers won’t notice such niceties so I don’t bother.)

While the cupcakes are still warm from the oven, make a hole in the centers with a chopstick or similar implement. I used a cookie gun/cake decorator to aim the coulis into the hole, but you can just spoon it in too, as long as you have decent aim.

Let the cupcakes cool. Sample a few just to make sure there’s enough coulis in the middle.

Buttercream Frosting

• 1 stick of butter (room temp)
• 1 8-oz package of cream cheese (room temp)
• 1 tsp of vanilla
• 2-4 cups of sifted confectioner’s sugar (the recipe calls for 3 3/4 cups of sugar with more for spreadability, but I think you lose some of the cream cheese flavor to the sweetness if you use all the sugar. So I just add enough sugar to make enough to cover the cupcakes. Plus, the less sugar/slightly thicker frosting works well in the cookie gun/cake decorator.)

Make a monk’s tonsure/barrier wall in a circle around the cupcakes’ tops. Usually I am a “more frosting is better” gal, but this ratio works out nicely with the strong mouth feel of the buttercream. Plus, the barrier wall gives you room to spread more of the pretty red berry coulis.

To thicken the coulis for the top of the cupcake, mix corn starch with just enough water to make a thin paste. Gently warm the leftover coulis and add the starch/water mixture until the coulis thickens enough to stay on top of the cupcake.

Spoon the thickened coulis behind the barrier wall, top with a berry (I might have used a blueberry instead of a raspberry, but I don’t share my blueberries with anybody), add a light dusting of blue decorator sugar, and eat.

Happy Cupcakes!

Currently working on: Sticking with even ONE of my New Years Resolutions
Mood: Fail!

The nights are finally getting shorter but we’re still facing many, long, dark, cold, wet hours here in the Pacific Northwest. What to do with all that time? There can be only one answer:

Yup. Snuggle up. Monster Girl absconded with the purple pillow pet unicorn I won at the Christmas white elephant party, but they make such a cute couple I haven’t interfered with their intra-species love parade. This time of year, everybody deserves extra cuddle power.

For me, that means fuzzy socks and a fuzzy blanket, a cup of hot cocoa, and a stack of books.

Here’s my one cup of cocoa:

2 tablespoons nonfat dry milk
1 tablespoon sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons cocoa plus a little bit extra
1-1/2 teaspoons non-dairy creamer
Tiny pinch of salt

Whipped cream and mini choco chips on top are optional but highly recommended I’m still working on tweaking out the recipe. Is powdered sugar better than granulated? Half and half maybe? Which brand of cocoa makes the best beverage? Surprisingly, the top of the line stuff doesn’t always make the best drinking, although of course the darker varietals taste richer. I feel very noble sacrificing myself on this endeavor.

Last Friday, I burned through the last of my Powells Books gift card to get:

This is a fun triple header because now I have Delilah Marvelle’s PRELUDE TO A SCANDAL which is historical, our own Annette McCleave’s SURRENDER TO DARKNESS, a contemporary paranormal, and Marcella Burnard’s ENEMY WITHIN, a futuristic romance. So I have all time periods and a nice cross section of subgenres covered.

I’m looking forward to a few good dark nights. Oh, I should’ve gotten a medieval romance so I could say knights. Guess I’m making another run to the bookstore. Poor me

It seems to me most romance readers read across many subgenres, but do you have a favorite you default to in time of needful snuggling? I guess it’s no surprise that I always go back to paranormals. Something about the extra darkness of most paranormals — like extra dark chocolate — seems perfect for winter nights. What makes your winter nights perfect?

Currently working on: Book 5 of the Marked Souls
Mood: Under-chocolated

Christmas, New Year’s, winter solstice, lunar eclipse. There’s so much celebration in the next couple of minutes-days-weeks. And to most of it, I’m expected to bring a dessert.

I don’t mind bringing the desserts. That way, I always have something to eat. But when there are so many parties, it’s hard to find the time to make good, tasty, pretty, fun AND EASY desserts.

Which brings me to my new favorite cookie. (Not to be confused with my 8 lb. buckets o’ cookie dough, which are an eternal favorite.)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Kiss Cookies with Caramel Drizzle

My mom made these when I was a kid, but I’d never made them myself. I stumbled upon the recipe scrawled on the back of an envelope tucked in my overflowing dessert recipe notebook and thought I’d give it a whirl.

• 1/2 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Cream the squishy ingredients (shortening, pb & sugars) then add the liquidy ingredients (egg, milk & vanilla). Then add the dry stuff (flour, baking soda & salt).

The dough comes together super quick. You don’t have to wait for butter to come to room temperature, and the pb, shortening and sugars creams quickly. I like recipes with short oven-pre-warming-to-satisfaction ratios.

Roll the dough into balls. Not too big; I liked when the cookie was just a little bigger than the chocolate. Roll the balls in sugar; I recommend Sugar in the Raw because the big coarse grains look real pretty when they sparkle.

Bake the cookie balls at 375 for 10-12 minutes. My oven runs hot, so I baked at 350 for about 9 minutes and ate the “ruined” test sheet.

After the cookies come out of the oven, press a chocolate into the middle. And this is your secret weapon:

Trader Joe’s semi-sweet chocolate callets

You can use Hershey’s Kisses (unwrapped) or Brach’s chocolate stars, but TJ’s callets are far superior. They taste better, and their wider, thinner, flatter shape means you get a perfect bite of chocolate with each bite of cookies. Yum.

And for the pièce de résistance (that’s French for “piece of chocolate”):

Caramel de Beurre – French Salted Caramel Sauce

In the picture of the finished cookie above, you can see the drizzle of caramel on top. This was my super-secret weapon. The caramel was a nice sweetness against the stronger chocolate, with just a hint of salt to round it all out. And it looked charming!

For my holiday giveaway, I have a jar of caramel sauce (similar to the jar Monster Girl is protecting in the picture here; you’ll have to provide your own cookies). Just leave a comment sometime this week for a chance to win. By the time I mail it out, you’ll be done with your holiday baking and the sauce is yours, all yours!

Happy Baking!

Currently working on: Wrapping presents
Mood: Beribboned

‘Tis a joyful season so this week at Silk And Shadows we’re talking about things that make us happy. I contemplated the topic while I was wrapping presents, and as I looked around me, this is what I saw:

Lots of sparkly things. That’s what makes me invariably happy: sparkly things.

And I don’t mean diamonds. I’m sure diamonds are nice, but my inner crow is satisfied with tinsel, glass, crinkled aluminum foil (especially if the foil holds cookies), anything with a gleam or glimmer.

So here are a few inexpensive ways I add sparkle to my holiday. Or, heck, any day:

1. Wet ‘n’ Wild Mega Brilliance lip gloss
Yes, I’m too old to wear lip gloss. Actually, nobody should wear lip gloss. Especially lip gloss this cheap. But I love it. It makes me happy to have shiny lips with sparkles in it.  You have to pay for good matte lipstick. A $20 tube lasts a long time and looks way better. But for over-the-top shine, $2 Wet ‘n’ Wild is where it’s at. And I think combining the two — cheap shine over high-class base — says that (much like a kick-ass romance heroine) you know good quality and a good time.

2. Swarovski crystal
The Queen of Sparklies. I do some beading and there is no substitute for Swarovski crystal. I have a bag of loose beads that haven’t found projects yet and I sigh with pleasure just looking at them. Just a few bicone beads in your earrings or necklace makes people go ooh too. For less than a bucket o’ cookie dough, you can get several strands of a rainbow assortment of colors from Fire Mountain Gems.  [Warning: Do not visit the site with credit card in hand.]

3. Sugar
Oh yes, I know this is the time of year when people are trying to avoid eating too many treats, but the addition of big sugar crystals on pretty much anything makes me swoon with delight. The Decorette Shop has almost as many colors of sugar as Swarovski does of crystal. But it’s edible. Yum.

Spritz Butter Cookies

• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/4 cup flour

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cream sugar and butter. Add egg, salt and vanilla. Then add flour. Squeeze through cookie press into various seasonally appropriate shapes and decorate with big colored sugar crystals. Bake 6-8 minutes. Don’t over-brown. Goes nicely with hot cocoa. But then, what doesn’t?

4. Glitter
No holiday is complete without straight-up glitter. Glitter makes me giddy. And it’s even cheaper than Wet ‘n’ Wild. I recycle a lot of Christmas wrapping items and glitter is the first thing to rub off. So I have a ready excuse for buying little tubes of fairy dust. A quick spurt of spray adhesive and a sifting of glitter and the spirit of sparkling is restored!

5. Winter Wonderland walk
I’m a summer child. I like sun, warmth, blue skies. But I have to admit, I love walking in winter woods. Snow on pines and icicles give me goosebumps, and not just because I’m cold. A walk with XY and the dog is free fun full of sparkly breath. Plus, burning off the sugar cookies is good.

What brings a sparkle to your eyes?

Currently working on: Freaking out
Mood: Freaking out (Hey, it’s good to be consistent)

So I’m writing this Sunday night (due to the fact that I like to wait until the last minute; it’s not procrastination when I call it “time-lock inspiration”) and earlier today I tweeted: “2 parties last night and still home by midnight. We’re not getting older, we’re partying more efficiently.”

My oh-so-supportive twit friends laughed heartily.

And it’s true.  Oh, not just that I’m getting older.  That seems inevitable, more or less.  Worse, I’M GROWING UP!

How sad!  I actually ORDERED A SALAD for myself when I was at the last writers conference.  At home, XY always forces me to eat a salad because “it’s good for me.”  So I usually reserve vacation for an excuse not to eat salad.  But this time, I voluntarily ordered a salad.  And ate it.  And kinda liked it.

If that isn’t a symptom of growing up…

So appropriately enough this week our topic is BBQ cooking.  I went through my Cake Mix Doctors Cookbook, my box mix brownie recipes, my 8 lb. bucket o’ cookie dough options… and decided to share XY’s salad recipe.

Am I hanging my head in shame or because I suddenly fell into an age-induced nap?  Oh well, it’s a tasty salad and always gets rave reviews at BBQs.

Jessa’s XY’s “It’s Good For You” Salad

(This will feed about six people if mixed all at once. XY preps this amount but keeps the ingredients separate and mixes just enough each night for fresh salad. Yes, I know this isn’t a picture of a salad, but it’s a picture of XY and Christmas lights and the moon, which — if you squint — bears a not insignificant resemblance to the salad, honestly.)

Lettuce prep: Get a small/medium head of romaine, or equal that amount of romaine, red leaf, spinach, some arugula, or other fun greenery.

Clean the lettuce thusly (this technique will preserve the greens for a week or more if you keep it all for yourself):

1. Fill the sink with cold water and a cup of salt.  (Weird, I know.) Swish all the leaves through the water.  Pick out wilted and excessively bruised leaves.  (This is usually my job; I am not allowed to play with the knives.)

2. Empty the sink. Refill with fresh cold water.  Continue to pick out the bad leaves.

3. Empty the sink. Refill with fresh cold water and ice cubes.  Let the lettuce chill for about five minutes.

4. Drain the leaves and put them in a salad spinner.  This is crucial. Patting dry could bruise the leaves and hasten spoilage.  Plus, the salad spinner is one of the coolest technologies to come out of the space program, so use it and think of Mars.

Go through the garden. Or your local farmers market. Or the organic section at your local grocery.  Pick the good stuff, pretty stuff, or fun stuff.  But definitely get:

Scallions, one bunch
One cucumber
One carrot
Half-head of red cabbage

Also fun:
One tomato
Red pepper
Chick peas (garbanzo beans) — I don’t even like beans and these are good
Pine nuts
Edible flowers especially nasturtium — and they look nice in the garden

Extra extras:
Cheese
Olives

Chopping time:
Thin slice the lettuce and about quarter of the half cabbage into small strips, like confetti.  For lazy home salads, you can chop it however you want; but for public consumption, the confetti cut looks pretty

Finely chop the scallions. Peel and grate the carrot. Partly peel the cucumber (some of the dark green skin adds color), scoop out the seeds, slice and quarter.

Halve and slice the tomato. Dice the red pepper. Drain and pat dry the chick peas. Roast the pine nuts. (Good heavens, there are a lot of verbs in this salad.  I swear, it’s worth the work for a party, or will feed you all week.)  Shred the flowers.

Pre-party storage:
Refrigerate the lettuce separately.  The other ingredients can be grouped into sealed containers for convenience to take to the party or store in your fridge for assembly at each night’s dinner.

Dressing:
This is a “it’s good for me” salad as well as a tastes good salad, so XY does an oil and vinegar dressing.  The ratio is as follows:

1 part vinegar to 3 parts oil
XY estimates 1 second of oil poured (from a spout, not from the open bottle) for each person.  So a 6-person salad gets 6 seconds of oil (extra virgin olive oil) and 2 splashes of vinegar (red wine, balsamic, etc.).

1 pinch of salt per 2 seconds of oil
So a 6-person salad gets 3 pinches of salt

Fresh ground pepper to taste
XY is adamant the pepper must be fresh ground.  And he says don’t be shy with the pepper.

Assembly:
When the burgers are almost ready to come off the BBQ, put the lettuce in a big bowl.  Toss in the scallions and handfuls of the cabbage, carrot and cucumber until it looks pretty.  Throw in the chick peas and red pepper for visual appeal. Pour the dressing, salt and pepper, and toss well — very well to incorporate the oil and vinegar and dissolve the salt.

Decorate:
All the extras — the sliced tomato, pine nuts, cheese, olives, flower petals, etc. — can be sprinkled on top.

Yes, this is the salad that made me like salads.  Huh.  Now that I think about it, go eat cookie dough.

Do you have a favorite salad ingredient, a must-have dressing, or is lettuce merely for rabbits in your book?

Currently working on: Freedom from cocoa tyranny
Mood: Libre!

So I’m giving up chocolate for Lent.  As I’ve mentioned on this blog once or twice before, I’m addicted to buckets of double chocolate cookie dough. 

Eight pounds of cookie dough every month was starting to seem a little… excessive, which is not to say OBSESSIVE.  And, really, what better time of year to give up chocolate than the Easter season?

I mean, I have a perfectly fine imagination on my own.  It’s not like romance writers NEED chocolate to be inspired.

There are lots of ways to say “I love you” that don’t include theobromine.

Sure, Godiva has furnite made of chocolate.  But I didn’t make that bed, so I won’t lie in it.  Even if it would be awfully convenient from a snacking standpoint.

Think of all the time I’ll save not mixing up incredibly difficult desserts that are huge hits at picnics like the following:

• Cheap box of brownie mix (recommend Duncan Hines family size prepared to “fudgy” directions in 13×9 pan)
• Minty middle: Beat together 3 Tbl soft butter, 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, 1/2 tsp pure mint extract, 2 Tbl milk
• Chocolate top: 2 Tbl butter & 3/4 cup decent chocolate (recommend Trader Joe’s 1 pound bittersweet block — did I mention that buying chocolate by the pound is probably an indication of a problem?)

Nope, instead, I can sleep well knowing I’ve beaten my chocolate addiction.  Maybe it’ll be a bed of chocolate.  Yum….

Speaking as someone who turned out a book called RAVENOUS, it’s pretty clear I have a welcoming attitude toward food. I’m not a picky eater. I like it all.

One of the things catching my interest right now is the slow food movement. No, this has nothing to do with lazy vampires, geriatric werewolves, or zombies in need of arch supports.

In case you haven’t heard of it, slow food is the opposite of fast food: fresh, locally grown, home cooked, and enjoyed for its quality rather than its convenience. It exists alongside ideas like the hundred mile diet, organic food philosophies, and supporting the small local producers and community markets. I’m fortunate enough to live in an area of the Pacific Northwest that’s rich in farmland and wineries and that has a selection of world-class restaurants invested in promoting agri-tourism—which could be defined as “come visit and stuff your face till you drop”.

What does this have to do with writing?  Slow food makes a better author.  While I’m right in there with the “loves chocolate” brigade, for me there’s a price attached to that sweet indulgence:  word count.

This is a sad state of affairs for someone addicted to Hawkins Cheezies and who loves her glass of chardonnay, but garbage in, garbage out. When production counts, I have to avoid the junk snack aisle because sugar, salt, and preservatives make me groggy and (even more) stupid. It’s a hard-won lesson, but if I want to indulge in a not-so-virtuous treat, I have to wait until I’ve done my work for the day.

How very boring. Of course, nothing prevents me from eating well except my own unwillingness to tear my fingers from the keyboard and rejoin planet earth. I love to cook, so I really have no excuse. Here’s a recipe I’ve had for years that I absolutely love. For “slow food” it takes hardly any time to prepare:

Bunny soup (no, we’re not cooking Bugs)

Cook until soft:

2 lbs carrots, scrubbed and chopped

1 potato

Pinch salt

4 cups of stock or water

Saute in olive oil:

1 small chopped onion

Crush garlic (about a teaspoon)

1 tsp grated ginger

Handful of chopped cashews

Add sauted mixture to carrots and put the whole thing through a blender (or use a hand blender) to make a smooth texture. Whisk in

one cup of yogurt

dash of sherry

 and heat through. Garnish with more cashews.

Enjoy!

Favorite writing foods. Hmmm.

Let’s be really clear: I don’t cook. For many years there was a running joke in my house that I could burn Jello. I’ve certainly ruined Kraft Dinner. Yeah, don’t ask. Just put it down to a mind that can bury itself so deep in a story that the real world ceases to exist for a while. Long enough, apparently, for food to burn and KD to turn into gray mush.

Right. Now that I’ve instilled you with confidence, I’m going to share my favorite recipes.

I’ll point out, for the sake of the faint-hearted, that these are my mother’s recipes, which I follow to the letter. Creativity with words? Got that. Creativity with spices? Uh, no. I learned early on not to experiment.

My all-time favorite food for Thanksgiving is pumpkin pie. Here’s how my mom makes hers:

2 nine-inch unbaked pie shells (my mom made her own pastry, but I skip that part and go right to the frozen food section of the grocery store)
1 large can of pumpkin puree
1 ¼ cups of brown sugar (packed)
2 tsp cinnamon
2/3 tsp ginger
2/3 tsp mace
2/3 tsp nutmeg
2/3 tsp salt
4 eggs (separated)

In large bowl, beat the egg yolks; blend in the pumpkin, sugar, cinnamon, salt, mace, ginger and nutmeg. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until fluffy, then fold them into the pumpkin mixture. Pour into pie shells.

Bake in a preheated oven at 425 degrees for 10 minutes, then 350 degrees for about 50 minutes. Bake until the pastry is golden and a knife inserted into centre comes out clean. Let them cool on a rack.

Then dig in. Smother your piece of pie in whipped cream or eat it plain. Whatever works for you. The best part of this recipe is how light and fluffy the egg whites make the pie. Yum.

My other favorite recipe for cool autumn weather is rice pudding. Try this one:

½ cup of short grain rice
1 cup of boiling water
1/3 cup of sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
pinch of salt
4 cups of milk
1 cup 18% table cream (what, you thought this was low cal?)
½ tsp nutmeg
½ cup of raisins
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp cinnamon

In a large saucepan, cook the rice in the boiling water until the water is absorbed. Feel free to cook yours in a steamer if you prefer, but you’ll need to transfer the rice to a saucepan to complete the recipe.

In a medium bowl, mix the sugar, cornstarch and salt. Then whisk in a cup of the milk and stir until smooth. Add the sugar mixture, along with the rest of the milk and the cream to the saucepan with the rice. Mix well. Add the nutmeg and the raisins.

Stirring steadily, bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to the barest simmer and stir occasionally. Cook 1 to 1 ½ hours, or until very creamy.

Beat the egg yolks in a small bowl. Remove the pudding from the heat. Whisk a little of the pudding into the egg yolks, then add the egg yolk mixture to the rest of the pudding. Put the pudding back on the stove and cook for an additional minute. Remove from heat, stir in the vanilla and butter. Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with cinnamon.

I swear, even if you don’t usually like rice pudding, you’ll love this. You can eat it hot or cold.

Enjoy!