Tasty Tuesday – Interview with Kimberley Troutte

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One of my compatriots in COOK LIKE A WRITER, Kimberley Troutte, consented to let me track her down in the midst of a busy writing schedule and interview her.  I’m excited to bring you my results!

N&W: With your love of ghosts, how did history inspire your choices of recipes?

KT: My trip to Spain to write about ghosts inspired me to include Spanish tapas in our cookbook. The food there was amazing.

N&W: If you could go to any kitchen in any period in time, past or present, where would it be and with whom would you cook? What would the menu be?

KT: I have recently gotten on a Thai food kick. Oh, my gosh the sweetness of the coconut milk mixed with the zip of curry is like a party in my mouth. I think it would be pretty cool to take a trip to Thailand and eat in some of the local’s finest restaurants.

N&W: How has your relationship to food and eating changed in the process of doing the cookbook?

KT: I have been checking out ingredients and recipes a lot more now. Just yesterday, I was in a bookstore and stopped to read a food magazine. There was a recipe of how to make bread stuffed with a whole chicken! I soooo have to try that.

N&W: Living in Southern California, you’re exposed to many cuisines. What do you think of as “your” cuisine, as “comfort food”?

KT: I really love ethnic foods. Thai, Indian, Japanese, and Italian, Mexican, you name it we’ve got it nearby. Except Greek. Oh, wow, I love Greek food. My husband and I love this amazing Greek restaurant that’s in the middle of the desert called the Mad Greek and will drive out of our way to go there for lunch when we are traveling to Las Vegas.

N&W: Your newest release, SAVING MINER’S GULCH, is a children’s fiction story. If you had to design a menu for the characters, what would it be?

KT: The miners during the Gold Rush had lots of salt pork, beans, and my favorite—Sourdough Bread. My characters would have loved clam chowder in a hot, fresh Sourdough Bread bowl.

N&W: What are your favorite must-use cookbooks?

KT: The cook book I simply adore is called Cook Like a Writer. It’s fun, easy to use and has the best recipes. 🙂

N&W: What’s the best cocktail to drink while reading CATCH ME IN CASTILE?

KT: Sangria, most likely.

N&W: What advice would you give a writer just starting out?

KT: First there has to be LOVE—a deep passionate burning desire to write stories. If you’ve got the love then go forth and learn all that you can about your craft, which includes understanding yourself as a writer. Take classes and write as much as you can. Experiment. Become acquainted with your best, closest friend—your voice. It is like your fingerprint and is uniquely yours. Once you are more familiar with your voice, you will be able to sort out the genre and style that are best for you. And then write like crazy, as many days a week as you can. Surround yourself with true believers—other writers who are on this crazy path to publication too. Try not to get impatient because this writing journey takes time to prefect. Don’t be one of those people that quit too early. Keep loving, keep learning, keep writing.

N&W: If you could have a meal with anyone living or dead, who would it be and what would be served?

KT: This is going to sound mushy, but my favorite time of the day is when my hubby comes home from work and we sit down with the kids to eat dinner. Special events like good report cards and birthdays necessitate fancy dinners out on the town with some sort of chocolate decadence for dessert. I love and savor these moments with my family.

N&W: What do ghosts eat?

KT: Sadly, ghosts don’t eat. But then they don’t gain weight either.

Kimberley Troutte

Check out SAVING MINER’S GULCH, available at your favorite online retailer.

And download COOK LIKE A WRITER, available for free today.  You’ll be glad you did!

Lookit! Kichin Helpin!

Noon and Wilder Posted on by

COOK LIKE A WRITER, by The Book Posse, is born!  Join us for our pièce de résistance, the cookbook to end all cookbooks.  (Sorry Emeril.)  This one’s got wit, and cooking help, and me!  ~grin~

A cookbook written by a group of passionate authors who have cooked up recipes just as juicy as their novels. Their goal? To change the world one word and one tasty bite at a time, while having fun in the kitchen with foodies worldwide.

And the best part? It’s available free! Check it out, here. You’ll never leave the kitchen again.

And as a teaser, here are some extras from my coauthors:

Nancy Lauzon’s Easy Vegetarian Squares

Selena Robins’ Treadmill Cookies

Tasty Tuesday – Workday Meatloaf

Noon and Wilder Posted on by

Let’s face it:  whether you work outside the home or are a full-time homemaker, there are those days that you just want the meal without the work.  Never fear, Dear Reader, Aunt Noony has something for you.  Don’t I always?

Workday Meatloaf
Ingredients

2 eggs, beaten
3/4 C milk
1/2 C fine, dry bread crumbs
Do yourself a favor, and get the seasoned bread crumbs.  Getting the plain ones just yields bland meatloaf.
1/4 C finely chopped onion
2 T snipped parsley
1 t salt
1/2 t ground sage
1/8 t pepper
1 and 1/2 pounds ground beef (680 grams)
Do yourself another favor and really shop for the best ground beef you can afford.  If you can, go to a local butcher shop.  If you’re only shopping at the local grocery, then buy as lean of beef as you can find.  I like to use 90/10, which means there’s only 10% fat left.  If you can find ground round, use that; even better, ground sirloin.
For variety, you can try other ground meets as well.  I have a friend who swears by ground buffalo for her meatloaf.  When I’m minding our food variety, I’ll use ground turkey.  Experiment to see what flavors you enjoy.
Directions

Meatloaf is super simple.  See all those ingredients up there?  Get out a large bowl and dump ’em all in there.  I like to mush it around and squeeze it through my fingers, both because it’s cathartic (who doesn’t want to smash something at the end of a long day?) and because it helps ensure the ingredients are well mixed.  If you really don’t want to get your hands dirty, use a good, sturdy wooden spoon.
Put your oven at 350 F, 177C.  Put the meat in a loaf pan and smooth it out.  I like to use the flat of a teaspoon to texture it, but that’s up to you.  Put it in the oven for 50 minutes.
Bonus Glaze

Mix 1/4 C catsup, 2 T brown sugar, and 1 t dry mustard in a small bowl.  Make sure the mustard gets well mixed, as it has a tendency to clump.  Spoon the glaze over the meatloaf and bake another 10 minutes.
C’est fini, Dear Reader.  It really is that easy.  Serve with some steamed corn and a baked potato and you have a nice, full meal.  It serves six.  It stores well in the fridge and makes very nice meatloaf sandwiches the next day.
Join my other Tasty Tuesday compatriots!
Tuesday Yummy Pot Roast, by Nancy Lauzon

Cupcakes For Dinner, by Selena Robins

Paniolo Cornbread, by Renee Wildes

And stay tuned for COOK LIKE A WRITER, by the Guerrilla Chicks, coming February, 2013.  Join me and my Tasty Tuesday compatriots as we show you our stuff – in the kitchen.  More than a hundred recipes with a dash of fun, an extra helping of humor, and some good, old-fashioned stick-to-your-ribs food.  Yum!

January Retreat

Noon and Wilder Posted on by

I’m back in Las Vegas with Rachel!  Woot!  My visit doesn’t seem long enough, even though it’s a whole week.  Note to self:  do not schedule flights before 07:00.  One has to be at the airport 90 minutes ahead of the flight, and one has to get oneself to the airport.  My flight left Chicago at 06:30, which meant I had the cab pick me up at 04:00 – and he was early!  Yuck.  Noony is not a happy camper getting up at 03:00.

The flight was gorgeous, though.  We hit some turbulence as we passed over storms but for the most part, we came over very smoothly.  I spent most of the flight knitting.

This visit has been filled with creativity.  We’ve written, of course, and we got the cover art forms for TIGER TIGER!  Very exciting.  We will of course let everyone know as soon as the cover art is available.  But in addition to writing, we have been knitting and crocheting, but also picked up a latch-hook rug project.  Rachel picked out a cute picture of two cats and we’ll figure out how it works tomorrow.  We also found some tiny counted cross-stitch projects – including one that looks like a little truffle!  We picked out different colors for the fur, though; I’ll work on those this week.  They shouldn’t take long to finish.

Whatever your Monday brings you, I hope it’s fun!

Tasty Tuesday – Apple Pie Oatmeal

Noon and Wilder Posted on by
Welcome to the Guerrilla Chicks’ continuing Tuesday feature, Tasty Tuesday!  Every Tuesday, this band of intrepid writers brings you the news from the kitchen.  Since not all of us are cooks, you’ll learn things about food and eating that you never anticipated.  Watch out; you just might become a gourmand.

One of my favorite breakfast recipes involves preparation the night before. This is the magic of the slow cooker. If you haven’t invested in one of these handy gadgets yet, I highly recommend you try one out. They make the kitchen a more friendly place because they can be cooking something toothsome while you’re doing something else – like sleeping.

Apple Pie Oatmeal

This serves about four people. There are three in my household, and we tend to have at least a serving for leftovers, depending how hungry folks are in the morning. One thing I like to do with this is cook it and leave containers next to it so folks can spoon some and take it to work with them. It’s especially welcome on cold Winter mornings like we get here in Chicago and, since none of us are morning people, we don’t have to stuff it in our face right away. We can eat on the train. Much better than fat and cholesterol bombs one can find in fast food places.

Ingredients

1 C steel cut oats

I’ve tried other kinds of oats with this, and you definitely want slow-cooking ones. They’re hard to find, at least here in the states. Traditional grocery stores seem to only carry the quick-cook kind and ‘regular’, which cook in 5 minutes (and, therefore, aren’t “regular”). If you poke around other kinds of stores like Whole Foods and locally-owned groceries, you can find things like steel cut, Irish cut, etc. I like Irish cut too, and this is one recipe where experimenting pays off.

4 cups water
1 t cinnamon or cake spice
1 t vanilla extract

I know, I know, I’ve said it before and I’ll likely repeat myself. The best place to buy spices is The Spice House, and they have a fantastic website that is filled with good information about herbs and spices. Another excellent resource is the Frontier Coop.

Not all cinnamon is alike. For one thing, due to the embargo with Vietnam after the war with the United States, most Americans lost their palate for real cinnamon. Much of what we had available wasn’t the cinnamon of our grandmothers. Now the embargo is over, you can explore a whole new spectrum of flavor. Check out the different kinds of cinnamon available to your tongue.

My absolute favorite for seasoning, though, is their Cake Spice. Seriously yummy stuff, folks.

Don’t scrimp on your vanilla extract, either. For the love of Pete, do not use “vanillin” or “vanilla flavor.” Spring for the real vanilla extract and poke around, see if you can’t find Madagascar vanilla. It’s like sex on a spoon.

1 C fresh apple, cored and diced

I never knew all the amazing variations of the humble apple. I grew up with Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, and Granny Smith. Then Fuji and the Japanese Apple Pear. The Red and Golden Delicious are disgusting, mealy and gross. Don’t consider them part of the apple family. Try Pink Lady, Rome, or Macintosh. Failing that, you can use any apple that’s good in pies; Granny Smiths hold up well and I like Fuji in this recipe too.

1 C dried berries

You can use raisins if you have to, but look around for dried berries. It’s hard to find unsweetened cranberries, and if you’re watching your processed sugar intake that’s not desirable. But the other day at the store I found a bag of mixed berries. They were fantastic in this – cherries, cranberries, and blueberries. Yum city.

Directions

Are you ready for this? This is for all my lovely readers who tell me, “I just don’t cook.” This isn’t even cooking; if you can wash a pan, you can make this recipe.

You see all those ingredients up there? Dump ’em in the slow cooker. Stir. Put it on low and let it sit overnight.

That’s all there is to it.

A word to the wise: once everyone has served themselves, take the remaining stuff and put it in a storage container in the fridge and FILL THE POT WITH HOT, SOAPY WATER. Do.not.leave.it.til.you.get.home.from.work. TRUST the Noony. Unless you LIKE cleaning concrete out of stuff with your bare hands, do yourself a favor and pre-clean.

The Tasty Tuesday Bus

 Check out the other wonderful Tasty Tuesday posts my compatriots have prepared for your gustatory enjoyment.  Make 2013 a year to remember by trying new recipes in your home kitchen!

A Taste of Nostalgia, by Moira Keith

Stay-In-Bed Soup, by Nancy Lauzon

Great Balls of Italian Soup by Selena Robins

Happy New Year!

Noon and Wilder Posted on by

Welcome to 2013 with Noon and Wilder!  I’m so excited and wanted to jump right in, so let’s get started.

What’s on tap for this year:

  • Site redesign
  • Cookbook coming February 2013
  • More tasty tidbits with Tasty Tuesday
  • TIGER TIGER released July 2013
  • Three new series coming – a dragon, a gladiator, and a psychic (why does this sound like the beginning to a bad joke?)
  • Lots and lots of writing and textile art with Noony and Rachel
What are you planning this year?

Tasty Tuesday: A Good Cuppa

Noon and Wilder Posted on by

Okay.  Let’s get down to brass tacks.  It’s morning, but doo tamned early.  Whadoyoodo?

Coffee.

Rinse the pot.

Get fresh beans.  We keep ours in the freezer.  There is debate on this.  Some say don’t freeze, it’s not good for the oils.  Others say freeze, otherwise the oils go rancid.  Others say refrigerate.

As I was saying, get the beans out of the freezer.

Don’t use ground.  Why?  Because grinding DOES make it stale.  It’s better to grind your own if you can.

Grind your coffee.  I fill the grinder lid halfway full, but you’ll get used to how much with practice.  You could, gasp, read the manual.

After you have some coffee.

Get fresh water, fill the reservoir, put the grounds in the filter, and PUT THE BOT ON THE PURNER.  Don’t forget that part.  Leave the pot off and you get a mess.  Ask me how I know this.

~shudder~

Don’t ask.

As it’s brewing, and I highly suggest you get an interruptable brew pot, get some Valrhona cocoa.  If I’d meant some other kind of cocoa, I’d’ve said some other kind of cocoa.  Valrhona is the best.

Get some Raz al Hanout.  Sprinkle into your cup.

Get some good, high quality, dark honey.  I like Polish pine honey, but there are many many MANY to choose from so go nuts and try different ones.  Put about a teaspoon in the mug.

Pour coffee.  (Now you see why I told you to get an interruptable pour pot, yes?)

There.  That’s better, isn’t it?  For one thing, now you can spell.

Coffee.  It is necessary.

For some other scrumptious recipes for Tasty Tuesday, visit my buds.  Selena’s got something toothsome (I swear, that woman could cook pocket lint and make it to die for) and Nancy shares her special shortbread.  ~watering mouth~  Who wants to stage a raid and steal these two ladies?  We need something to go with our coffee, after all.  And mulled wine!  LOFF! ~gets map~

Mulled Wine, by PG Forte

My Grandmother’s Shortbreads, by Nancy Lauzon

Pouding Chomeur by Selena Robins

Tasty Tuesday – Rolled Sugar Cookies

Noon and Wilder Posted on by

As we approach the holidays, I wanted to share an excellent basic recipe for cookies that anyone who has made simple drop cookies (like chocolate-chip cookies) can make without much fuss.  It does, however, require a cookie cutter; I invite you over to my post at the Torquere Press today for my post, “Christmas Cookies – A Cautionary Tale.”

Here, without further ado, is the recipe:

Cookie Baking 101:  Rolled Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 C butter (anyone that tells you to use margarine in cookies should be shot) (just sayin’)
1 C sugar
1 egg
1/4 C milk
1/2 t vanilla (do NOT use “Vanillin.”  This is an artificial flavor.  Buy real vanilla.  You’ll thank me.)
2 1/4 C flour
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t ground mace or cake spice

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  the world’s best cake spice is from The Spice House.  Check it out.  You won’t be sorry.

Directions

  1. Soften the butter.  Either let it stand at room temperature or beat it with an electric mixer until creamy.  Do not let it become too soft or melt.
  2. In a mixer bowl (I love to use ceramic bowls for this but any large bowl will do), cream together the butter and sugar.  Wooden spoons are very helpful for this purpose or you can use your handy dandy electric mixer again.  (Just don’t go nuts with the sugar or it’ll splash everywhere.)  (Ask me how I know this.)
  3. Add the egg, the milk, and the vanilla; beat well.
  4. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and mace or cake spice.
  5. Add to creamed mixture and beat until blended.
  6. Divide dough in half.
  7. Cover and chill for 1 hour.
  8. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, 191 C.
  9. On a lightly-floured surface, roll each half of dough to 1/8 inch thickness.
  10. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters.  (You can use an overturned glass if you aren’t fortunate enough to have cookie cutters; you can really go nuts with fancy shapes if that’s your thing.  You can find them on the internet, second-hand stores, and antique shops.)
  11. Place cookies on ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 7 to 8 minutes, until golden.
  12. Remove from cookie sheet with metal spatula.  Cool on wire rack.

Yield: about 4.5 dozen.

Join our other Tasty Tuesday Compatriots!

Nancy Lauzon brings us Headless Chicken Soup!

Selena Robins whips up a Fun Fabulous Focaccia Feast!

A Taurusless Tasty Tuesday

Noon and Wilder Posted on by

Yes, I know.  Tauruses and food go together like cats and catnip.  Would I disappoint?  Would I stay up too late and forget to post a recipe for my faithful readers?

Moving right along, then, to share with you my other compatriots’ offerings, who did not stay up too late, who did not forget to type or post, and who are lovely human beings galloping into the void of fast food to bring us real food and real conversation!

Without further ado, then, I bring you…  TASTY TUESDAY!

PG Forte rings in the season right with “Pumpkin Martini.”  Say, YUM!

Nancy Lauzon brings us something as American as Apple Pie.  Or… “Spaghetti Pie.” (Which is extra fun since she’s from Canada.  I just adopted her as an honorary countrywoman.  Or she adopted me.  Or we adopted each other.  There was an adoption going on.)

Selena Robins wonders, “So, How Does One Eat a Taco?“

Please stop by and peruse these wonderful choices and be sure to tell ’em, the Tauruses sent ya!