Taste of Kiwi: Blog of Author Shelley Munro

I’m back! I’m so relieved to have my website and blog back after the hacking. There are still a few things that require fixing, but at least I can blog again. To celebrate, I’m sharing my favorite shortbread recipe with you.

Scotland immediately comes to mind when I think of shortbread, and my next thought is always Christmas. It’s said that shortbread developed from a medieval recipe, with the modernized recipe attributed to Mary, Queen of Scots. Over time the ingredients changed, with butter replacing the yeast. Butter was an expensive ingredient, which meant shortbread was only baked on special occasions. Butter has become very expensive down here in New Zealand, so nothing has changed in that respect!

I tend to bake shortbread at Christmas. It’s one of my favorite biscuits to eat, a trait I fear I inherited from my father because it’s his firm favorite too.

The recipe I use comes from Jo Seagar’s Easy-Peasy Summer Entertaining recipe book.

Shortbread

250 grams softened butter (1.1 cup American)
3/4 cup icing sugar/confectioners sugar
1/2 cornflour/cornstarch
1 1/2 cups flour

Beat the butter and icing sugar until creamy. Mix in the cornflour and flour. Roll into teaspoon size balls with your hands. Place on a tray lined with baking paper. Flatten and press with damp shortbread mold. Bake at 150C for 25-30 minutes until the shortbread is pale but crisp. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.

Shelley’s notes:

1. The original recipe says to roll out the dough and cut out star shapes. I’ve always found the dough too soft to do this–maybe because I tend to make this recipe during the heat of a New Zealand summer–and after experimenting I’ve found teaspoon size balls work best for me.

2. If I feel in the mood for a variation with bite I add 1 tablespoon of cocoa and 1 teaspoon of chili powder just before I add the flour and cornflour. Sometimes I’ll also add chocolate chips-the small kind.

3. If you doin’t have a shortbread mold, press down with a fork. Dip the fork in a cup of cold water after flattening each biscuit to avoid sticking.

Here’s a photo of the Chili Chocolate Shortbread.

Are you a shortbread fan?

I’d like to wish everyone a happy and safe Christmas. I hope you have a fun day and find a few books or maybe an ereader in your Christmas stocking. My best advice for the day – don’t overdo the Christmas pudding!

Hugs
Shelley

PS – I’ll be announcing the winners in my contests tomorrow.

I’m watching a documentary about people who hate Christmas and nodding in agreement with most of their comments. To be honest, it’s not my favorite holiday. The commercialism irks me bigtime, and I can’t understand the people who turn into crazed shoppers at the mention of Christmas. This year I’ve gone for a low key, low stress approach and it’s worked. I’m happy, and this month my work in progress has grown at a very satisfactory rate. In fact I wrote the end on it yesterday and started work on another project today.

Our Christmas day will be spent with family. The kids will be overtired and hyperactive. Translation noisy and/or crying. We’ll all eat too much. My MIL will stress about the food and make my hubby cranky. We’ll have a nice day, but it will be good to return home and relax with a movie and a fruity glass of wine. And I’ll be thinking, thank goodness it’s 365 days to the next one…

Am I the only person who is more bah humbug than yay! about Christmas?

These are two santas we made out of salt dough. We used gingerbread men cutters and hubby painted them to look like Santa.

I’m visiting Lizzie T Leaf today over at What’s Cookin’ in Lizzie’s World to celebrate Christmas and my latest release, Christmas is Coming. I’m doing a giveaway, so come and say hello!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

Just do the following:

~ Grab your current read
~ Open to a random page
~ Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
~BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
~ Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

I’ve just started reading Breaking Point by Pamela Clare. It’s a romantic suspense, very gritty and real. This week I’m cheating a little with a slightly longer teaser.

Unable to do anything else to help her, Zach gave her the only advice he could. “I know it’s hard, but you need to stay focused on what’s happening now. Do whatever it takes to survive. Do you hear me, Natalie? Just survive.”

page 28, Breaking Point

Blurb:

While investigating border violence in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, Denver journalist Natalie Benoit is caught in a bloody ambush and taken captive. Alone in the hands of ruthless killers, she will need every ounce of courage she possesses to survive.

Betrayed by another operative, Deputy U.S. Marshal Zach McBride has endured a week of torture and interrogation at the hands of a bloodthirsty Mexican drug cartel. Ready to give his life if he must, he remains unbroken—until he hears the cries of an American woman.

Although Natalie is only a voice in the darkness of their shared prison, her plight brings renewed strength to Zach’s battered body. With her help, he overpowers their captors, and they flee through the desert toward the border, the attraction between them flaring hotter than the Sonoran sun.

But past loss and tragedy leave both of them reluctant to follow their hearts, even when the passion between them reaches its breaking point. Faced with feelings neither expected, they fight to stay ahead of the danger that hunts them as forces more powerful than they can imagine conspire to destroy them both…

Purchase Breaking Point

What are you reading this week? Share a teaser from your current read in the comment section or leave me a link to your teaser.

I’m visiting Joanna Chamber’s blog, Isn’t It Romantic? today and talking about my new release, Christmas is Coming plus the scents and sounds of Christmas. Here’s a link to Isn’t It Romantic? Come on over and say hello.

On Saturday I watched a program on TV called Kirstie’s Homemade Christmas. She visited a local school and showed the kids how to make these easy decorations. I wanted to try her recipe out myself. Hubby decided he wanted to help and we had fun making and painting the salt dough decorations below.

Here’s the recipe:

Half a cup of salt
Half a cup of water
One cup of flour
Olive oil
Rolling Pin
Old shirt or apron

Put the salt and flour in a bowl, then add the water slowly until the ingredients come together into a ball. Knead the dough for about ten minutes until it is a soft, pliant ball. Roll out and cut into shapes using cookie cutters.

Place cut-out shapes on a plate covered with a piece of baking paper. Place in the microwave for two – three minutes until the shapes harden. Let them cool and decorate with paint.

Shelley’s notes:
1. The above quantities make the perfect amount for each child.
2. If the dough is too wet add a little flour. If it’s too dry add a little more water.
3. The olive oil can be used during the rolling and cutting out stage if your dough dries out. I didn’t require any.
4. When I make these again next year, I’ll go for slightly bigger shapes and keep the dough a bit thicker.
5. We cut our letters and the tree freehand, using a knife.
6. If you want to hang the completed decorations on a tree, make a hole in the top. I’d make a bigger hole next time because it closed up a little in the microwave and also with painting.
7. You can also dry them in the sun for a few days or cook them in the oven on a low heat. Don’t burn!
8. Use any paint you have on hand. We had some old acrylic paint in the cupboard. Glitter would also be good, but we didn’t have any.
9. The finished result is rustic and fun.
10. Enjoy making your own decorations!

These are the ones we made:

My Christmas story, Christmas is Coming is now out at Ellora’s Cave.

Here’s the blurb:

Christmas is coming. Give your lover the gift of pleasure…

Gaby Montgomery works for Fancy Free as a condom designer. Recently she’s been designing sex toys and testing her inventions with fellow designer Marc, but they’ve parted ways. The timing couldn’t be worse because she’s stuck without a willing test subject for her sexy products.

Gaby’s roommates Liam Richardson and Fletch Darcy both want a serious relationship with her, and now that she’s free, it’s time to make a move. But how do they decide which one will date her? Fletch finally suggests they share. Liam is skeptical but agrees the scheme might work, which allows Fletch to move on to step two of his romance plan. Fletch doesn’t just want Gaby, he wants Liam as well.

The loving is hot, their days full of fun product testing, exquisite pleasure and laughter. Everything is perfect until the outside world intrudes, putting their budding relationship under stress. This time their love and friendship might not stand the pressure.

Publisher’s Note: Want to have more fun with the characters in this book? Then pick up Fancy Free!

Purchase from Ellora’s Cave

Shelley’s Shoutout Corner

Don’t forget that Maria Zannini’s Do It Yourself Christmas continues until 22 Dec.

Author Beth Revis is doing an Epic Giveaway at her blog.

Cari Quinn has a new release called Unwrapped at Loose-Id. Unwrapped is a contemporary menage. If you like spicy hot reads, this one sounds like a good one.

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

~ Grab your current read
~ Open to a random page
~ Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
~BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
~ Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week comes from my first Christmas read of this year. I’m just about to start Holly Lane by Toni Blake.

Sue Ann trudged through the department store, feet tired, shopping bags in hand, and in the spirit of Christmas nowhere to be found despite–or maybe because of–the sound of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” echoing through the loudspeakers overhead.

Oh, God, it was the day after Thanksgiving–she had a whole month of this private hell to go.

page 5, Holly Lane

Blurb:

The weather outside is frightful, but kisses by the fire are so delightful …

Sue Ann Simpkins is working hard to rebuild her life and find some holiday spirit. A weekend away from Destiny in a cabin on nearby Bear Lake seems like the perfect Christmas gift to herself—until her ex’s best friend, Adam Becker, shows up at the door, claiming the cabin is his! And if that’s not trouble enough, how had she never noticed how gorgeous he was?

Alone for the holidays and forced to play a reindeer at the local department store, Adam’s been feeling rather Scrooge-ish himself. But finding the smart, sexy woman he’s admired since elementary school waiting in the house he rented is helping to brighten his humbug mood. And when a sudden snowstorm strands them together in very close quarters, leading to one very hot night together, Adam soon realizes that what he really wants for Christmas is a second chance at love. Now all he has to do is convince Sue Ann…

Purchase Holly Lane

Share a teaser from your current read in the comments section or leave a link. Do you enjoy Christmas reads? Do you have any recommendations for me?

It’s Christmas eve here in New Zealand and the weatherman has promised us a sunny day tomorrow for Christmas. We have the family coming for lunch so I hope the weatherman gets things right. I stayed home today instead of braving the crowds at the mall. That was a good choice, I think, because there was a last minute rush with shoppers spending up large. I can do without crowds!

I’d like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. I hope your day is full of family, friends, good food and happiness. Stay safe.

Shelley

I mentioned pohutukawa trees over at Berengaria Brown’s blog the other day and promised I’d post a photo.

Pohutukawa trees are known as New Zealand’s native Christmas trees since they come into flower during late November/December. They have scarlet flowers and tend to like growing near the sea on clifftops. Our street sidewalk is lined with pohutukawa trees and it looks very pretty at this time of the year. This photo is the tree outside our house.