Taste of Kiwi

This recipe is taken from one of Jo Seagar’s cookbooks called Jo Seagar Cooks and as the title states, the quiche is very easy to make. It’s the perfect thing for a summer picnic, unexpected guests or a quick weekend dinner.

4 eggs
1 1/2 cups grated tasty cheese
1 small onion peeled and chopped
6 rashers of rindless bacon chopped
1/2 cup self-raising flour
1 1/2 cups of milk
1/4 cup of chopped parsley
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 cups of your choice of vegetables (chopped mushrooms, peppers, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, corn, peas, beans, grated pumpkin etc) – your imagination is the limit when it comes to vegetables.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Spray a medium – to large size lasagne dish with no stick baking spray. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Pour into the prepared dish and bake for 40 – 45 minutes until set and golden brown. If your oven is a fan one reduce the cooking time accordingly. It takes around 30 -35 minutes in a fan oven. Serves 6 people.

Note – if you prefer a vegetarian option just leave out the bacon. That’s what I do.

What is your favorite food to take on a picnic?

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I’ve always wanted to make gingerbread men and finally got around to it this weekend. They were surprisingly easy to make and, once the dough is made, children of all ages would have fun rolling out the dough and cutting out the gingerbread men. The perfect activity for a spring break.

Ingredients
3 tablespoons golden syrup
75g caster sugar (about 3 oz)
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 1/2 teaspoon ginger
75g butter (about 3/4 of a stick)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
225g plain flour (8 oz)

Method
Preheat oven to 180 C (350 F) Gently melt syrups, sugar, water an spices in a large saucepan. Bring to the boil, stirring well. Remove from heat, add butter and baking soda. Add enough sifted flour to make a firm dough. Sit aside to cool. Roll out dough and cut into shapes with cookie cutters. Decorate with currants or chocolate bits as desired and bake for about 12 minutes or until golden and crisp

Source: www.foodlovers.co.nz

Shelley’s notes: The recipe made nine gingerbread men, although if I hadn’t kept nibbling at the dough, it would have probably made ten. I cooked mine for ten minutes, but if I made them again I think I’d cook them for eight minutes because my oven cooks fast. The final result was yummy, but I need more practice with my piping. Use raisins, currants, M & Ms or plain icing for decoration. You could even use something like dried cranberries. Your imagination is the only limit!

Have you made gingerbread men before?

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I’ve told you before about the love-hate relationship I have with the little Wii Fit character. Yesterday, I did a weight test, and he scolded me. Here’s how the conversation went:

Him: stand on the wii board. Relax. Measuring. Measuring. Finished.

Him: Why do you think you gained weight, Shelley?

and he gave me a multi-choice list of possible answers. You ate too much. You drank too much. You didn’t exercise. There were a couple of other choices and the final answer was You don’t know.

Me: I don’t know.

Him: Try harder, Shelley and you might make your goal weight.

Yep! The cheek of him. Mr. Wii-Fit Character and I aren’t speaking today. And notice how he had the last word???

I’m guest blogging at Leah Braemel’s blog today about food and romance, both subjects that I really like. Here’s the link to Leah Braemel’s blog.

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Author Adrienne Kress has an interesting post called It’s Not About the Odds. She talks about the luck required in getting a publishing contract and how you can slant those odds in your favor by doing a great query letter.

Rebecca at Dirty Sexy Books has a tongue in cheek post about urban fantasy stories. If you’re not really sure what an urban fantasy is read the Ten Commandments of Urban Fantasy.

Margie Lawson has a guest post at Routines for Writers. It’s all about writing body language and verbal cues–an important thing in good characterization.

And finally, You Are What You Eat, Foods That Improve Your Sex Drive is an article by Elizabeth Black that makes for very interesting reading. Stay about from fried foods and rich cream sauces – that’s all I’m saying!

I’m reading a book called The Wolf Almanac by Robert H Busch. It’s research for a new idea I have, and you might have guessed from the title that my story will feature wolves.

What are you reading at the moment?

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Today’s topic is food. I always think food scenes are a lot of fun and love writing them. I think they’re fun for the characters too. My scene today is taken from Assassin, book four in my Middlemarch Mates series featuring feline shapeshifters.

Assassin by Shelley Munro

“I’m feeling fine. You don’t need to treat me like an invalid.”

“But you were unconscious.”

“I’m not now. Do you have something sweet to eat in the picnic basket?”

“Probably,” Leo said.

“Good. Then that’s all I need to get my blood sugars up again. If you have coffee, that would help.”

Leo studied her closely. She certainly looked all right now with a definite sparkle in her eyes. After a brief hesitation, he decided she probably knew best. He stood and strode over to the picnic basket. When he checked the contents, he found two portions of a rich chocolate gâteaux. That should do the trick. He pulled out the gâteaux plus a spoon and returned to Isabella’s side. She’d arranged the blanket to screen her body and Leo smiled inwardly. Too late. He’d already had a good look.

“Here you go.” After he opened the plastic container for her, he held out the dessert and spoon, knowing Isabella would need to loosen her hold on the blanket in order to eat. Difficult to rake up even the faintest hint of guilt when he couldn’t wait to stare at her luscious body some more. “Eat as much as you need. I don’t mind sacrificing my portion for a good cause.”

Somehow Isabella managed to rearrange the blanket and accept the gâteaux without a hitch. While he watched, she dug into the dessert and lifted a spoonful to her mouth. Her eyes closed briefly when she tasted the gâteaux, and she let out a faint moan when it hit her taste buds. Fascinated, Leo couldn’t take his eyes off her. He watched her swallow and saw her tongue come out to rasp against a piece of icing sticking to the spoon. She quickly spooned more into her mouth, the sheer carnality of the move and the tiny sounds of appreciation she made, jolting his body to full awareness.

“Are you going to share?” The husky cadence of his voice grabbed her attention immediately.

Her brows arched. “Do you want some?”

Oh yeah, baby. He wanted some big time, but for now he’d have to make do with gâteaux. “Please.” Suddenly Leo stilled, panic stirring inside. Every muscle in his body tightened, his bones ached, his body instructing him to shift. A fine time for his feline senses to tell him to pounce. Wouldn’t that just cap off his day? After sending his date into an unconscious state, he turned feral and jumped her. They’d probably hear her screech of horror in Middlemarch if he gave in to the impulse to shift to cat.

Leo strained for control, a fine tremor passing through his muscles. He sucked in a deep breath and gave his feline a mental push. Down kitty.

“Here you go.”

Leo glanced up to see a spoonful of chocolate gâteaux float in front of him. Instinctively he opened his mouth and closed his lips around the sweet confection. His pulse rate jumped like a startled rabbit when the chocolate flooded across his taste buds. His gaze met Isabella’s and he was lost.

Leo pounced.

Available from Ellora’s Cave: Purchase link

Follow the Snippet Saturday trail and read other excerpts:

Cynthia Eden
Lauren Dane
McKenna Jeffries
Michelle M Pillow
Moira Rogers
Sylvia Day
TJ Michaels
Taige Crenshaw
Vivian Arend
Victoria Janssen
Marissa Scott
Maura Anderson
Shelley Munro
Jody Wallace
Eliza Gayle
Kelly Maher
Lacey Savage
Mark Henry
Shelli Stevens

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As you can see from the photos above, we’ve ridden our camels all morning and now it’s time for a lunch stop. It’s a chance to sit out the worst of the day’s heat and relax. I’m sure our heroine, Lady Charlotte will get out her sketchpad and sketch some of the sights. Her stepbrother William and his friend Justin are probably whispering together in a shady corner and checking their maps.

Delicious scents are wafting through the makeshift camp. There’s flat bread and the local white cheese. Today we’re having Fuul, which is mashed fava beans and another dish with eggplant, tomato, garlic, oil and spices. There’s some sort of meat—it looks like strips of lamb. Oh, and there’s fresh oranges and juice along with bottled water and the usual hot tea served with mint.

I tend to have a cast-iron stomach and have only had a stomach bug once during our travels. I was very sick in Turkey and spent an entire night running to the loo. I struck up a friendship with the night guard, and he had the cheek to tell me the next morning that I looked much older than he thought. I ask you – who looks great after running to the loo all night and getting no sleep?

I eat the local food, as long as it’s vegetarian. I’ve eaten some delicious food from little roadside stalls in India, Pakistan, Turkey and of course, Egypt. The trick is to pay careful attention to their cooking and get freshly cooked food. Watch your food being cooked and make sure it isn’t reheated. A good hint is to buy from stalls that the locals frequent.

Do you like to try the local food when you’re visiting an unfamiliar place? Do you prefer to eat food you’re familiar with? Do you travel armed with anti-diarrhea pills? (Don’t forget – every comment on an Egypt post puts you in the draw to win an ARC of Lynx to the Pharaoh.)

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I saw a Miss Piggy quote in a newspaper insert that came through our mailbox this week. Aha! I thought. That’s a perfect topic for a Thursday Thirteen. So, THIRTEEN QUOTES ABOUT FOOD

1. “Never eat more than you can lift.” ~ Miss Piggy

2. “Food is our common ground, a universal experience.” ~ James Beard

3. “I am not a glutton – I am an explorer of food.” ~ Erma Bombeck

4. “An old-fashioned vegetable soup, without any enhancement, is a more powerful anti carcinogen than any known medicine.” ~ James Duke, MD

5. “As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.” ~ Sandra Boynton

6. “My mother’s menu consisted of two choices: Take it or leave it.” ~ Buddy Hackett

7. “My wife dresses to kill. She cooks the same way.” ~ Henny Youngman

8. “The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite.” ~ A.J. Liebling

9. “Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat.” ~ Alex Levine

10. “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it probably needs a little more time in the microwave.” ~ Lori Dowdy

11. “It’s important to watch what you eat. Otherwise, how are you going to get it into your mouth ?” ~ Matt Diamond

12. “One of life’s mysteries is how a 1kg box of candy can make a woman gain 2kg.”

13. “The older you get, the tougher it is to lose weight, because by then your body and your fat are really good friends.”

And an extra one because it made me laugh:

“Inside some of us is a thin person struggling to get out, but she can usually be sedated with a few pieces of chocolate cake.”

I’ll admit I love food. I eat a varied diet with dishes influenced from different parts of the world. Italian food is one of my favorites but I also enjoy Pacific Rim food, which is often seafood with Pacific or Asian influences. Pacific Rim food is like a melting pot of New Zealand ethnic groups combined with our fresh produce. Like most Westerners, I probably eat too much, but some of my happiest memories involve food and meals with friends. I’m a capable cook and enjoy it when I’m in the mood.

What is your favorite type of food? Do you like eating and cooking?

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