Greetings, Blaze Babes!

I’m waiting to hear on a new Blaze trilogy proposal, but in the meantime I’m writing a non-fiction article (gasp) for a local magazine. This is different. And no sex scenes. Also this month my kids and I are driving off into the sunset—not literally, we’re heading east—to my family’s summer house in Maine, where the thermometer isn’t going to be anywhere near ninety degrees and the ocean beckons 24/7. (Not to swim in, you’ll turn to ice and crack apart.)

When it’s hot and summery out, no one wants to be near the stove, and no one wants to put hot food in her body. So let’s make an easy cool summer meal, starting with this delicious soup I tried for the first time the other day. Now that asparagus are, ho-hum, available all year round (doesn’t it kind of kill the romance?), you can make this anytime. It does take a little work at the stove, but is make-ahead and chilled for serving. If you’re having an outdoor party, try serving in coffee mugs with spoons. Easier to pick up and put down, and they don’t take much room on a tray or patio table. The recipe doesn’t say so, but I made the soup a day ahead and the mint cream shortly before serving, and both turned out fine.

And by the way, though the French language seems to be one big excuse to ignore letters when pronouncing, you do voice that final “S” with a Z sound. Not Vishee-swah, but Vishee-swaz.

Asparagus Vichyssoise with Mint

See you in the dog days of August.

Isabel

www.IsabelSharpe.com

Hi there, Blaze Babes! It was a high of nintey-something yesterday, today it’s not even getting up to sixty. Oh, Wisconsin . . . (said through gritted teeth).

I have a book out this month, the third in my Checking E-Males trilogy, Hot to the Touch, Darcy’s story. She’s the I-Hate-Men owner and chef of her own restaurant. Guess how much she hates men by the end? Hint: Not as much. The series was really fun to write and cathartic since I was putting myself through the torture of online dating at the same time.

So this month for our Chinese meal, we have dessert. I’m going to cheat a little because the Chinese aren’t big on dessert and I am. How does cheesecake sound? Yes, I thought so. But this is cheesecake that stays in the far East by being flavored with matcha which is the green-tea powder the Japanese use to flavor their green tea ice cream. Warning: It is not cheap. But if you are feeling adventurous, you can track it down in an Oriental market or find it online. The recipe comes from our old friend epicurious.com.

And for those of you who aren’t like me, that is, not willing to call all over town and then drive miles and miles to find some weird ingredient, you can be fairly authentic to the meal by serving sliced oranges and Chinese ginger almond cookies instead. Note: these aren’t gingerbread cookies, they’re serious ginger. And by the way, it’s worth buying herbs and spices from a real spice store. I shop at Penzey’s. Very reasonable prices, cheaper in many instances, and one sniff of their ginger or cinnamon or vanilla, yum! You’ll never buy them at a supermarket again.

So here are the two recipes.

Green Tea Cheesecake

and

Ginger Almond Wafers

We’ll start a new meal next month, happy summer!

Isabel

Hi Blaze Babes! Hope those of you in cooler climes are enjoying a beautiful spring. For those affected by the horrible recent storms and flooding, I send you many wishes for comfort and strength, and a return to life-as-you-knew-it as soon as possible.

Professionally, I’m pulling together plots for a new Blaze trilogy which should be out in 2012. It’s so fun to play Goddess and mess with imaginary people’s lives—make them suffer and then fix everything. I’m having a ball.

Food-wise, this month we’re continuing our Chinese-themed dinner begun in April with the recipe for Potsticker dumplings. (Who tried them and how were they?) I have a vegetable recipe, one of my favorites and a huge surprise: Lettuce with Oyster sauce.

I’m not kidding, romaine lettuce wilted and mixed with oyster sauce (which doesn’t taste like oysters in case any of you are scared of those). If you’re prefer, try bok choy sauteed with garlic and soy sauce, and if you’re feeling very adventurous, try sauteed peeled cucumbers with garlic and fermented black beans. But those might be too wacky, due to the (delicious) slightly skanky taste of the beans. Yum.

Here is the lettuce recipe, from Ken Hom’s fabulous book Chinese Cookery. I bought it wa-a-a-ay back in the 80s, so he might have come out with several even more fabulous books since then, but this is the one I own and I love it.

Lettuce with Oyster Sauce

1 head romaine lettuce (about 1.5 pounds)
3 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 tablespoon oil

Separate the lettuce leaves and blanch them in a pot of boiling salted water for about 30 seconds, or until they have wilted slightly. Remove them and drain well. Mix the oyster sauce with the oil. Arrange the lettuce leaves on a serving dish, pour the oyster sauce mixture over it, and serve immediately.

Well you can’t get much more simple than that. And it’s really delicious.

Until next month!

Isabel
www.IsabelSharpe.com

Greetings, Blaze Babes!

Spring sprung yesterday, temperatures in the sixties, and today it barely hit forty. Ah well. I got my June release today in the mail, the last book of my Checking E-Males trilogy, called Hot to the Touch. The cover gods were kind. You can probably see it online. Let me check. Yes, here it is:

Isabel’s Cover.

This month we’re starting another menu, from China this time! When I lived in Boston, someone gave me a Chinese cookbook, Ken Hom’s Chinese Cookery. My brother and I ventured into the city’s Chinatown and bought ingredients that have become familiar, but which were totally exotic and strange to us at the time. Fermented black beans. Szechuan peppercorns. Chili bean sauce. We were in heaven, experimenting with nearly every recipe in the book and gorging ourselves regularly.

The recipe I have made more than any other is Potstickers, which I’ve adapted for ease and my own taste. The dumplings are a bit time-consuming to fill, but nothing about them is hard, and they taste sooooo good. I’ve served them to friends many times and they mostly sit there shoveling them in and grunting.

Give them a try!

Chinese Potsticker Dumplings

Filling:
3/4 lb ground turkey
1/4 cup chopped spinach or bok choy leaves
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh ginger
1 tablespoon rice wine or dry sherry
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 finely chopped scallion
1 teaspoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon sugar

Wonton wrappers

Dipping Sauce:
Equal parts soy sauce and unseasoned rice vinegar, with a splash of chili oil if you like heat

Instructions:
Mix filling ingredients together. Fill a glass with water, sit down and get comfortable. Take a wonton wrapper and put a teaspoon of filling on one side. Dip your finger in the water, moisten two sides of the square to make it sticky, and fold the wrapper over to make a triangle, pressing with your fingers to seal. Then take the two corners at the end of the long side of the triangle and bring them together, kind of like straitjacket arms behind the filling’s back. Moisten one tip and press both together to seal. Repeat until the filling is used up.

Heat a tablespoon of oil (canola or peanut) in each of a couple of frying pans, preferably non-stick with lids. Fry the dumplings on medium-high heat for three minutes or until brown. Turn and fry for two more minutes. Pour 2/3 of a cup of water in each pan and put on lids. Turn heat down to medium low or whatever temperature on your stove will let the dumplings simmer for 12 minutes. Take off lids and turn up heat until all the water is evaporated. Serve with the dipping sauce. If you’re serving a lot of people, pile the dumplings on a platter and pour the sauce over. Your family/friends will be very, very happy.

Until next month!

Isabel
www.IsabelSharpe.com

Hello Blaze Babes. Welcome to spring this month! We still have a foot of snow on the ground, but the birds are vocal and temperatures are softening a little. March is tough going but April isn’t far behind.

Actually April can be tough going too . . . but May isn’t far behind.

Okay, now I’m getting depressed.

This month we’ll have a celebration of spring and the coming growing season (all ten minutes of it in Wisconsin) with a simple but unusual salad to follow our pot roast. I like salad served after the entree. It’s refreshing after heavier ingredients and a good clean preparation for the sweetness of dessert.

This salad is my own invention, and the amounts are according to taste and how many people you’re feeding, so it’s going to be vague—all part of the “simple” philosophy for this menu. Just put in whatever you feel like. If you don’t like grapefruit (who doesn’t like grapefruit?), you can substitute oranges, switch out the scallions for red onion and add toasted walnut pieces. For the dressing, I like a ratio of 2 oil to 1 vinegar, but some people prefer more oil.

Grapefruit Avocado Salad

Favorite assorted greens (anything but iceberg)
Avocado
Scallions
Chopped parsley (optional)
Grapefruit

Dressing
2 parts extra-virgin olive oil
1 part red wine vinegar or a mixture of red-wine and balsamic or sherry wine vinegar
Small garlic clove, minced
Salt and pepper

Dump washed and dried greens into a bowl, top with diced avocado, chopped scallions and parsley if you want. Cut grapefruit in half and use one of those doohickeys (term used by all the great chefs, don’tcha know) to loosen the sections. Add sections to salad and squeeze the grapefruit half over to get all the juice.

For dressing: Mince garlic as finely as possible. Mix with oil, vinegar. Shake or whisk and pour over salad. Add salt and pepper. I like salads generously salted, so experiment with your taste. Add whatever else you want, red pepper, jicama, fennel, toasted nuts, etc. I’m giving you the simplest version since we’re being lazy with this meal.

Enjoy! Welcome spring whenever it comes to your area.

Cheers,

Isabel
www.IsabelSharpe.com

I don’t know about you, but I find February and March wearying. I’m getting ready for spring, but spring isn’t getting ready for me (a friend wrote from California that it was 70 degrees and the daffodils were blooming. I wrote back, “Lalala, I can’t he-e-e-ar you.”). So this month let’s take it easy, be nice to ourselves and make a very, very simple, retro meal for the family or casual guests.

But first, we’ll talk Blaze: Book #1 of my Checking E-Males series about online dating is out this month, Turn Up the Heat. It’s about Candy Graham (haha), a woman who has too many facets to her personality to put up just one profile on the dating site, so for fun, she puts up four. And it’s about Justin Case (haha again), a California boy experiencing the shock of his first Wisconsin winter, who wants to know why his attractive neighbor across the street looks completely different every time he sees her. After they meet, he only wants to know if she’ll keep him warm all season long . . .

I had so much fun writing this series, I actually miss the four women who star in it!

So now on to our meal. Simple, simple, we’ll dive right into the main course, which takes very few, very unsophisticated ingredients, but the complexity of resulting flavors is addictive. You can either make this in the oven or in a crock pot. This is a dish my mom used to make. I have no idea where she got it so I can’t credit the recipe properly, but we always called it:

Slow-Fire Flavor
1 flat cut of pot roast beef
salt and pepper
1 onion
1 green pepper
1 lemon
1 small bottle of ketchup (the old small glass ones, or use part of a large one)

Ready? Salt and pepper the meat, put it in a baking dish or into the crock pot. Over the meat, layer thinly sliced onion, green pepper, lemon, and pour ketchup over the whole thing. Cover tightly and cook at 300 degrees for four hours or until tender, or follow pot-roast directions in your crock pot. Serve with boiled noodles. Done!

Next month we’ll do an easy, refreshing salad and in April a simple dessert.

Cheers,

Isabel
www.IsabelSharpe.com

January, a new year! As I write this, snowflakes are drifting down silently (well, duh, they’re not noted for noise), there’s no wind, and the temperature is mild (okay, Floridians would be cold). I love this type of weather. I also love that the holidays are over, and we can all settle in and hibernate until spring.

These days I’m writing an eHarlequin.com serial (released one chapter a week) to tie in with my upcoming Blaze miniseries, Checking E-Males. The first book, Turn Up the Heat is out next month, but the e-story won’t start until April to coincide with the release of the second book, Long, Slow Burn. In June the series wraps up with the third book, Hot to the Touch.

This month, to cheer anyone up who needs it, we’re featuring a dessert! Who can be miserable faced with that? The problem, of course, is trying to narrow down the recipes. I keep my favorites, ones I’ve tried and ones I still want to, in file folders, and the ones for Cookies, Cakes, Pies and Tarts, and the catch-all title, Desserts, are easily the most stuffed.

I recently made a Pumpkin Gingerbread for the second time, so since it’s fresh in my memory, I’ll choose that. It’s everything you want in a dessert. Delicious, for one, easy, for another (made with vegetable oil instead of butter so you don’t even have to use a mixer), and, with pumpkin in it, even marginally nutritious! It’s great served as is, or with whipped cream or ice cream. I also think it would go well with those adorable clementines in season now, so you can have a bowl of those on the table too.

I cut this recipe out of our newspaper. For some reason the first time I searched it, the recipe came up by itself, but then I could never get it to again (grrrrr). So here’s a link to the story. You’ll have to scroll down for the recipe. It’s worth it!

Pumpkin Gingbread

Enjoy!

Isabel
www.IsabelSharpe.com

I can’t believe it’s December. My boys and I put up our Christmas tree yesterday (a real one, balsam because they smell sooooo good) and while I was lugging decorations up from the basement it felt as if I’d just taken them down last month. My older son had no idea what I was talking about. Boy does time go slower when you’re that young!

I’m working this month on an e-Harlequin story to go with my online dating trilogy due out next February, April and June, Checking E-males. I’m turning over plot ideas, and it might be fun to have a woman go on several blind dates at the same bar, then end up in love with the bartender. What do you think?

As for our meal, we’ve had soup and the entree. I hold with the European tradition of salad after the main dish. I think it’s really refreshing eaten then, and once your mouth is cleaned up with vinegar, it’s ready for a nice rich dessert (mmm) which I’ll provide next month.

Here is a salad I love. It has a delicious combination of flavors, textures and colors, and the red, green and white is a great holiday contribution for all the buffets and pot-lucks that pop up at this time of year.

Mixed Greens with Pecans, Goat Cheese and Dried Cranberries.

As a follow-up to last month’s “kaboom date” article, the jerk dumped me a month after he’d been fantasizing about our wedding. So much for love at first sight.

Have a wonderful holiday all! At least keep the stress to a minimum, eat well and keep the home fires Blazing.

Isabel

Hello Blaze Babes!

November 1st I turned in the final book for my Blaze trilogy about an online dating service, Checking E-Males. (I love this title for the series. I didn’t think of it I admit). This one has a chef heroine who runs her own restaurant. Yes, food. I’m obsessed.

In the third book, Hot To the Touch, the hero and heroine lock eyes in a bar as strangers and experience an explosion of attraction and emotion. I don’t believe in love at first sight, but this is exactly what happened to me last July on yet another match.com date. I walked into the coffee shop with the usual combination of hope and dread, met the guy’s eyes and Kaboom! I was so rattled I could barely make conversation.

Turned out he felt the same way, and we have tons in common, which there was no way of knowing from a first glance. So how does that happen? Any theories? Tell me your Kaboom Date stories. Did it work out long-term or no?

On to food this month. This is a recipe you will love at first taste. I saw it years and years ago on a Julia Child show, copied it onto an index card and have made it countless times. You can’t screw it up even without specific measurements in some places, and it is soooo delicious. Plus leftovers are great over pasta. You can make the biscuit dough and cook it separately as drop or cut biscuits as I do, or make it into a top “crust” for the stew (reheated) and bake.

Chicken and Leek Stew with Herbed Biscuits
4 slices cooked bacon, crumbled
2 medium onions, chopped and sauteed in olive oil until golden brown
Dried rosemary
Fennel seed
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 leeks, rinsed clean and sliced.
1 3-4 lb chicken, cut up, floured and browned
White wine
Chicken stock or broth

In a Dutch oven (or ovenproof pot if you’re making the biscuit dough into a crust), layer ½ of the bacon, ½ the onion, a sprinkle of rosemary and fennel seed, ½ the garlic, ½ the leeks and ½ the chicken pieces. Repeat with remaining ingredients. Pour in wine and stock (roughly half and half) nearly to cover. Cook 40 minutes at a simmer on the stove. Do ahead a day for the best taste.

Biscuits (or top crust)
1 ½ cups flour
½ tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1/4 cup shortening or butter
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
2 tablespoons each chopped parsley and chives

Preheat oven to 400F. Mix first four ingredients. Cut in butter or shortening until coarse meal forms (I use food processor and pulse briefly). Mix together in a separate bowl the buttermilk, egg and herbs. Combine with dry ingredients until dough forms, being careful not to overwork.

Either make drop biscuits or roll dough to ½ inch and cut out biscuit rounds. If you’re making a “crust,” form dough to the size of the pot, using lid as a guide and make sure you’ve reheated the stew). Bake 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Isabel
www.IsabelSharpe.com

Hello Blaze Babes and welcome to October! Here in Wisconsin it’s acting decidedly non-October-like, dry with temperatures in the seventies during the day, and in the fifties at night for good sleeping. Wonderful weather, and all too rare around here. I’m sure it won’t last, but it’s blissful at the moment!

I’m finishing the third Blaze of my online dating trilogy, which is now officially titled Checking E-Males. I didn’t come up with that, but I think it’s pretty clever. Next, I’m planning to write a two-book linked pair, maybe having something to do with . . . (wait for it) . . . food. Surprise! But food and the romantic/erotic sure go hand in hand. And since I have a new boyfriend who used to be a chef, all that good stuff is definitely on my mind. The sensual pleasures of life!

So moving on, we’re starting a new menu this month, a good warming meal for the coming chilly weather (in our case, undoubtedly coming next week). We’ll start with the best recipe for cream of mushroom soup I’ve ever come across. I can’t remember where I found it, but I’ve had it for decades, and it’s one I’ve made over and over again.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

2 tablespoons butter, divided
1 lb mushrooms
1 bay leaf
1 small clove garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons dry vermouth
1 cup stock, chicken or vegetable
½ tsp. tamari soy sauce
1 cup milk, room temperature
½ cup half and half, room temperature
1 scallion
salt and pepper to taste

Pick out 6 mushrooms, chop the rest. Melt 1 ½ tablespoons butter, add mushrooms and saute briefly. Add bay leaf, garlic and vermouth, cover and cook ten minutes over low heat. Add stock and tamari and simmer 10 to 15 minutes. Let cool enough so it doesn’t explode in the blender. Remove bay leaf and puree. Return soup to the pan and add the milk.

Thinly slice the 6 reserved mushrooms and chop the scallion, keeping white and green parts separate. Saute the mushrooms and the white of the scallion in the remaining ½ tablespoon butter over medium heat until mushrooms are browned and tender and scallion is soft. Add to soup along with the half and half. Heat gently, not allowing the soup to boil. Serve garnished with chopped scallion green.

Enjoy! See you next month.

Isabel
www.IsabelSharpe.com