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

Greetings Blazing Babes!

I’m here this month and every month for the foreseeable future. My summer of traveling is over. We had our usual wonderful time in Maine, this year including a great trip to Nova Scotia, the highlight of which was crossing the Bay of Fundy and seeing a breaching humpback—something I’ve wanted to see since I was a little girl. Absolutely astonishing to see such a huge animal leap out of the water.

I am working this month on the third book of a Blaze trilogy out February, April and June of next year, about a woman who owns an online dating service and the three friends and fellow business owners she matches up, though not always with the men she expects to. The working title for the series is Single and Seeking. The third book involves a chef heroine, so I’m happy because I get to write more about food (Isabel is a tad obsessed).

Here in Wisconsin today it is warm, dry and sunny, but the next week or so will be cool, with highs in the mid-sixties. So it’s appropriate we say a fond and wistful goodbye to our summer meal with a dessert that can be made this month with the last of season’s fruits (peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, etc.) and/or berries. I prefer the biscuit variety of “cake” for my shortcake; this one is made richer and more flavorful with the addition of chopped pecans. Use whatever fruit you wish to fill it, but don’t forget lots of real whipped cream on top.

Here’s the recipe, from my usual favorite site, Epicurious.com:

Mixed Berry and Pecan Shortcakes

Have a great September and I’ll see you next month when we’ll start a new meal!

Cheers,

Isabel

Hi Blaze Babes. Again I’m traveling this month, boy is life rough. I’ll be in Maine at our oceanside summer house, which doesn’t even have electricity let alone Internet access. Talk about a blissful escape, especially from this horrible heat and humidity.

Next month, however, I will be here and eager to chat!

I turned in the second Blaze of an online-dating trilogy due next year, and have a brief rest from back-to-back deadlines before diving into number three. I do get a little antsy when I’m not writing, but life has been busy and that helps. I’ll be taking paper and pen (remember those?) to Maine so I can brainstorm for the next book, sitting in the sun on the rocks, feeling the breeze, smelling the firs and hearing the gulls calling. Ahhhhh.

Okay, back to earth. For our outdoor meal a salad would be the perfect compliment to the tart. I tried the following for the first time two days ago and can’t wait to pass it along. It was absolutely delicious, easy, and beautifully summery. The recipe calls for broiling the corn, but if you wanted to toast it in a pan or, for even better flavor, grill it, I think that would work nicely. The combination of flavors and textures is superb and the dressing is so good I’ll be using it on other salads, too.

So here we go to epicurious.com:

Arugula, Tomato and Corn Salad.

Have a wonderful August! Hard to believe fall is around the corner.

Cheers,

Isabel

Greetings Blaze Babes.

I won’t be around to chat on the 15th for the next couple of blogs. This month I’ll be on a cruise ship in Alaska, being served, seeing whales, being served, hiking glaciers, being served . . . do we detect a theme? Single Mom is ready for a break. Next month we’ll be on our annual trip to the wilds of Maine.

I just turned in a Blaze, the second book in an online-dating trilogy to be released next year in February, April and June. I played around with another different type of hero, and ended up just as in love with him as I was with my nerd hero, Edgar, from Surprise Me . . . I don’t know, maybe my subconscious is telling me to get over Gerard Butler already, whadya think?

This month we are progressing to the next course in our outdoor summer meal. This savory tart is fabulous on a buffet or as a vegetarian main course (both my sons went vegetarian this month, and after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, I don’t blame them). It’s beautiful with the pattern of yellow and red tomatoes scattered with black olives, very tasty and can be made a little ahead.

Anyone scared of making pie crust, I’ve come up with a great method, adapted from Cook’s Illustrated and Shirley Corriher, the fabulous chemist/cook whose books, Bakewise and Cookwise analyze the scientific way ingredients act on each other.

Here is what I learned: Fat coating flour keeps the pie crust (or any baked good) tender, because the flour can’t form gluten bonds, which are good for nice, chewy bread, but not for pie crust. Alcohol helps similarly. Bigger fat pieces make the crust flaky, because they melt in the heat and leave holes. Tender and flaky are things we definitely want for pie crust.

Here’s what I do: In a food processor, add roughly 1/5 to 1/4 of the total fat (butter, lard, Crisco) in your recipe to the flour and whatever other ingredients (usually salt and/or sugar), turn on the machine and let it run, so the fat is completely mixed into the flour, no visible pieces left. This will make it tender. Then add the rest of the fat in pieces as you usually would, and pulse until they’re pea-sized or slightly smaller. Replace about 1/4 of the ice water in your recipe with vodka, sprinkle that over the fat/flour, and pulse until the dough forms clumps. Chill first or roll out immediately and chill after. I use a floured silicone baking sheet to roll out the dough and usually put the crust (in the pie plate) in the freezer while I’m making the filling.

Here’s the recipe! Bon Appetit!

Tomato and Onion Tart

Have a terrific summer!

Cheers,

Isabel
www.IsabelSharpe.com

Dear Blaze Babes, happy June! The month for weddings and brides and when a man’s fancy turns lightly to thoughts of love. Or knowing men, to thoughts of getting some. Spring turned me into a raging lunatic who signed up on a dating site. Oh the stories! This being Wisconsin, I get sent pictures of men with animals they’ve just killed. Is this some cave-man thing, “Me can provide woman meat?” Have they not heard of supermarkets?

I’m being horribly snarky—it just seemed an odd form of courtship to me. Look! Dead things! But they tell me women send men pictures of their gardens. Hello? Ladies? What are you thinking? These are men. They want to see your tomatoes, not your petunias.

Okay, enough of that ranting. I have a non-romance book out this month from Avon/HarperCollins called Knit in Comfort, about a group of women in modern-day North Carolina brought together by lace-knitting, secrets, and old legends from the Shetland Islands in the 1920s. I’m really excited about this one. Check it out!

Okay, on to food. This month we’re going to put together a seductively good casual summer dinner for that “special someone” (if I read that phrase one more time in an man’s online profile I’ll hurl). We’re starting with a cold soup, very easy but elegant, which is, as you have probably guessed by now, my favorite way to cook. It’s from the “blue” volume of the New York Times Cookbook series by Craig Claiborne. Chilled creamy tomato soup with a tiny hint of curry powder, which adds depth and interest to the flavor without being an obvious ingredient. If you don’t have a microplane zester for grating citrus rind, get one (I linked to the company site, but you can find them all over). It makes the odious job a total snap, and is great for removing the tough brown skin from a fresh coconut, too. (I feel like that woman who gives household tips, what’s her name? Heloise?)

Cold Tomato Soup

3 cups tomato juice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
4 scallions, minced
½ tsp. curry powder
Pepper
Grated rind of ½ lemon
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 cup sour cream

Here are the very complicated instructions:

Mix. Chill.

Sounds exhausting, doesn’t it?

Have a wonderful June! See you in July.

Isabel
www.IsabelSharpe.com