Cooking My Way through Life--Guest Post by Author Judy Alter

Please join me in welcoming guest author Judy Author to Killer Hobbies today.  In addition to being the author of over 60! books (many of them mysteries) Judy has a talent I certainly don't share--cooking.  Check out the recipe at the end of the article.

In my next life, I think I’ll come back as a chef. I love writing, but if I’m not at my computer (or in Scotland or at a gathering of my family), I’d just as soon be in the kitchen. It’s a legacy from my mom.

Food has always been important to me. Like my faith, it sustains me. It is part of my self-assumed role as a nurturer—I love to feed people—and it’s a big factor in my social life. I’d rather go out to dinner with friends or have them into my house than go to the theater or a movie. At the table, there’s sociability and interchange and friendship; at the theater or the symphony, each person is pretty well isolated until afterward, when talk may flow in comparing reactions.

For me, food is also about continuity—and change. I bring to the table today the recipes of my mother, still often used and some, I’m sure, from her mother. I bring a few from my ex-husband’s Jewish tradition. So my cooking preserves the past and carries it on for my children and grandchildren.

But cooking is also about change. Now well into my seventies (can that be true?), I’ve seen a lot of changes in what we Americans eat. I’ve seen fast food mushroom beyond belief and the family dinner hour almost disappear—both trends I bemoan. I’ve seen foods come and go—remember when the “in” thing was to order fondue at a fancy restaurant?  But not many eat fondue today, although I hear it’s making a comeback.

In the ’80s there was all that fuss about crepes—whole restaurants devoted to them—and quiche, and the book Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche. Pasta changed from spaghetti and meatballs to all kind of exciting things, beginning with fettuccine Alfredo and moving on to goat cheese pizza. Italian food in the United States today is much more sophisticated than lasagna, and that’s a good thing, though I still love lasagna.

Pretty much gone are the Chinese restaurants of my youth, with chrome and Formica furniture and little white take-out boxes (not that I ate at them very often—Chinese was not on my dad’s list of acceptable foods). Today, we eat pan-Asian food—Thai, Vietnamese, everything from glass noodles to sushi and sashimi (which I love)—but who would have eaten raw fish in the ’60s?

Hamburgers have morphed from a meat patty on a bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, and mustard into imaginative concoctions of which guacamole and bacon are the least exotic additions. We’ve added game to our menus, and now the trendiest restaurants serve elk tacos, venison medallions, wild boar chops, and buffalo hamburgers. 

I’m a believer in experimenting with the new foods, and I’m as ready as anyone to try a seared scallop on a bed of pureed cauliflower (even though I don’t much like cauliflower) and topped with foie gras (it was probably the best tapa I’ve ever had). But I also think it’s important to carry on the recipes of the past—King Ranch chicken and meatloaf and tuna casserole, albeit with a twist. In many ways, the path of my life with food traces the ways that our food has changed in this country and yet, I hope, emphasizes the importance of keeping tradition.

I’ve thought about the different foods that have been in my life at different times: a sheltered child in a middle-class, slightly British meat-and-potatoes household; a young adult who married into a new culture (Jewish) and moved to another new one (Texas); a single parent of four making a lot of casseroles; and now an older adult, living alone and entertaining often.

I am not a gourmet cook. My friends call me that, and one who has traveled the world often says she’s never had better meals than she has at my house. But I know better. I use prepared ingredients—I’m not above admitting that I use Campbell’s soup in some recipes, and have for years. When a recipe says “the finest French chocolate,” I use Baker’s if I have it on hand. I figure my friends and I can’t really tell the difference, and, frankly, I don’t have time to make my own pasta, and I often don’t have the money for French chocolate. So I fudge in ways that a true gourmet never would. I also use shortcuts, and I cook ahead of time rather than killing myself trying to coordinate a meal by preparing everything at the last minute for freshness. True gourmets would discount my cooking—but my friends and guests love it. So maybe my story is how a busy woman with a limited budget can still come off as a gourmet cook.

Recipe for Doris Casserole

This is a family favorite, beloved by all but one of my children (she doesn’t like cream cheese, sour cream, etc.). It was served to me at a dinner party nearly fifty years go by a woman named Doris. I didn’t see much of Doris in later years but when I did she barely remembered the casserole. I gave the recipe to a friend who insisted the noodle layer should come first. I assured her it shouldn’t. This is supposed to feed six, but it disappears quickly.

First layer:
1 lb. ground beef
1 14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
2 cloves garlic, crushed in garlic press
2 tsp each sugar and salt (I cut back on those but sugar is important in tomato-based sauces—my mom taught me years ago it sort of rounds it off.)
Pepper to taste

Brown ground beef in skillet. Drain grease and return to skillet. Add tomatoes and tomato sauce, garlic, sugar, salt and pepper. Simmer 20 minutes, until it thickens a little.

Spread in a 9 x 13 pan.

For noodle layer:

5 oz. (approximately—they don’t come in this size pkg.) egg noodles
3 oz. pkg. cream cheese (here again, you have to fudge; cream cheese doesn’t come in 3 oz. pkg. anymore)
1 c. sour cream
6 green onions chopped, with some of the tops included

Topping:

1-1/2 c. grated cheddar

Cook egg noodles and drain. While the noodles are hot, stir in cream cheese, sour cream, and green onions. Spread over meat mixture. Top with grated cheddar, bake 35 minutes at 350 or until bubbly and cheese is slightly browned.

 Leftovers, if any, freeze well.

 

Click the cover below for a link to the cook book!

 

 

Judy Alter, an award-winning author with over 60 books for young adults and adults to her credit, has written her own cookbook/memoir, Cooking My Way Through Life with Kids and Books. Currently she writes the Kelly O’Connell and Blue Plate Café mysteries series. The fifth Kelly O’Connell book, Deception in Strange Places, will launch as an e-book July 31 and a stand-alone mystery, The Perfect Coed, will be available as an e-book and trade paperback October 15.

Find her at http://www.judyalter.com, http://www.amazon.com/Judy-Alter/e/B001H6KPU6/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1403141253&sr=1-2-ent; or on her blogs, http://www.judys-stew.blogspot.com and http://potluckwithjudy.blogspot.com (a food blog—no surprise!).

Writing your life passion into your mystery: Guest post by Judy Alter

Please join me in welcoming award winning novelist Judy Alter to Killer Hobbies today.  Judy shares my passion for dogs, practices yoga five days a week, and loves cooking.  How could I not like her? And she taught me about a whole new breed of dog--the bordoodle! 

I am delighted to be Tracy Weber’s guest because I loved Murder Strikes a Pose. Tracy weaves two threads into the mystery that are part of my life, making the story particularly meaningful to me: dogs and yoga. I am wildly enthusiastic about dogs and wish I was more enthusiastic about yoga which I sometimes lump with my chores—I need Tracy nearby as a coach.

For years a good friend of mine practiced yoga, finally working herself up to accreditation as a yoga teacher, a Thai Vedic yoga practitioner, and a Cooper Clinic Certified Wellness Therapist. I cheered with her at each accomplishment but kept my distance from what I thought was sort of woo-woo stuff. Now I can’t remember exactly what changed my mind, but it may well have been the approach of my seventieth birthday and the increasing lack of flexibility that comes with age. And I was bored with the indoor bike, had no walking partner, and didn’t want to walk alone.

Years and years ago I took a yoga class and hated it. It was the first time a mirror showed me that parts of my face didn’t stay in place when I bent over—and I felt inferior or clumsy compared to others in the class. So when I told Elizabeth I wanted to learn yoga, I said I wanted private lessons, and she obligingly came to my house. Now I practice my poses five days a week (in an ideal week) in the comfort of my own family room. She tells me the poses I do are specifically designed for my age and physical condition, and I was delighted one day when she watched me do “Boat” and asked, “Do you realize how much strength that takes?” No, I can’t do pigeon.

Elizabeth quickly learned that I didn’t want candles and soft Eastern music playing while relaxing at the end of the session. I soon enough learned to close my eyes and avoid distraction during that meditation period—after she caught me with my head turned and said, “You’re reading the titles in the bookshelf, aren’t you?” I don’t to that any more, I really meditate.

As I read Tracy’s book, I recognized many poses and sometimes thought, “I’ll have to watch for that when I do that pose,” etc. I try for the peaceful, gentle approach to life of the true yogi—but then Tracy’s character doesn’t always get there either.

I have been a dog lover all my life, though Bella, the oversize German shepherd with behavior issues, might stymie me a bit. But I’ve had collies, Cairns, farm collies, a bearded collie, an Irish wolfhound, Aussies, and labs. Now I have Sophie, an adorable Bordoodle (deliberate border collie/miniature poodle mix).

I’m semi-active in dog rescue circles, meaning I share every stray, lost, endangered dog I see on Facebook, post neighbors’ lost pets, and consider myself responsible, at least in part, for some rescues and adoptions. All those pictures tear at my heart, and it’s a struggle to keep Sophie an only dog. I’m torn between thinking she’d love company and she’d resent an intruder into her comfortable life. But with her definite personality, Sophie is a real presence in my home and my life.

I cannot imagine a life without dogs, and I believe the saying that you can’t trust a person who doesn’t like dogs but you can always trust a dog who doesn’t like a person.

My mysteries have a lot do with food, because I love to cook. The newest in my Blue Plate Mysteries, Murder at The Tremont House, includes a café, a B&B, and a cooking school. I write about food because it’s one of the passions of my life. (In my next life I hope to be a chef.) Tracy has written her life passion into her story—a good lesson or all authors.

Murder at Tremont House is the second Blue Plate Mystery from award-winning novelist Judy Alter, following the successful Murder at the Blue Plate Café. Judy is also the author of four books in the Kelly O’Connell Mysteries series: Skeleton in a Dead Space, No Neighborhood for Old Women, Trouble in a Big Box, and Danger Comes Home. With the Blue Plate Murder series, she moves from inner city Fort Worth to small-town East Texas to create a new set of characters in a setting modeled after a restaurant that was for years one of her family’s favorites.

Follow Judy at http://www.judyalter.com or her two blogs at http://www.judys-stew.blogspot.com or http://potluckwithjudy.blogspot.com. Or look for on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Judy-Alter-Author/366948676705857?fref=ts or on Twitter where she is @judyalter.
 

My, My, My...Blackberry Pie! And a CONTEST!

SEE BELOW TO WIN A COPY OF MOLLIE'S COOKBOOK!!

Note: I asked Mollie Bryan to share some of her piemaking expertise with us. She has a new series coming out in 2012--and it features scrapbooking! So you can tell, she's a woman of superlative taste.

We all have seasonal rites and markers. For some it’s the school year, for others, the garden cycle. While I appreciate and participate in both of those rites, I must admit, deep down, my favorite seasonal marker is pie. And summer is the best time for pie.

No matter where you live, it’s the time for the produce—and make no mistake, the old axiom of “the fresher the better” is true when it comes to fruit that fills pie. Whether it’s the summer’s ripest peaches, or its juiciest berries, choosing local, organic fruit for pie will yield the best flavor.

My favorite summer pie? No question. It’s blackberry.

Nothing is quite so satisfying as picking your own berries. Perhaps it’s the knowing where the food came from and taking part in this ancient practice of foraging. For me, it dredges up the sweetest memories of growing up in the country during long rambling summer days, which is forever burned in my mind along with my mother’s oven opening to display summer’s most delicious treat—blackberry pie.

If you don’t have access to fresh blackberries and must use frozen berries, it’s best to measure them while still frozen because they shrivel as they thaw. Thaw and drain the frozen berries before placing them in the pie shell. Otherwise, the pie will be watery. Use cornstarch or potato starch, which gives a clear, jewel-like color and has less flavor than cornstarch.

Mollie's Blackberry Pie

(Makes one 9-inch pie)

One pie crust, prebaked

4 1/2 cups blackberries

3 tablespoons cornstarch or potato starch

1 cup sugar

In a small saucepan, mash one cup of berries with a fork.

Cook over medium heat until the berries begin to break down and give off juice.

Mix 3 tablespoons of potato starch or cornstarch with 1 cup sugar.

Add to the berry mixture and cook until thick and bubbling.

Sugar will be dissolved, mixture will coat a spoon and a finger run along the spoon will leave clean edges.

Cool to lukewarm.

Place the remaining berries into the baked pie shell.

Pour the mixture over the berries and stir around gently to distribute evenly.

Chill for 3 to 4 hours or overnight.

Serve with whipped cream.

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CONTEST

Mollie has graciously consented to send one lucky winner a copy of her cookbook. Just post a comment and I'll select one randomly. That's as easy as...pie!

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Mollie Cox Bryan is the author of Mrs. Rowe's Little Book of Southern Pies (Ten Speed Press, 2009) A sweet collection over 60 pie recipes, and Mrs. Rowe's Restaurant Cookbook: A Lifetime of Recipes from the Shenandoah Valley (Ten Speed Press, 2006)