Bell Bridge Books

It’s the perfect time to try out some new dishes with the holidays just around the corner! Maybe you want to wow your coworkers at the annual office party, or you want to spice up Christmas dinner.

Whatever it is, we’ve got you covered!

Since it’s National Recipe Greetings for the Holidays week, we’re going to post a new recipe each day!

Have a recipe you just can’t keep to yourself? We’d love to hear from you! All recipes will be sent at the end of the week to our newsletter subscribers! Sign up here so you don’t miss out!

A delicious treat for the end of the week!

Rose’s Chocolate Meringue Pie

Chocolate Filling:
2 cups half-n-half
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 tablespoons Hershey’s Unsweetened Cocoa
3 egg yolks (beaten) [save the whites for meringue]
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons butter
1 deep dish pie crust, baked according to directions

Instructions:

1. Heat 1-1/2 cups of the half-n-half, but don’t let it boil.
2. While heating half-n-half to a near simmer, mix together dry ingredients: cocoa, cornstarch and salt in a separate bowl.
3. Separate yolks from whites. Set aside whites in large metal or glass bowl to get to room temperature for making the meringue later.
4. Whisk the remaining 1/2 cup of half-n-half with the egg yolks. Whisk the mixed dry ingredients into the egg yolk and half-n-half mixture until smooth. Remove half-n-half from heat and gradually whisk into chocolate/yolk mixture.
5. Once everything is incorporated, place back on heat on medium-high and continue to whisk (so as not to burn the bottom) until the mixture boils. Remove from heat, add butter and vanilla and whisk. Cover with plastic wrap while cooling and make meringue.

Meringue:
3 egg whites
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
4 tablespoons powdered sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

1. Beat egg whites until frothy. Add cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks form. Beat in powdered sugar until stiff peaks form. Add vanilla.
2. Pour chocolate mixture into cool pie crust. Spread meringue over chocolate filling, covering crust edge. Use spoon to create peaks.
3. Bake at 325° in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes, until peaks are browned. Cool for one hour, then refrigerate until serving.

For when the holidays become a little too stressful!

Santa Paws needs treats, too!

Today’s recipe is courtesy of Caro Lamont, former psychologist turned pet therapist, from The Pampered Pets Mysteries Series!

Caro’s PAWS Good Dog Treats

Ingredients:
1/ 2 cup of creamy unsalted peanut butter
1 cup oat flour
1 cup brown rice flour (Caro uses organic)
1 egg
1 tablespoon of honey
1/ 2 cup finely grated carrot (Dogbert loves carrots and so does Abbey)

1. Preheat your oven to 350 ° F.
2. In a big bowl, combine all the ingredients with just enough water to make it the consistency of cookie dough. Optional: You can also add cooked bacon, a bit of grated cheese, or other ingredients for flavor, but don’t add too much or it will mess with the consistency of the dough, and cause your treats to fall apart.
3. Once you’ve got your treat dough all stirred up, put it between pieces of parchment paper and roll it out to about ¼ inch thickness. Then cut the dough with a cookie cutter. You can use whatever shape strikes your fancy. Caro often uses dog bone shapes of different sizes.
4. Next, put them on a regular cookie sheet and bake them between fifteen and twenty minutes or until they’re Golden Retriever brown. Let them cool and then put them in an airtight container.
5. You can store your PAWS Good Dog treats for about a week (or you can freeze them for later use) but keep an eye on them.

There are no preservatives, so watch out for spoilage.
This makes a couple of dozen treats so there’s plenty to go around.
Please share them with your dog.

Enjoy!

You can find more recipes like this in Desperate Housedogs, book 1 in The Pampered Pets Mystery Series! Be sure to check back tomorrow for another dish!

Our first recipe is courtesy of  Bubba Rice, owner and head chef of Bubba Rice Lunch and Catering Diner, from The Mossy Creek Hometown Series.

Roasted Asparagus with Red Pepper & Scallions

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 bundle of fresh asparagus
1 bundle of fresh scallions or green onions
1/2 cup of diced red bell pepper
3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

1. Trim the asparagus and the scallions and dice the red pepper.
2. Place the asparagus spears in a baking dish. Add the scallions on top of the asparagus, then sprinkle the diced red pepper evenly over the top.
3. Drizzle the olive oil evenly over the dish. Add salt and pepper and place in a 375 degree oven for 15—20 minutes.

Enjoy!

You can find more recipes like this in A Day In Mossy Creek, book 5 in The Mossy Creek Hometown Series! Be sure to check back tomorrow for another dish!

Tikis and Tinsel in the Tropics

by Jill Marie Landis

Celebrating the holidays on a tropic isle is far from the images you see on traditional greeting cards or conjured up by the song White Christmas. I live in a very small town on the North Shore of Kauai, the inspiration for my Tiki Goddess Mystery series from Bell Bridge Books. Hanalei Town definitely has its own unique truly-tacky- tiki style when it comes to dressing up for the occasion.

In mid-November, one of the first signs that the holidays are on way is when poinsettia leaves begin to turn from green to red — one leaf at a time – until they are in their full glory. Gardens pop with showy reds, pinks, and variegated varieties of poinsettias against a backdrop of palms and ferns. Christmas trees are imported and begin to dry out the minute they’re unpacked from the shipping containers. A better bet is a potted palm or star pine, though hanging ornaments on palm fronds can be tricky.

Hotels, shops, and restaurants decorate with island style for tourists who arrive with families in tow to celebrate on the sand. Christmas trees wear hula skirts. Tikis wear tinsel. Blow-up Santas are strapped down so they don’t fly away on the trade winds. There is something so not right about a huge plastic snowman standing under a coconut palm in eighty degree heat.

Festivals of light are celebrated with boat parades where decorated floating craft range from yachts to kayaks. There’s nothing like the sight of bright colorful Christmas lights reflected on shimmering water. Santa is usually the parade’s grand finale as he floats by in his sleigh pulled by eight leaping dolphins or paddles onto the beach in an outrigger canoe full of presents.

Local and tourists alike get together at beach pot-lucks, luaus, fancy hotel buffets, or smaller gatherings at home after a quick surf session, if the waves are good, or a walk on the beach if the sun is shining. Of course, if it rains while you’re out walking, there’s usually a stunning rainbow when the sun breaks through the clouds.

Like everywhere else in the world, Christmas and the Holidays are a time for giving. Tis’ the season, so this month, Three to Get Lei’d, the third book in my Tiki Goddess Mystery series, will be featured as an Amazon Monthly Deal. A quick trip to the tropics might be just the pick-me-up you need whenever you can sneak a quiet moment for yourself or you might gift a copy to a friend as a little treat to savor.

No matter where you are or how you celebrate the season, I wish you and yours Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

As we say here in the islands, Mele Kalikimaka and Hau’oli Makahiki Hou!

Jill Marie Landis is a best-selling, award winning novelist of at least thirty novels (she’s lost count) who lives on an outer island in Hawaii with her hubby and a very spoiled cat. When she’s not writing she’s probably at the beach soaking up the sun or off somewhere dancing the hula. Read about her Tiki Goddess Mystery Series at www.thetikigoddess.com or join Jill Marie on Facebook and Twitter.

Three to Get Lei’d by Jill Marie Landis is on sale the entire month of December for just $1.99! Click the cover below to purchase!

TIKI ROAD TRIPS AND FLAMING COCKTAILS

by Jill Marie Landis

According to Wikipedia (and we all know how reliable Wikipedia is!) the tortured artist is both a stock character and a real-life stereotype. Artists who suffer for their work often succumb to self-mutilation, a high rate of suicide, hours of therapy and/or gallons of Ben and Jerry’s.

I wouldn’t exactly describe myself as a tortured artist, but I will go to just about any length in the name of research. When I wrote western historical romances, I rode horses and rounded up cattle. I watered down pigs. I’ve visited so many historical sites and museums that my husband now punches the car accelerator as we approach any building or rock that might be sporting an historical marker.

Since I began writing The Tiki Goddess Mystery Series for Belle Books, I’ve gone overboard doing research. I’ve devoted countless hours to paging through Pintrest, pinning photos with the subject heading “Tiki.”  I’ve shopped eBay for tiki mugs to add to my collection. I’ve spent many a night in the local watering hole here on Kauai writing notes on cocktail napkins and taste testing umbrella drinks. An author’s life is one of sacrifice. Believe me, I’ll go to any length to get things right on the page.

So, in the name of research, I’ve visited Tiki Bars on Kauai and on every other Hawaiian Island. When we’re on the mainland (you know it as the continental US), I refer to my handy dandy “Tiki Road Trip, A Guide to Tiki Culture in North America” by James Teitelbaum. I’ve been in tiki bars in some of the most unlikely, out of the way places in the world and lived to tell about it.

I’ll have to admit my husband and our dinner guests were surprised on evening when I walked into the kitchen armed with a long handled gas lighter and a fire extinquisher. I explained I’d decided to create a recipe to include in TOO HOT FOUR HULA, Book 4, the latest of the Tiki Goddess Mysteries and I needed assistance.

I handed my friend and fellow author, Stella Cameron, a fire extinguisher. As I recall, I said something like, “Stand back Stella, and if I blow myself up, use that thing!”

Stella laughed until I started lining up the ingredients which included chocolate candy kisses and three kinds of liquor, one of which was a bottle of 151 Proof rum, the liquor most mixologists recommended for igniting a flaming cocktail.

That night “The Flaming Manic Monkey” cocktail was born. The drink was inspired by a scene in TOO HOT FOR HULA when Uncle Louie relates a trek to the Amazon in search of the legendary Amethyst Monkey Skull.

Thankfully, Stella didn’t have to use the extinguisher after all because we later noticed that warranty on the thing expired ten years ago!

Do stop by and visit me at www.thetikigoddess.com and sign up for my newsletter and read other fun blogs.

Don’t forget to grab Jill Marie Landis’s newest release

– TOO HOT FOUR HULA –

out today!!

Just click the link above!

And make sure you grab the other fabulous books in the Tiki Goddess Series! Just click the links below!

It’s National Kahlua Day!

To celebrate, we’re giving away one pack of the Kahlua brand coffee!

It’s refreshing, delicious, and it smells fantastic!

To enter, just “like” the Bell Bridge Books Facebook page here!

And while you’re enjoying your Kahlua Coffee, you can cuddle up with the Tiki Goddess Mystery Series by Jill Marie Landis available on Amazon!

Just click the links!

Jill Marie Landis

Author of Mai Tai One On

Writing is never an easy occupation no matter how far up the ladder you climb. It’s still true that as a working writer you can take time to stare out the window and call it brainstorming, wear pajamas to work, spend hours and hours in solitude in front of a computer screen and use that long dreamed of vacation to Scotland as a tax write off. But in the past few years the writing life has certainly gotten far more complicated than one might imagine or desire.

The Good Old Days

Back when I started (we were using quills and ink then) it was much simpler. We were expected to write, meet a deadline, turn in a book, start another one, await the editorial process, make some changes, turn it in again and sit back and wait for the book to come out. In the meantime we started another book and the whole cycle began again.

If we were lucky we occasionally met with other writers, did a few book signings around our home towns, got some press in the local paper, and considered ourselves famous among our relatives, friends and neighbors.

But now, with the advent of gorilla marketing, the internet, and social networking, times have changed. Oh, my. How they have changed.

Too Many Hats

Now we are our own promoters, our own editors, our own cheerleaders. We have to know how to write press releases, act as our own secretaries, spend our non-writing hours (of which there are far fewer) surfing the internet, keep up postings on Facebook, visiting bookselling sites’ (like Amazon’s Author pages), blogging on our own website (websites many of us have had to learn to create), guest visiting each other’s blogs, overseeing cover designs, passing out trading cards, managing contests and putting up hard earned cash for our give-aways. Even choosing the right hat becomes a problem; we are our own image consultants for all of those dreaded photos we have to post. (Oh, did I forget to mention tweeting? I guess that’s because so far I’ve drawn the line at tweeting.)

Too Few Heads

Once an author hits the big time she can afford to hire a staff to wear a lot of those hats for her. I’ve been there. Once upon a time I was lucky enough to unload a couple of tasks like housekeeping, cooking, errand running, and promotion on others. But times change and now I, as well as other men and women writers (some who even hold down day jobs), are trying to accomplish the Herculean tasks required to make a dent in this new world order of the internet marketplace.

It takes not only a real gift but hours and hours of work to make your book stand out from the crowd, to make it sound like the best of the best, the book worthy of becoming the latest “cocktail party” focus of conversation or the next big book club choice. It takes stamina to come up with the charm and wit and effervescence that gets “friends” and readers to “like” you or your page week after week. It takes…well, it takes a good fiction writer to make ourselves look so wonderfully glamorous.

Be True to You

Despite the bombardment of everything that it takes to “make it” in the writing world today, my biggest struggle is to remain true to myself.  Maybe it’s because I’ve been in the game a long time, or maybe wisdom does come with age, or maybe it’s just that I’m getting to be like the cartoon character Maxine the curmudgeon—I’ve decided there aren’t enough hours in the day to try to jump higher or run faster or sound oh-so-clever on facebook or anywhere else.  I do what I can and devote the rest of my time to reading, staring off into space, and writing. I’ve gone back to sitting on the beach with lined paper to make notes if I’m inspired, and I’ve been walking away from the computer when inspiration is just not there instead of surfing the net trying to find out if my book has sold two more copies than an hour ago.  I’ve decided to devote time to writing the kind of books I’d like to read, the kind of books that make me laugh or make me cry. I’m focusing on what led me to become a writer in the first place; the writing itself.  I’m writing stories that strike a chord within me and hopefully there are a few people out there who will enjoy them and resonate to that chord too.  I have to believe that the books will somehow find those readers even if I don’t constantly facebook, tweet, or twitter. I choose to believe that stories that are meant to be read will be read. The hat I’m wearing the most these days is my writing hat. It’s the hat that fits the best.

 Any Thoughts?

I guess since I have on my “promotional blogging hat” right now I’d love to hear what you think. Am I the only one who feels as if we writers are juggling too many hats? Or are you comfortable wearing all of yours?