Recipe: Beautiful Stranger by Christina Lauren Inspired Cocktail Tutorial
Scotch is Max Stella’s drink of choice. When looking for a drink recipe that included a bit and a bit of Sara, who mellows out his playboy status, I came across the Whisper. As a non Scotch drinker (I’ve tried Laphroiag :/ ), this recipe is tasty! It’s one that deserves to be sipped and enjoyed.
Whisper Cocktail Recipe
2 oz Scotch (I chose MaCallan, of course)
2 oz French Vermouth
2 oz Italian Vermouth
Crushed Ice
Pour Scotch and both vermouths into a cocktail shaker over crushed ice. Shake for 10-20 seconds until blended. Strain cocktail land pour into highball glass. Serve immediately and take a photo of yourself drinking it.
Variation: For a sweeter cocktail (aka a bit more of Sara), add 1 tsp of simple syrup to the cocktail shaker along with the liquors before shaking.
Check out the instructional video below made using Google Glass! LLL is so innovative!
Recipe: Lemon Pepper Cappellini with Chicken Cutlets Brasciole
In Starlight, Aidan and Beth have a lovely dinner with violinists playing and waiters at every turn! Enjoy their meal of “Lemon Pepper Cappellini with Chicken Cutlets Brasciole”! Add green beans for a well-balanced main course. Enjoy! 
Ingredients:
For pasta:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon coarse black pepper
2 lemons, zested and juiced
Salt
1/2 pound capellini
1/2 cup shredded or torn basil leaves
Grated cheese, to pass at table
For chicken:
1/2 cup hot water
Handful golden raisins
1/4 cup pine nuts
1 cup flat-leaf parsley
1 tablespoon lemon zest
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 slices sandwich bread, torn
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup dry white wine
2 cups tomato sauce
2 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves, chopped
Directions:
- Place water on to boil for pasta. In a large skillet combine olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add garlic, pepper and the lemon zest.
- Salt water when it boils then cook cappellini to al dente (cooked but with a small firm-like bite to the noodle), 2 to 3 minutes. Add a ladle of cooking water to lemon pepper butter and stir in the lemon juice.
- Drain pasta and toss with lemon-pepper butter and salt, to taste.
- Add the basil to the pasta and serve a small bundle alongside your entree or serve as a delicate first course.
- In a separate, small bowl, pour very hot water and add raisins. Let plump for 5 minutes.
- Lightly toast nuts in a small skillet over medium low heat.
- Drain raisins and pat dry. Place raisins, nuts, parsley, lemon zest, garlic, torn bread and cheese into processor and pulse into a stuffing.
- Butterfly the chicken open by cutting into and across the breast but not all the way through. Pound out the cutlets and season the chicken with salt and pepper. Fill the breasts with stuffing, roll and secure with toothpicks.
- Heat the olive oil and butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Brown the brasciole all over 7 to 8 minutes, remove and set aside. Deglaze pan with wine, scraping up the drippings.
- Stir in tomatoes and tarragon, add chicken back, cover and simmer 15 minutes. Slice and serve over pasta.
Adapted from Food Network
Recipe: Peppered Filet Mignon
Since Scarlett has dinner at “Vic and Anthony’s Steakhouse” where she says she has “the most amazing meal” of her life, we’ve decided to try a steak recipe! Enjoy!
Ingredients:
For the steak:
4 (8-ounce) filet mignon steaks
2 TBSP coarsely ground black pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp dark brown sugar
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 TBSP plus 1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
For the butter:
1 stick butter, softened
Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper
¼ tsp granulated or powdered garlic
1 bunch chives, left whole
Directions:
- In a bowl, mix the pepper, salt, brown sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and 1 teaspoon of the olive oil. Rub 2 teaspoons of the paste all over each steak. Wrap the steaks individually in plastic and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.
- Place butter into a mixing bowl, season with salt and pepper to taste and stir until blended and soft. Take a 12-inch piece of plastic wrap and lay it on the counter. Place about half the soft butter onto the plastic wrap. Lay the whole chives down the center of the butter and top with remaining butter. Take the plastic wrap and very gently shape the butter into a log like shape, making sure not to handle too much otherwise the butter will begin to melt. Twist ends and seal edges and place in the freezer until ready to serve.
- Preheat gas grill on high for about 15-20 minutes or build a very hot fire on one side of a charcoal grill. Unwrap each steak and grill over high heat for about 7 minutes, turning once, for rare meat. For medium-rare, transfer the steaks to the cool side of the grill, close the lid and cook for 4 minutes longer, turning them once halfway through. Top the steaks with small slice of chive butter and let stand for 5 minutes, then serve.
Best served along with grilled asparagus & roasted baby potatoes!
Adapted from Food Network
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Win an E-book copy of Metamorphosis by Erin Noelle!
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Recipe: Josephine’s Poor-man Cheeseburger Casserole
This recipes can be altered in many ways depending on taste and preference. I have prepared this dish with mushrooms, without bacon, with extra cheese and so on. Find out which way best suits your family! I hope you enjoy! – J.L. Mac
Ingredients:
1 bag Simply Potatoes shredded hashbrowns. Typically found in the refrigerated section of your local supermarket.
1 – 16oz bag of shredded cheddar cheese can be substituted for a cheese of your choice.
½ cup of diced green onion.
¾ cup diced, cooked bacon.
1 can of Campbell’s Cheddar Cheese soup.
1 pound lean ground beef or turkey.
Cooking oil.
Salt, pepper and any other seasonings you may prefer to taste.
Directions:
Set oven to preheat to 350 degrees. Heat cooking oil in skillet over medium to high heat. Add hashbrowns to cook in skillet until deep golden brown and slightly crisp. Blot well with paper towels to remove any excess cooking oil.In the meantime, scramble ground meat over medium to high heat, with seasoning, and onion until thoroughly cooked. Mix in condensed soup.
In 13×9 inch casserole dish, spread meat and soup mixture evenly. Layer the prepared hashbrowns over meat. Sprinkle with prepared bacon bits, top with shredded cheese and bake until heated through and cheese melts. About 15-20 minutes.
Recipe: Tummy Pleasing Blueberry Pancakes (All-American Girl Blog Tour)
Ingredients:
- 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 1/4 teaspoons white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 tablespoon butter, melted
- 1/2 cup frozen blueberries, thawed
Preparation:
In a large bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking powder and sugar.
In a small bowl, beat together egg and milk.
Stir milk and egg into flour mixture.
Mix in the butter and fold in the blueberries.
Set aside for 1 hour
Directions:
Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat.
Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.
Beautiful Bastard: Panty Ripper Cocktail
Being a panty ripper like Bennett Ryan in Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren may be hard work, but making the cocktail shouldn’t be. Simple, sweet, and with a kick, try the Panty Ripper.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Pour the coconut rum and pineapple juice over ice in a highball or cordial glass and stir. Garnish with cherry. Enjoy responsibly.
Jen’s Steak Recipe from the Book Anything for You
Jen’s Steak Recipe
- 2 steaks of your choice (I prefer ribeyes)
- 1/4 c lemon juice
- 1/4 c vegetable oil
- 2 tbs garlic salt
- 2 tbs cayenne pepper
- 1 tbs salt
- 1 tbs pepper
Marinate for at least 30 minutes in air tight bag. Sear on grill heated to at least 500 degrees. 3 minutes on each side. Perfection every time!
HOLDING ON Guest Post by Karen Stivali
One of my favorite scenes in Meant To Be is the Christmas scene that takes place the first year Daniel and Marienne are friends. In the scene she’s on a holiday baking binge and has every flat surface in the kitchen covered in cooling racks of different kinds of cookies. Daniel sits with her to keep her company as she cooks and manages to work his way through sampling all the cookies. The last one he tries is a jam topped butter cookie that looks just like cookies he remembers from his childhood. Cookies he’s been craving ever since his mum passed away and has never quite been able to find. Marienne’s recipe is so spot on it floors him, as does the sweet surprise she gives him later that night.
Food and cooking play a big part in several of my books because they’re big parts of my real life. I love to cook and I love sharing what I make with friends and family. Tastes and smells play a big part in sense memories for me, too. There are a lot of Marienne’s recipes on my blog ( www.karenstivali.com) but I never blogged the Christmas cookie recipe, so I’m going to share the recipe for Daniel’s mum’s jam cookies with you right now. There are a million and one recipes for these types of cookies (thumb prints, butter cookies, jam drops) but this is the best I’ve ever tried. They’re simple to make and totally worth it. Try them, you won’t be sorry.
Daniel’s Mum’s Cookies (a.k.a. Jam Drops)
9 tablepoons unsalted butter, softened
½ cup white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour (but you’ll use slightly less than that)
1 egg
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
Seedless jam (I use either strawberry, raspberry or black raspberry)
Preheat oven to 350F.
Cream butter and sugar until completely blended. Stir in egg and vanilla. Add the flour a ½ cup at a time until you’ve added 1 ½ cups. Knead in the remaining flour a little at a time until the dough is no longer sticky (you will usually not use the entire remaining ½ cup, probably more like ¼ cup, but judge by texture—do not let it get to the point where the dough is crumbly).
Form the dough into 1” balls, roll until smooth and place about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Use something to make an indentation in each ball. I like to use the handle to my rolling pin—it makes a nice deep indentation that is perfect for holding jam. You can use a wooden dowel or the handle of a wooden spoon—whatever you have that will made a nice deep well in each cookie.
Use a small spoon to place jam inside each indentation. You don’t want to use too much or it will spill out when it bakes, so try to make sure the top of the jam is level with the top of the cookie dough.
Bake for approximately 15 minutes. When you check on the cookies you want to make sure the jam is bubbling. If it hasn’t come to a boil yet, they’re not done! Once you see that the jam is bubbling away and the cookies have started to crack a teeny bit, they’re ready to be removed from the oven. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes then carefully place them on a wire rack to cool the rest of the way. (If you remove the cookies from the cookie sheet too soon the jam will still be liquidy and will pour right out of the cookies—don’t do that!)
Once they are completely cool, place the cookies in an airtight container. They will last for a few weeks (if you hide them somewhere that no one can find them—if you leave them in plain sight they’ll be gone within a day).
Makes approximately 36 cookies.
Enjoy!
Big Mama’s Homemade BBQ (Katie Ashley ~ The Proposal)
BBQ Sauce Ingredients
- 2 cups ketchup
- 1 cup water
- 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
- 5 tablespoons light brown sugar
- 5 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 tablespoon fresh ground black pepper
- 1/2 tablespoon onion powder
- 1/2 tablespoon ground mustard
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
Directions
- In a medium saucepan, combine all ingredients.
- Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat to simmer.
- Cook uncovered, stirring frequently, for 1 hour 15 minutes.
Roast Directions
- Pork shoulder roast (about 2 1/2 pounds)
- Place pork roast in CROCK-POT® slow cooker. Cover; cook on LOW 10 to 12 hours or on HIGH 5 to 6 hours.
- Remove pork roast from CROCK-POT® slow cooker; discard cooking liquid. Shred pork with two forks.
Serve pulled pork with BBQ sauce and buns.
Recipe: Christmas Fudge
Here’s the recipe…Christmas Fudge YUM!!3 cups of white sugar
2/3 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup butter
1 (7 oz) jar marshmallow fluff
1 (11 oz) package white chocolate chips
Red and green food coloring
Greased 9×13 pan.
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