It's

Cozy Food Friday!

That means it's time to share a recipe from 

another great cozy mystery!

Today I'm featuring a recipe from

TEA WITH THE COZY CHICKS

by

The Cozy Chicks

Ellery Adams, Lorraine Bartlett, Duffy Brown, Kate Collins, Mary Kennedy,

Mary Jane Maffini, Maggie Sefton, and Leann Sweeney

The Cozy Chicks Kitchen Series Book 2

The Cozy Chicks realized that tea was such a perfect complement to cozy mysteries that we decided to write a book about it. Not only does Tea Time with the Cozy Chicks have delicious recipes, but it also includes themed tea menus, fascinating articles, fun facts, curious quotes, and helpful hints on how to host the most memorable tea parties ever! And for an extra treat, a few of us have included excerpts of our work as well! Read, cook, drink tea, savor, and most of all enjoy!

Available now in eBook 

Coming soon in print

Dear Friends and Cozy Mystery Readers,

Tea Time with The Cozy Chicks, is a fun book and an invitation to pull up a chair and join some of our fictional characters for an afternoon of sipping tea and sampling delicious treats.

As readers of mystery novels, you already know what an important role food plays in our books. Characters gather around the table to discuss cases. They drink a staggering amount of caffeinated beverages and seem to be surrounded by an endless array of mouth-watering sandwiches, cookies, pastries, and chocolate. In short, these gals have a pretty good time, and we thought it would be fun to spend a little time in their world.

The result is Tea Time With The Cozy Chicks—filled with the lore of tea in so many of its incarnations, and an assortment of tea parties like how to have a Bon Voyage tea, bachelorette tea, proper Yorkshire Tea, Chocolate Lovers tea etc all complete with menus and recipes included, and hosted by our characters. You’ll find menu themes to cover life’s major celebrations as well as those more intimate moments between close friends or romantic partners.

If you’re worried about setting the perfect tea table because you aren’t a professional pastry chef, floral arranger, or decorator, never fear. Neither are we. Hosting the perfect afternoon tea is about opening your home and your heart. You take care of that part and we’ll help you with the rest. In fact just in time for fall here is a mighty fine Southern recipe for… 

Auntie KiKi’s Praline Pumpkin Pie

Yield: Makes one 9-inch pie

Crust

1 unbaked 9” pie shell

1/3 cup ground pecans

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons of butter, softened

Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C, Gas Mark 8). 

Combine the pecans, brown sugar, and butter. Press into a pie shell. Bake for ten minutes. 

Filling

3 eggs beaten

1 cup canned pumpkin

2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed

1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ginger

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup evaporated milk

Mix all the filling ingredients together until smooth and creamy. 

Add the filling to the partially baked pie crust (you can add a few of those pecans on top if you have a mind to) and bake at 325°F (170°C, Gas Mark 3) for another 40 minutes.

And you’ll find a ton of other recipes and an a list of tea themes like tea-paring, tea stories, reading tea leaves and making your own tea blends. So are you a tea person? Got a fav tea? Have you ever had a tea party…as an adult or kid…and have you ever gone to high tea?

Share some of you tea experiences and I’ll give away two adorable Brew Up A Mystery With the Cozy Chicks teapot tape measures from the answers.

And now…it’s tea time!

The Cozy Chicks…

Ellery Adams

Lorraine Bartlett

Duffy Brown

Kate Collins

Mary Kennedy

Mary Jane Maffini

Maggie Sefton

Leann Sweeney

I absolutely adore this book! 

I've yet to do an official review of 

TEA TIME WITH THE COZY CHICKS 

(been sick for a bit), but I can tell you it is wonderful and you need to add it to your book list of must haves!

Remember to leave your comments for a chance to win one of the adorable tape measures!

Please keep reading and check out my 

installments of 

Book Beginnings on Fridays

and

The Friday 56

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Book Beginnings and Friday 56

 for this week are also from

TEA TIME WITH THE COZY CHICKS

Book Beginnings on Fridays is a meme hosted by Rose City Reader

Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading

My Book Beginnings...

“Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.”

—Alice Walker, American author and activist

A BRIEF HISTORY OF

AFTERNOON TEA

by Mary Kennedy

If you find your energy flagging in late afternoon and you yearn for a hot drink and a tasty snack, you’re in good company. Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford, complained of having “that sinking feeling” every day and used to retire to her room with a pot of tea and a pastry or sandwich. As time went on, she began to invite her friends to join her and the custom of “afternoon tea” caught on. After all, in the early nineteenth century, most people only ate two meals a day, breakfast and dinner, so no wonder they had hunger

pangs in mid-afternoon. Hot tea and a selection of pastries and sandwiches provided a nice pick-me-up and would carry them over until dinner, which was usually served at 8pm.

Soon London hostesses followed her lead and drawing rooms were filled in late afternoon with women enjoying tea and sandwiches before heading out to Hyde Park fora promenade. It was the perfect opportunity to enjoy a quick snack with friends and catchup on the latest gossip before the traditional afternoon “walk.”

Queen Victoria took the tea ritual to a new level when she began offering “tea

receptions” to her guests. At these gatherings, usually held between 4 and 7 pm, as many as two hundred people would enjoy a delightful selection of finger sandwiches, scones, cakes and pastries. It was similar to our “open house” parties and guests were free to drop in as 

they pleased during those hours.

Nowadays, afternoon tea is still served in hotels and restaurants in England and is popular with tourists and Brits alike.

The Friday 56 is a meme hosted by Freda's Voice

Rules: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader (If you have to improvise, that's okay.) *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grab you. *Post it.

My Friday 56...

Page 56 is in the middle of a recipe. 

But there was this fun little item to share...

Shot Glass Appetizers

Ingredients

Ranch salad dressing

Celery sticks

Carrot sticks

Green olives

Cherry or grape tomatoes

Place the dressing in the bottom of a shot glass. Add a few celery and carrot sticks, and 

one or two skewered olives, and cherry tomatoes on a colorful toothpick.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Ellery Adams is the author of three New York Times bestselling series, including the Book Retreat mysteries, the Books by the Bay Mysteries, and the Charmed Pie Shoppe Mysteries. In addition to these, she also writes three ebook series. These include The Supper Club mysteries, The Hope Street mysteries, and the Molly Appleby Antiques and Collectibles mysteries. For more killer reads, please visit

www.elleryadamsmysteries.com

The immensely popular Booktown Mystery series is what put Lorraine Bartlett's pen name Lorna Barrett on the New York Times Bestseller list, but it's her talent—whether writing as Lorna, or L.L. Bartlett, or Lorraine Bartlett—that keeps her in the hearts of her readers. This multi-published, Agatha-nominated author pens the exciting Jeff Resnick Mysteries as well as the acclaimed Victoria Square and Lotus Bay mystery series, and the Tales of Telenia adventure-fantasy series, and has many short stories and novellas to her name(s). Visit her website:

http://www.LorraineBartlett.com

While others girls dreamed of dating guys like Brad Pitt, Duffy Brown longed to take Sherlock Holmes to the prom. Today she is a National Bestselling author and conjures up who-done-it stories for Berkley Prime Crime. She has two series, the Consignment Shop Mysteries set in Savannah, and the Cycle Path Mysteries on Mackinac Island. Visit her website at

http://www.DuffyBrown.com

Kate Collins is the New York Times bestselling author of the long-running Flower Shop Mystery series. After publishing a series of children’s stories, she sold her first historical romantic suspense novel in 1995. Seven romance novels later, she switched to her true love, mysteries. Kate is very proud that The Flower Shop Mystery series was named The Best Continuing Cozy Mystery Series for 2013 by popular online review site Escape with Dollycas. When not growing roots at her computer, Kate loves to garden. Other passions include yoga, travel, decorating, reading, spending time with family and friends, sampling great wines and fine dark chocolate, and enjoying every moment of life. She lives in Northwest Indiana and Key West, Florida. Read about Kate’s mysteries, historical romances, and children’s anthologies at

www.katecollinsbooks.com

Mary Kennedy is a practicing psychologist and author of the Dream Club and Talk Radio Mysteries, as well as the Hollywood Nights young adult stories. She lives on the East Coast with her husband and seven neurotic cats. Both husband and cats have resisted her attempts to psychoanalyze them, but she remains optimistic. Visit her website at

http://www.MaryKennedy.net

Lapsed librarian and former mystery bookstore owner, Mary Jane Maffini is the author of thirteen mysteries in three series: The Camilla MacPhee books, The Fiona Silk Capers and the Charlotte Adams mysteries. She’s won a number of awards, including an Agatha, for short stories and the fifth Charlotte Adams book, The Busy Woman’s Guide to Murder, won the Romantic Times award for best amateur sleuth. As that shadowy figure known as Victoria Abbott, she writes the book collector mysteries with her daughter, the artist and photographer, Victoria Maffini. Find out more at

http://www.MaryJaneMaffini.com

and

http://www.Victoria-Abbott.com

Maggie Sefton is the author of the New York Times bestselling Knitting Mysteries. She was born and raised in northern Virginia and has worked in several careers over the years, from a CPA to a real estate broker in the Rocky Mountain West. However, none of those endeavors could compare with the satisfaction and challenge of creating worlds on paper. She is the mother of four grown daughters, currently scattered around the globe, and resides in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Visit her website at

http://www.MaggieSefton.com

Leann Sweeney is the author of the Yellow Rose Mysteries, that feature Abby Rose and Yellow Rose Investigations hoping to reunite adoptees with their birth parents in Texas. She also writes the Cats in Trouble Mysteries, featuring quilt maker and cat-rescue sleuth Jillian Hart, set in South Carolina. She lives on a lake in South Carolina with her husband, her dog and two cats. To learn more about Leann and her books, visit her website:

http://www.LeannSweeney.com