It's

Cozy Food Friday

That means it's time to share a recipe from 

another great cozy mystery!

Today I'm featuring 

A CLUE IN THE STEW

Book 5 in the Soup Lover's Mysteries

by Connie Archer

Soup shop owner Lucky Jamieson stirs up more trouble in the latest mystery from the national bestselling author of Ladle to the Grave...

When Lucky Jamieson opens up By the Spoonful to host an event with a famous author, she’s not expecting a bunch of nuts to descend on her small-town soup shop. But the author’s exasperating entourage—from a prickly publicist to a snippy son and his tipsy wife—give fresh meaning to the phrase, too many cooks spoil the broth.
 
The evening is more than spoiled, however, when it ends with a homicide. When the manner of the murder—as well as another recent unsolved crime—echoes the author’s fiction, Police Chief Nate Edgerton realizes he has a copycat killer on his hands. And Lucky hopes that one of her regular customers who has mysteriously gone missing isn’t involved. Once again, the soup shop owner will need to stir up some clues to find her friend and catch a cunning killer—before things really take a tureen for the worse...

About Connie Archer / di Marco

Connie Archer is the national bestselling author of the Soup Lover's Mystery series set in Snowflake, Vermont -- A Spoonful of Murder, A Broth of Betrayal, A Roux of Revenge, Ladle to the Grave and A Clue in the Stew. You can find excerpts from the Soup Lover's Mystery series and Connie's recipes in The Cozy Cookbook from Penguin Random House and The Mystery Writers of America Cookbook. Connie was born and raised in New England and loves writing about Vermont. Today she can be found on the other coast inventing soup recipes and designing plots. You can visit her website and blog at www.conniearchermysteries.com and sign up for her newsletter. You can find her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ConnieArcherMysteries and Twitter @SnowflakeVT.

Writing as Connie di Marco, she also writes the Zodiac Mysteries from Midnight Ink. The first book in the series, The Madness of Mercury was released on June 8, 2016. You can visit her at www.conniedimarco.com, Facebook.com/ZodiacMysteries and Twitter @askzodia.

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On to the recipe!

CREAM OF ASPARAGUS SOUP

Ingredients

1 bunch asparagus

1 tablespoon butter

2 leeks, green part removed and white part thinly sliced

1 large potato, peeled and cubed

3 cups chicken broth

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup water

2 tablespoons lemon juice

4 tablespoons crème fraîche 

Directions

Trim off think ends of asparagus and chop stalks into 1-inch thin sections. Reserve four asparagus tips for garnish and set aside. 

In a large pot, melt butter, add sliced leeks and sauté for 5 minutes. Add potato and chopped asparagus stalks, and sauté for 5 minutes more. 

Add chicken broth and season with salt and pepper. Bring to boil over medium heat, reduce heat to low, then cover partially and cook about 15 minutes, until vegetables are tender. 

In the meantime, add water to a small saucepan, bring to boil and add reserved asparagus tips and lemon juice. Cook on medium heat for 3 minutes just until tips are tender. Drain and let cool. 

Purée the soup in a blender in small batches, or with a wand, then reheat soup over low heat. Garnish each serving with crème fraîche and asparagus tips. 

Serves 4

How about that on a brisk fall or cold winter's evening? 

Did I hear your stomach growl? 

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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 from also from

A CLUE IN THE STEW

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

"What" Marjorie shrieked. You haven't heard of her?"

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 

"Uh, well . . . sure. Just be careful......"

The book beginning and the 56 don't speak volumes, but I think they both say just enough to make you wonder. 

I love the entire Soup Lover's Mysteries.

You really need to give this series a try!

                         

 Book One                                          Book Two

                          

Book Three                                       Book Four

Book Five

As always, please leave a comment and 

let me know what you think!

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