It's

Cozy Food Friday

and a

*****!!!GIVEAWAY!!!*****

That means it's time to share a recipe from 

another great cozy mystery!

Today I'm featuring a recipe from

Book 3 in the Country Store Mysteries

WHEN THE GRITS HIT THE FAN

by

Maddie Day

Despite the bitter winter in South Lick, Indiana, business is still hot at Robbie Jordan’s restaurant. But when another murder rattles the small town, can Robbie defrost the motives of a cold-blooded killer?
 
Before she started hosting dinners for Indiana University’s Sociology Department at Pans ‘N Pancakes, Robbie never imagined scholarly meetings could be so hostile. It’s all due to Professor Charles Stilton, who seems to thrive on heated exchanges with his peers and underlings, and tensions flare one night after he disrespects Robbie’s friend, graduate student Lou. So when Robbie and Lou go snowshoeing the next morning and find the contentious academic frozen under ice, police suspect Lou might have killed him after their public tiff. To prove her friend’s innocence, Robbie is absorbing local gossip about Professor Stilton’s past and developing her own thesis on the homicide—even if that means stirring up terrible danger for herself along the way . . .

About Maddie

Bio:

National best-selling author Maddie Day writes the Country Store Mysteries and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries. As Edith Maxwell she is a 2017 double Agatha Award nominee for her historical mystery Delivering the Truth and her short story, “The Mayor and the Midwife.” She writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries. Her award-winning short crime fiction has appeared in many juried anthologies, and she is honored to serve as President of Sisters in Crime New England.

A fourth-generation Californian and former tech writer, farmer, and doula, Maxwell now writes, cooks, gardens, and wastes time as a Facebook addict north of Boston with her beau and three cats. She blogs at WickedCozyAuthors.com, Killer Characters, and with the Midnight Ink authors. Find her at www.edithmaxwell.com and elsewhere.

📕📖📗📚📘📖📙

*****!!!GIVEAWAY!!!*****

One lucky reader will win one

title in the Country Store Mysteries. 

Book One - FLIPPED FOR MURDER

Book Two - GRILLED FOR MURDER

Book Three - WHEN THE GRITS HIT THE FAN

Winner's choice!

This giveaway is open Worldwide 

Use the Rafflecopter form at the end of this post to enter.

📕📖📗📚📘📖📙

On to the recipe!

Chicken Ezekiel

All food photos courtesy of Maddie Day/Edith Maxwell

Robbie Jordan made this dish to serve to the Sociology Department as WHEN THE GRITS HIT THE FAN opens. I got the recipe in 1982 from Professor Ellen Contini-Morava in Baltimore and have been making it ever since. Thanks, Ellen!

Ingredients:

1 chicken, cut up, or 3 thighs and 4 drumsticks

Salt and freshly ground pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large onion, cut in half lengthwise and then sliced across the grain to mince

3 to 4 garlic cloves, minced

1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes with juice

1 cup pitted Kalamata olives

1 tablespoon fresh chopped or 1 teaspoon dried, crumbled rosemary

Pinch of sugar

1 pound rotini

Preparation:

Rinse the chicken pieces and pat dry. Season with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or large, heavy skillet with a lid over medium-high heat, and brown the chicken pieces, in batches, on each side for about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl or plate.

Turn the heat down to medium. Add the onion with a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze, until the onions begin to soften. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are tender, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and stir, until the garlic begin to soften. Do not let it brown. Add the tomatoes, olives, rosemary, and sugar and stir together until the tomatoes begin to bubble and smell fragrant, about 5 minutes.

Return the chicken pieces to the pan. Cover and cook 25 to 30 minutes over medium-low heat, stirring at regular intervals and turning the chicken pieces so the ingredients don’t scorch and the chicken cooks evenly. The chicken will be quite tender. Add freshly ground pepper; taste and adjust the salt. Serve hot over rotini, with freshly ground parmesan on top.

It's very cold here today in Delaware as I

set up this post. I can just imagine a hot pot of Chicken Ezekiel sending glorious smells through the house!

📕📖📘📚📙📖📗

Please keep reading and check out my 

installments of 

Book Beginnings on Fridays

and

The Friday 56

Both are from 

WHEN THE GRITS HIT THE FAN

 📕📖📘📚📙📖📗

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

Who knew people could be so nasty to each other?

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% 

"Onc second." I took a deep breath and exhaled the tension and irrational fear, like a meditation teacher had taught me during college.  I repeated the breath, doing my best to take in the calm and well-being of the world and let out all that was negative.   

GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

As always, please leave a comment and 

let me know what you think!

Want to follow my blog? 

Click on the link in the 

upper right hand corner of this page!