Lisa Ks Book Reviews

Friday, August 31, 2018

Today I'm sharing a Cozy Food Friday from

August 27, 2015.

I hope you enjoy this flashback!

🍽🍽🍽🍽🍽🍽🍽

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 the cozy mystery

CHEF MAURICE AND THE

BUNNY-BOILER BAKE OFF

Book 3 in the Chef Maurice Mystery series

J. A. Lang

They say all’s Fayre in love and baking…

Spring has sprung, the bunting is up, and for the residents of the little Cotswold village of Beakley, this can only mean one thing: it’s time for the Beakley Spring Fayre.

Drawing the crowds this year is stiletto-strutting celebrity chef Miranda Matthews, a woman for whom making enemies is a piece of (shop-bought) cake. And one of them is lurking around the Fayre, ready to make sure Miranda hangs up her apron—for good.

Faced with a murderer with a possible penchant for top(ping) chefs, Chef Maurice must sift through the clues and weigh up the suspects—not to mention contending with a sous-chef with mummy issues, a food critic on a diet, and a bulletproof pudding—as he finds himself on the trail of a killer who’s not cooking by the rules…

Available October 12!

Today's recipe is one Chef Maurice just knows you will love! He asked

J.A. to share it with us.

CHEF MAURICE'S

OVEN-BAKED ARANCINI

A great way to use up leftover risotto. And baking the arancini balls in the oven instead of deep-frying is both easier and healthier – win-win!

Ingredients

leftover risotto, chilled

150g all-purpose/plain flour

1 large egg

150g dried breadcrumbs

olive oil spray

Optional: mozzarella (or other cheese of choice)

Method

1. Line a large baking tray with baking paper.

2. Preheat the oven to 180C / 350F / Gas Mark 4.

3. In a large bowl, make a thick batter by mixing the egg into flour, then adding water gradually until the batter reaches a thick, gloopy consistency.

4. Use your hands to form the leftover risotto into balls. (Chilled risotto is easier to work with than when it is warm.) Optional: add small chunks of mozzarella into the centre of each risotto ball as you are forming them.

5. Place the breadcrumbs onto a plate.

6. Dip each risotto ball into the batter, turning it until it is fully coated. Then roll the batter-covered ball in the breadcrumbs and then place onto the baking sheet. Repeat for each risotto ball.

8. Spritz each ball with olive oil spray.

7. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the breadcrumbs have turned golden. (Note: The arancini will not be quite as golden as they would have been if deep-fried.)

8. Serve hot.

Images supplied by author J. A. Lang

Tip: If you’re looking for a good risotto recipe, try this recipe for

How to make the perfect risotto.

Don't those sound good?

J.A. Lang is a British mystery author. She lives in Oxford, England, with her husband, an excessive number of cookbooks, and a sourdough starter named Bob.

To keep up to date with new releases, please hop over to

www.jalang.net/

to sign up for the reader newsletter.

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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

BOOKED FOR TROUBLE

Book 2 in the Lighthouse Library Mystery series

by Eva Gates

The author of By Book or By Crook returns to the Outer Banks and the Lighthouse Library, where Lucy Richardson must shed light on a shocking murder…

Lucy has finally found her bliss as a librarian and resident of the Bodie Island Lighthouse. She loves walking on the beach, passing her evenings with the local book club, bonding with the library cat, Charles, and enjoying the attention of not one, but TWO eligible men. But then her socialite mother, Suzanne, unexpectedly drops in, determined to move Lucy back to Boston—and reunite her with her ex-fiancé.

To make matters worse, Suzanne picks a very public fight at the local hotel with her former classmate Karen Kivas. So, when Karen turns up dead outside the library the next morning, Suzanne is immediately at the top of the suspect list. Now Lucy must hunt down a dangerous killer—before the authorities throw the book at her poor mother…

Available September 1

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...

I love my mother. Truly, I do. She's never shown me anything but love, although she's tempered it by criticism perhaps once too often. She believes in me, I think, although she's not exactly averse to pointing out that I'd be better off if I did things her way. She's a kind, generous person. At least, that is, to those she doesn't consider to be in competition with her for some vaguely defined goal, or else watch out---she'll carry grudge to the grave. She may be stiff and formal and sometimes overly concerned with the observance of proper behavior, but she's also adventurous and well traveled. And above all, her love of her children knows no bounds.

I do love my mother.

I just wish she weren't bearing down on me at this moment, face beaming, arms outstretched.

"Surprise, darling!" she cried.

It was a surprise all right. My heart sank into my stomach and I forced out a smile of my own.

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...

For once, my mother was silent. She took a seat on the sofa. She crossed her legs at the ankles and rested her hands lightly in her lap. Her nails were pink. The same color was on her toes, the manicure and pedicure fresh and smart.