Last Friday of the Month Recipe - Green Chile Stew from Author Kris Bock

When I saw this recipe my mouth literally began to water.  And as I have family in New Mexico I was doubly intrigued with Kris Bock's books!  

Read on but keep a napkin close at hand.

Recipe of the Month

Camie’s New Mexico Green Chile Stew

The recipe and why you love making it:

Hi L.A. thanks for having me as your guest this month. I write novels of adventure and romance, set in the Southwestern United States, that touch on local culture, including food. For my most recent romantic suspense, The Dead Man’s Treasure, I put together a recipe booklet of foods mentioned in the book, including this wonderful stew. It’s great for groups, because everyone gets to adapt their own bowl to their own taste. Love it spicy? Add more green chile! Prefer it soothing and creamy? Pile on the cheese and sour cream. I called this “Camie’s New Mexico Green Chile Stew” because Camie is a character in the treasure hunting series, and the recipe is from a friend who partially inspired her character. 

2 medium onions

1 Tbsp. garlic

2 Tbsp. oil

1 pound ground beef or cubed stew beef

Chopped green chile to taste, about 1/4 to 1/2 cup (you might find be able to find canned green chile in the Mexican section of your grocery store)

4 cups chicken broth

salt and pepper to taste

Serve with any or all of: 

canned pinto beans or black beans 

cubed, cooked potatoes

hominy 

shredded cheddar or Jack cheese 

shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, cilantro 

extra green chile 

chopped avocados or guacamole 

sour cream

1. Sauté onions and garlic in oil until golden.
2. Add beef and stir until browned.
3. Add chopped green chile and chicken broth. Bring to a simmer. Salt and pepper to taste.
4. You can use it immediately, but it’s even better if it blends for a few hours on very low heat.
5. Put the beans, hominy, cheese, etc. into individual bowls. Let people build their own blend of stew. Add ingredients such as beans, potatoes, and cheese, and heat each bowl in the microwave. Top with cold ingredients such as sour cream and avocado.

For more New Mexico recipes, download the “The Dead Man’s Treasure Bonus Material” booklet from my website or see the “Recipes” tab on my blog, The Southwest Armchair Traveler.

Blurb:

The Dead Man’s Treasure

Rebecca Westin is shocked to learn the grandfather she never knew has left her a bona fide buried treasure – but only if she can decipher a complex series of clues leading to it. The hunt would be challenging enough without interference from her half-siblings, who are determined to find the treasure first and keep it for themselves. Good thing Rebecca has recruited some help.

Sam is determined to show Rebecca that a desert adventure can be sexy and fun. But there’s a treacherous wildcard in the mix, a man willing to do anything to get that treasure – and revenge.

Action and romance combine in this lively Southwestern adventure, complete with riddles the reader is invited to solve to identify historical and cultural sites around New Mexico.

The first book in the Southwest Treasure Hunters series is The Mad Monk’s Treasure. The Dead Man’s Treasure is book 2. Each novel stands alone and is complete, with no cliffhangers. This series mixes action and adventure with sweet romance. The stories explore the Southwest, especially New Mexico.

Buy Links: 

Kris Bock’s Amazon page | Kris Bock at B&N/Nook | Kris Bock at All Romance Ebooks

Bio:

Kris Bock writes novels of suspense and romance involving outdoor adventures and Southwestern landscapes. In Counterfeits, stolen Rembrandt paintings bring danger to a small New Mexico town. Whispers in the Dark features archaeology and intrigue among ancient Southwest ruins. What We Found is a mystery with strong romantic elements about a young woman who finds a murder victim in the woods. The Mad Monk’s Treasure follows the hunt for a long-lost treasure in the New Mexico desert. In The Dead Man’s Treasure, estranged relatives compete to reach a buried treasure by following a series of complex clues. Read excerpts at www.krisbock.com or visit her Amazon page. Sign up for Kris Bock newsletter for announcements of new books, sales, and more.

Find Kris:

Kris Bock on GoodReads | Kris Bock on Facebook | Kris Bock on Pinterest

Five Secrets From Author Anna Durand

Today we learn five of Anna Durand's secrets...even in her first paragraph we learn something about her previous life :) All of these will wow you.  They did me.

Anna Durand is an award-winning writer, a freelance librarian, and an audiobook addict. She specializes in steamy romances featuring spunky heroines and the hunky heroes who steal their hearts. In her previous life as a librarian, she haunted the stacks of public libraries but never met any hot vampires hunting for magical books.

Hi Anna, please tell us Five Secrets we may not know about Intuition or you, but will after today!

1) Hi L.A. Thanks for having me back. The hero, David, emerged out of a sexy, spooky dream I had one night over a decade ago. It was one of those dreams that sticks with you after you wake up, and I never forgot the supernatural appeal of the invisible man with blue eyes.

2) I can read and write ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, so if I toast you at a party, it'll be "en ka ek" — for your soul. But my favorite ancient Egyptian saying is peret ankh, meaning life is a cycle. It's the original version of what goes around comes around, but it also means good things will come back around to you.

3) There are zombies in Intuition. Well, zombie-like beings. You'll just have to read the book to find out more! (Yes, I'm mean that way.)

4) I love Dr. Pepper. I usually drink some while I write, for a boost of caffeinated creativity. Yes, that's right, I'm a Pepper — and proud of it!

5) I have a tiny scar just under my left eye where a doctor accidentally stabbed me with a knife while I was trying to be born. I'll spare you the gory details, but I almost died before making it out of the womb. The scar reminds me after surviving a traumatic birth, I'm tough enough to get through the bad stuff in life.

Blurb :

Torn apart by their haunted pasts, Grace Powell and her fiancé David Ransom are struggling to reclaim their passionate bond and build a normal life — one without danger and paranormal powers. But David can't renounce his obsession with hunting down Karl Tesler, who abducts and tortures psychics. David endured Tesler's tactics himself, but despite what Grace believes, he's not out for revenge.

Tesler covets her unprecedented abilities and her mysterious connection to a source of limitless psychic power. David will do anything — even abandon and lie to her — to protect Grace from Tesler.

With a psychic stalker on her trail, Grace charges into a desperate mission to uncover the truth about David's obsession. But Tesler's agents are closing in on her, and a terrifying new enemy is rising…

As events drive Grace and David toward a battle of epic proportions, they must risk everything — their relationship, their lives, and even their souls — to defeat an enemy who wields unspeakable psychic power.

Buy Links: 

Amazon | iBooks | Barnes & Noble

Bio:

Anna Durand is an award-winning writer, a freelance librarian, and an audiobook addict. She specializes in sexy romances, both paranormal and contemporary, featuring spunky heroines and hunky heroes. In her previous life as a librarian, she haunted the stacks of public libraries but never met any hot vampires hunting for magical books.

Find Anna: 

Website/Blog |Twitter | Facebook

Goodreads |Google+ | Pinterest

Mental Can Openers & Writer's Hash: The Writing Struggle or Don’t Count Your Chickens...

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of owning a few chickens.  I love farm-fresh eggs.  I’d have to build a coop of course.  I can just imagine how flap doors, ramps, pull-out cleaning features...etc., will look.  I see a barn red coop; happy, safe chickens pecking behind coop wire.  Eggs pop out from everywhere with deep golden yolks.  I’m a hit with friends and neighbors giving them away.  Cleaning is always on a sunny, warm day and done in 10 minutes.  (Do I hear laughter?)

 We all know plans can, and do, go wrong.  Building materials are imperfect.  Actual construction requires pounding in lots of nails, cutting wood straight, sanding, gluing, caulking,...   Sawing and pounding nails get repetitive and tiring, then mistakes happen. Wood splits.  Splinters happen (a new bumper sticker?)

Chickens can be loud, uncooperative, dirty.  Disease and predators threaten.  Cleaning the coop and collecting eggs in all weather becomes a drudge.

The above applies to writing a story.  For me, starts are fun.  Great ideas!  Story plotting where the day is saved as time is nicked, cliffs are appropriately hung, love is found, evil is thwarted with a thwack.  I envision excited readers blotting a tender tear, laughing til they snort, excitedly waving others over to read brilliant prose.  Money and offers will roll in like colored eggs on Easter.

Then I start to write it, scene by stubborn scene.  That portion is too short, another too long.  A chapter out of place?  Dull narrative.  Constant sentence length.  Repetitious words pounding like nails.  Or is that my head?  Bright “barn-red” dialogue reads like “grey.” 

Characters run loose; panicked squawking chickens.  Others won’t move at all, and no one’s laying ‘yoked presents’ except the author.  Re-reading, and editing begins to feel like endlessly cleaning the coop of you-know-what.  And rewritten scenes smell like you-know-what. 

It’s been months without a golden yoke.  I’m still gumming cream-o-mush every morning and chasing off weasels of discouragement at night.  Darn, statin-frattin, story-chickens!  Worse, there’s no time clock.  No boss pecking away at me, saying, “Get it done by Friday or else.”  TV beckons.

How is a writer to resolve this?  How do we find Godly motivation?  Where do we find the gentle nudge to continue?

My way to get through this is to take it personally.  Get cranked and repeat...  “I love eggs.  I want eggs.  And I’ll have eggs – even if I have to strangle it out of those stupid, feathered clucks.  My forefathers didn’t struggle up the food chain, plowing the land under a hot sun, so their current progeny, (i.e. me) could be defeated by a flock of flightless fugitives from Chick-fil-a!  NO CHICKEN, NO COOP, IS GOING TO GET THE BEST OF ME!!

Those chapters will line up and salute.  Narrative will be spit-shined and dialogue will sparkle like marine boots on inspection.  Action will be crisp and tension sharp or Character’s heads will roll!  Now, authors fall in at your computers.  (I just love it when the testosterone shots kick in, during a John Wayne movie weekend.)  Sit.  Now write!

How do you stay motivated?

MORE OF BRAD'S BLURB: The Dragon’s Mist Chronicles: The Last Ride in the Moonlight

So how does a boy of fourteen find the female blacksmith, who's half ogre, a willing husband?  Sure, Riddley might acquire a new suit of clothes for a traveling leprechaun who carries his home in a geode, but how does he get the bully-sheriff to pay his tailoring bill?  Or acquire magical wood from a holy tree that’s choking?  Lastly, the fairy queen wants a royal symbol the nasty gremlins can’t copy, and the only male banshee alive needs the tower bell mended.  It seems female banshee’s screaming at him cracked it, and he’s being blamed.