HOT Summer, COOL Pie

by HL Carpenter

We're fortunate enough to live where fresh citrus fruit is readily available, and one of our favorites is a small oval sweet-sour gem called the kumquat. We like simple, and there's no peeling, coring, or slicing involved in kumquat eating. Yank that little beauty off the tree or pull it out of the package, rinse, and eat. The entire fruit is edible – the skin, the seeds, and the soft, tart center pulp.

That simplicity is what we like about our kumquat pie recipe too. Toss a clamshell's worth of kumquats into the food processor or blender, fold the resulting puree into fresh whipped cream, lemon juice, and sweetened condensed milk, pour the mixture into a pie shell, and chill in the refrigerator. Garnished with a dollop of whipped cream, you've got a summertime treat that can't be beat.

Kumquat Pie

9" pie shell*
⅓ cup plus 1 tbsp. shortening
1 cup flour
½ tsp. salt
2 -3 tbsp. water

Preheat the oven to 475°F

Mix the flour and salt and cut the shortening into the mixture until it resembles small peas.

Sprinkle in water and stir with a fork until the mixture sticks together.

Gather the mixture into a ball and roll into a round a bit larger than your pie plate.

Crimp the edges of the pastry along the side of the pie plate, prick the pastry with a fork, and bake in oven 8-10 minutes, until golden brown.

Filling **
One pint-sized clamshell package of kumquats (enough to make 2/3 cup puree)
One 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
½ cup lemon juice
1 cup whipping cream
3 tbsp. sugar

Wash and puree the kumquats in a blender or food processor.

Pour the condensed milk and the lemon juice into a bowl and beat 1-2 minutes.

In a separate bowl, beat the whipping cream with 3 Tablespoons of sugar until stiff (above five minutes).

Combine whipped cream with the condensed milk mixture and beat until thick. Fold in the pureed kumquats.

Pour the kumquat mixture into the baked pie shell and chill in the refrigerator until set.

Garnish (if desired)**
1 cup whipping cream
3 tbsp. sugar

Before serving the pie, combine 1 cup whipping cream and 3 Tablespoons of sugar and beat until stiff. Garnish the pie with the whipped cream.

Tips and tricks
* We like a home-baked pie shell, but you can substitute ready-made. A plain or chocolate graham cracker pie shell adds a delicious flavor dimension to the finished pie.

** Instead of making your own whipped cream with the whipping cream and sugar recipe, you can substitute ready-made whipping cream, both in the pie ingredients and as a garnish.

While you're snacking on your cool, delicious pie, enjoy an excerpt from our young adult book, Pirate Summer.

Fifteen year old Josey is a liar. She’d like to stop. But after Mom left, the lies started popping out, like the time Josey left her little brother at the library and told Dad he’d run away.

Then Josey meets a boy who tells bigger whoppers than she does. He says he’s the son of a privateer who’s been dead two centuries. He’s so convincing Josey’s brother believes every word and sets off to find the privateer’s hidden treasure.

When her brother disappears, Josey is sure she knows where he's gone. But everyone thinks she's lying again. Everyone, that is, except the so-called privateer’s son. He knows she’s telling the truth because jeweled riches are only part of his tale. There’s also the snooperscope, a device that makes time leaps possible, like the one that brought him to the present.

The story is fantastical...and yet Josey will do anything to save her brother, including traveling back in time two hundred years with a boy she can’t trust.

Amazon Buy Link

Florida-based mother/daughter author duo HL Carpenter write sweet, clean fiction that is suitable for everyone in your family. The Carpenters write from their studios in Carpenter Country, a magical place that, like their stories, is unreal but not untrue. When they’re not writing, they enjoy exploring the Land of What-If and practicing the fine art of Curiosity. Visit their website to enjoy gift reads and excerpts and to find out what’s happening in Carpenter Country.

Stay connected on Pinterest, Linkedin, Google+, and their Amazon Author Page.

Sinfully Delicious

from Sharon Ledwith

Make any day special with my dynamite dessert Legend(dairy) Chocolate-Banana Split Dream. Here's how the ymness came to be. In my book, Legend of the Timekeepers—the prequel to The Last Timekeepers series—my adolescent characters Lilith, her BFF She-Aba, and an annoying goat-herder named Tau are transported from the Black Land through the seventh Arch of Atlantis, and travel back in time to Atlantis one hundred years before its final destruction. There, Tau finds that he has an insatiable taste for a strange, long yellow fruit he’s never seen before. Fortunately for us, this long yellow fruit—a.k.a. bananas—are readily available at our local markets, and used in some wicked-awesome recipes. The following recipe is easy to make, and is a great pick for families to create together on those cool or rainy weekend afternoons or family celebrations:


Legend(dairy) Chocolate-Banana Split Dream

30 Oreo Cookies (or generic brand), finely crushed (about 2¼ cups)
6 tbsp. butter, melted
1 pkg. (250 g) your favorite brand of Cream Cheese, softened
¼ cup sugar
2 tbsp. cold milk
3 cups thawed your favorite brand of whipped topping, divided
4 bananas, sliced
2 pkg. (4-serving size each) of your favorite brand chocolate instant pudding
3¼ cups cold milk
1 third cup maraschino cherries, halved
¼ cup chopped toasted walnuts
2 tbsp. chocolate syrup

MIX cookie crumbs and butter; press onto bottom of 13x9-inch dish. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Beat cream cheese, sugar and 2 tbsp. milk in medium bowl with whisk until well blended. Stir in 1 cup whipped topping; spread over crust. Top with bananas.

Beat pudding mixes and milk with whisk for two minutes; spread over bananas. Let stand five minutes or until thickened; cover with remaining whipped topping. Refrigerate four hours.

Top with cherries, nuts, and syrup just before serving.

Did I forget to mention that this fantastic dessert serves twenty-four of your closest friends? That’s a good thing, seeing as Tau has a big family! Now, while you’re waiting for this dessert to set, why not partake in an afternoon of cozying up on the couch with a good book?

There is no moving forward without first going back.

Lilith was a young girl with dreams and a family before the final destruction of Atlantis shattered those dreams and tore her family apart. Now refugees, Lilith and her father make their home in the Black Land. This strange, new country has no place in Lilith’s heart until a beloved high priestess introduces Lilith to her life purpose—to be a Timekeeper and keep time safe.

Summoned through the seventh arch of Atlantis by the Children of the Law of One, Lilith and her newfound friends are sent into Atlantis’s past, and given a task that will ultimately test their courage and try their faith in each other. Can the Timekeepers stop the dark magus Belial before he changes the seers’ prophecy? If they fail, then their future and the earth’s fate will be altered forever.

To read an excerpt from Legend of the Timekeepers please click here.

Legend of the Timekeepers Buy Links:

AMAZON ׀ BARNES & NOBLE ׀ SMASHWORDS ׀ APPLE

Check out The Last Timekeepers series Facebook Page.

Sharon Ledwith is the author of the middle-grade/YA time travel series, THE LAST TIMEKEEPERS, available through Musa Publishing, and is represented by Walden House (Books & Stuff) for her teen psychic series, MYSTERIOUS TALES FROM FAIRY FALLS. When not writing, researching, or revising, she enjoys reading, yoga, anything arcane, and an occasional dram of scotch. Sharon lives a serene, yet busy life in a tourist region of Ontario, Canada, with her hubby, one spoiled yellow Labrador and a moody calico cat.

Learn more about Sharon Ledwith on her website and blog. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter.

A Tasty Treat is Berry Dark Chocolate Pie

Dusty Crabtree dropped in today to help me out while I conquer edits on soon to be released novels. Her book and recipe are both awesome. Take it away, Dusty. :)

I've been an overly creative person, my mind constantly swimming with artistic things and creative ideas. Before I started writing, that creativity often found an outlet in cooking. I started with intricate recipes, then added my own spin on them, and turned some of them into my own.

This is one of my favorite creations, mainly because I absolutely love berries and chocolate together! It's tart and fruity with the intense dark sweetness of chocolate.

Also, seeing as how Iris, the main character in my YA urban fantasy Shadow Eyes, has violet eyes and her favorite color is naturally purple, I thought this strikingly dark purple pie would definitely be fitting. I hope it wins you over like it would Iris.


Berry Dark Chocolate Pie
2 chocolate piecrusts
16 oz. package frozen blackberries, thawed and drained or 2 cups fresh
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
½ cup blackberry jam
3-4 tbsp. or ½ package of Jell-O sugar-free chocolate fudge pudding mix
1/3 cup lemon juice
½ tsp. almond extract or vanilla extract if preferred
1 container 8 or 9 oz whipped topping
1-2 oz. dark chocolate squares, grated or shaved or use chips

Combine blackberries, sweetened condensed milk, blackberry jam, pudding mix, lemon juice, and almond extract. Beat on medium high speed until well blended and thick, about 2 minutes.

Spoon blackberry cream mixture over 2 chocolate crusts evenly. Refrigerate for a total of 4 hours.

After about 1 hour, top with whipped cream and dark chocolate shavings. Continue to refrigerate for another 3 hours or until set.

Serves 16

While the pie is chilling, pour yourself a lovely glass of wine and curl up with Shadow Eyes.

Iris thought she could ignore the shadows...until they went after everyone she loved.

BLURB:
Iris Kohl lives in a world populated by murky shadows that surround, harass, and entice unsuspecting individuals toward evil. But she is the only one who can see them. She’s had this ability to see the shadows, as well as brilliantly glowing light figures, ever since an obscure, tragic incident on her fourteenth birthday three years earlier.

Although she’s learned to cope, the view of her world begins to shift upon the arrival of three mysterious characters. First, a handsome new teacher whose presence scares away shadows; second, a new friend with an awe-inspiring aura; and third, a mysterious and alluring new student whom Iris has a hard time resisting despite already having a boyfriend.

As the shadows invade and terrorize her own life and family, she must ultimately revisit the most horrific event of her life in order to learn her true identity and become the hero she was meant to be.

EXCERPT:
I meandered slowly to my locker. Even though I didn’t need anything, I rummaged through it as if I were searching for a tool on a job that paid by the hour. The longer I waited, the less people and, therefore, shadows would be waiting for me when I stepped into the parking lot.

I hated crowds and tried to avoid them as much as possible. Three years of dealing with the visions had taught me how to cope in various ways, but I’d never gotten used to walking among herds of people that were ignorant of the truth I was forced to see. It was like being the only one wearing ultraviolet glasses that unveiled every germ and bacteria around me and having to constantly witness unsuspecting people touching things and getting into things that are disgusting and potentially dangerous. Some people would feel lucky to have such insight. Me? I felt trapped, helpless, and exposed.

Luckily, since it was Friday, everyone wanted to get away from school as quickly as possible. By the time I stepped outside, the parking lot was basically empty. Only a few cars belonging to football players remained.

I began to trek the long distance to my car, which was at the end of the lot due to my near tardiness every day for the same reason I always left late. However, even though the lot was void of people, a couple of dark figures loomed over and around a yellow Camaro to my right. I recognized it as Marcus Beaman’s new car. He was a well-known football player and had been bragging about the birthday present for three months since he got it in June.

Why were these shadows out in the parking lot without any humans around? The bizarreness of it made me pause, and my mind began fabricating all possible explanations—none of which I could do anything about. Lost in my thoughts, I must have peered at them with critical eyes just a tad longer than was safe. One of them stopped, inclined its head to glare at me, and flashed an evil grin. I shuddered, closing my eyes tightly in an attempt to erase the image and pretend the scene away as I cowered toward my car like a timid little girl.

I threw open the driver’s side door, jumped in, tossing my backpack on the passenger seat, buckled my seatbelt, and locked the doors. As if that would help.

Watch Shadow Eyes book trailer on YouTube.

BUY LINK

Learn more about Dusty Crabtree on her blog. Stay connected on Facebook and Twitter.

I'll be back Monday with the Queen of Hot Jan Springer. Until then...

Happy Reading!

Sloane Taylor
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