< Back Chocolate Peanut Butter Frozen Pie December 13, 2019 Prep Time: 4.5 Hours Cook Time: 10 Minutes Serves: 8 Slices of Pie Tags: Vegan, Vegetarian, Baking, Cakes & Pies & Icing About the Recipe Fans of Battered (the first book in the Whipped and Sipped mystery series), might recall that the cafe’s pastry chef, Ruthie Rosin, is a vegan who doesn’t eat or bake with any animal products. This is the kind of pie she serves both at home and in the café.- it’s a refreshing dessert in the summer and a pleasingly light dessert to nibble on after a heavy winter meal. Ingredients Crust: 1½ cup unsalted raw or roasted pecans* ¾ cup (8 to 10) dried pitted dates or prunes 2 TBSP organic filtered coconut oil *Also, delicious when I replace the pecans with 10-12 of my own baked and frozen cookies Filling: 2 cups unsalted cashews or peanuts 1 cup canned whole coconut milk ½ cup unsweetened coconut flakes ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder ½ cup packed coconut or brown sugar 1 ¼ cup mashed ripe bananas (3 medium or 2 large bananas) 1 tsp pure vanilla extract ½ tsp pure almond extract ½ tsp fine-grained sea salt 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1 TBSP instant coffee or decaf powder Optional: Sprinkle ½ cup mini-chocolate chips on top, or for a more dazzling presentation, add the chocolate chips and then finish with powdered sugar or whipped topping Preparation Crust: In a food processor, blend pecans (or cookies) until completely uniform, about 60 seconds Add dates/prunes and oil, pulse just until blended, about 5-6 times Add oil and pulse 4 or 5 times Press mixture into a greased tart pan, pie pan or lined muffin cups (with silicone or paper) Bake at 350°F/180°C for 8 minutes (in a muffin pan) or 10 minutes (in a pie or tart pan) Cool on the counter (not on top of the oven) while preparing the filling Filling: Don’t bother to rinse out the processor, just add all the ingredients except chocolate chips Blend until completely mixed and shiny (about 2-3 minutes) Smooth into the completely cooled crust (in either the pie pan or the muffin cups) Toss mini chocolate chips on top Freeze for at least 4 hours Remove from the freezer about 20 minutes before serving Add the optional topping – although it’s delicious without the final flourish Leftovers can be either frozen or refrigerated (for nibbling whenever you want something sweet but nourishing). When refrigerated, it gets a pudding-like texture. Previous Next

< Back A Girl Goes into the Forest Peg Alford Pursell September 26, 2019 The stories and fables in A Girl Goes into the Forest (Dzanc Books, 2019) twist and turn with the sorrows and challenges of family, lovers, growing up, and aging. Sometimes wry, sometimes charming, occasionally a story will make you gasp, especially the one-pagers. In 78 pieces of fiction, flash fiction and micro-fiction, Alford’s writing is soothing, sparkling, opaque or mysterious, but it always packs a punch. Peg Alford Pursell , author of Show her a Flower, A Bird, A Shadow , the 2017 Indies Book of the Year for Literary Fiction, has had work published in many journals and anthologies. Her micro-fiction, flash fiction, and hybrid prose have been nominated for Best Small Micro-fictions and Pushcart Prizes. She is the founder and director of WTAW Press, a nonprofit publisher of literary books, and of Why There are Words, the national literary reading series. Also, she enjoys walking through her neighborhood with its redwoods and Little Free Libraries. One of the most fascinating dreams she's had was creating a crossword puzzle in her sleep and being able to remember the lower left section when she awoke. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Zucchini Dip/Sauce September 17, 2019 Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 10 Minutes Serves: 30 Servings Tags: Dips and Sauces, Vegan, Vegetarian About the Recipe p.227 Battered: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery The community room was the size of two full apartments, so it was a great place to take children when it was too cold or hot to play outside. Noah was already on his fourth trip around the room. She let him watch one more crack of lightening and make one more run around the room before announcing that it was time to go back home to prepare dinner. An hour later, the smell of tomato pesto soup and fresh bread filled the apartment as Quinn set the table, Noah poured the water, and Sierra placed the butter plate and a bowl of zucchini-dill dip on the table. They all sat down, and Alene was happy to get through dinner without a single argument. The kids finished quickly as usual, and Alene stayed at the table to keep her father company. It took him a long time to eat his meal. “Dad,” said Alene, “do you remember hearing anything about Gary hiding money that Joan embezzled from her company? Ingredients 1 small or medium zucchini, cut into pieces w/skin 2 or 3 cloves garlic Olive oil spray for the pan Juice of ½ small lemon (about 2 TBSPs) ¼ cup water (if you want to use this as salad dressing, use EVOO instead) 1/3 cup golden raisins (you can use honey, agave, or brown sugar – don’t use dark raisins) 2 TBSP tahini (or use 1 TBSP sesame seeds + ¼ cup water) ¼ tsp each: salt, pepper ½ tsp each: cumin, coriander, turmeric 1 tsp dried basil 1/2 oz (about a handful) of fresh mint Preparation Sauté zucchini and garlic in hot, sprayed pan until lightly browned (5-7 minutes). Add everything to blender and process until smooth. Season to taste (add more salt or if you like it sweeter, add 1 tsp of honey or agave. Makes about 1 ½ cups (serve with everything!) Previous Next

< Back Leek and Red Onion Rice Platter October 7, 2021 Prep Time: 15 Minutes Cook Time: 90 Minutes Serves: 6 - 8 Servings Tags: Entrees, Vegetarian, Vegan About the Recipe ​ Ingredients 6 to 8 small roasted red/yellow peppers 3 large leeks 2 large red onions 2 cups brown rice 4 cups vegetable stock 2 tsp cumin 2 tsp zahtar 6 TBSP good olive oil 1 to 2 cups of wine or vegetable stock to deglaze the pan salt and pepper to taste Preparation On foil or baking sheet, spray and salt the peppers, roast at 400 for about 20 minutes until slightly browned. Clean and slice the leeks. Heat a large sauté pan, add 2 TBSP olive oil, and cook the leeks with zahtar until browned, about 15 minutes. Stir as needed. While that’s cooking, slice up the red onions. When the leeks are done, deglaze the pan with whichever liquid you choose, in 1/2 cup increments, and move them to a bowl. Reheat up 2 more TBSP olive oil, and cook the red onions, this time adding in the cumin. Again deglaze the pan, 1/2 cup at a time, and move them into a separate bowl. Now reheat the pan again, again add 2 TBSP olive oil, stir the rice until all covered, add in 4 cups of stock, bring to a simmer for about 15 – 20 minutes until the liquid is absorbed. Add stock or wine. As everything cools down, add salt and pepper, starting with about 1/2 tsp at a time, until you love how it tastes. Serve on a big, layered platter. Sometimes I drizzle the tahini on top of this dish so that it looks like frosting. I also forgot to a add a sprig of parsley to the picture – the splash of green is festive! Previous Next

Baking Recipes to Die For Gluten Free, Vegan, Baking Chocolate Hamantaschen These are hamantaschen for grown-ups. Not too sweet; just right. Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Gluten Free, Baking, Breakfast Gluten-Free Pancakes We were desperate for pancakes so I tweaked another recipe I was working on to make these. Read Recipe Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Baking, Cookies and Brownies, Vegan Ginger-Molasses Cookies G.F. V. "Would you like a pot of chamomile tea?" Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Baking, Vegan Gluten-Free/Nut Free/Vegan Banana Bread The recipes uses 2 bananas and a whole small seed apple. Read Recipe Vegan, Vegetarian, Baking, Cakes & Pies & Icing Chocolate Peanut Butter Frozen Pie A refreshing dessert in the summer and a pleasingly light dessert to nibble on after a heavy winter meal. Read Recipe Vegetarian, Baking, Breakfast, Muffins and Breads, Cakes & Pies & Icing Chocolate Zucchini-Pear Cake GF Healthy enough for breakfast! Read Recipe Baking, Gluten Free, Cakes & Pies & Icing Apple Banana Chocolate Cake (gluten free) The recipe is going to be in my second book, SMOTHERED: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Baking, Vegan, Gluten Free, Cakes & Pies & Icing Best Chocolate Cake/Muffins GF. V. Didn’t I tell you I was going to be at my Aunt Ivy’s for a barbeque dinner at which I ate purely protein ... Read Recipe Vegan, Gluten Free, Baking, Dips and Sauces, Cakes & Pies & Icing Dairy-free Chocolate Frosting After a night in the refrigerator, it will be thick like a ganache. Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Baking Challah Traditional recipes never tasted so good! Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Baking, Vegetarian, Breakfast, Cakes & Pies & Icing Chocolate Zucchini – Apple Cake Yes, we eat this for breakfast! Read Recipe Baking, Cakes & Pies & Icing Apple Crisp The one I made nearly every Friday while my kids were growing up! Read Recipe All Recipes Baking Breakfast Cakes, Pies, & Icing Cookies & Brownies Dips & Sauces Entrees Gluten-Free Muffins & Breads Soup Vegan Vegetarian Load More

< Back The Art of Regret Mary Fleming December 3, 2019 Trevor McFarquhar was traumatized by the silence following the deaths of his sister and father. He was again traumatized when his mother moved him and his brother to Paris, remarried, and expected him to treat her new husband as his new father. In his late thirties, he’s haphazardly running a struggling bicycle shop, with few friends, little ambition, and an inability to form a lasting relationship. Then, during the chaos of the 1995 Transit Strike in Paris, Trevor does something horrible. Five years later, he gets a chance to redeem himself. Originally from Chicago, Mary Fleming moved to Paris in 1981, as a freelance journalist and consultant. Before turning full time to writing fiction, she was the French representative for the American foundation: The German Marshall Fund. A long-time board member of the French Fulbright Commission, Fleming continues to serve on the board of Bibliothèques sans Frontières. She and her husband have five grown children and split their time between Paris and Berlin. The Art of Regret (She Writes Press, 2019) is Fleming’s second novel. She writes a blog called A Paris-Berlin Diary . She is also an amateur photographer and fights a puzzle addiction; crosswords and Sudoko, specifically. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Vegetarian Recipes to Die For Soup, Vegan, Vegetarian Black Bean Mushroom Carrot Soup I love making "pantry" soups with what I've got on hand plus whichever vegetables I have in the fridge. I thought I was making my old Black Bean Edamame soup until I saw that I was out of the frozen edamame. Cooking, like jazz, is all about improvisation! Read Recipe Dips and Sauces, Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten Free Spinach & Green Pea Dip/Sauce Gorgeous color, bright flavor, and filled with nutrients! Read Recipe Entrees, Vegetarian, Vegan Leek and Red Onion Rice Platter Sometimes I drizzle the tahini on top of this dish so that it looks like frosting. Read Recipe Entrees, Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Soup Chilled Minty Cucumber-Melon Soup The perfect and refreshing snack for a hot day! Read Recipe Dips and Sauces, Entrees, Vegetarian, Vegan Mashed Cauliflower and Acorn Squash I like to mash veggies from my Friday roasted veggie tray and try different combos. Read Recipe Entrees, Vegetarian Cold Sesame Noodles The perfect recipes for a picnic lunch! Read Recipe Dips and Sauces, Vegan, Gluten Free, Vegetarian Easy Hummus I make this version of hummus when I’m out of tahini. Read Recipe Soup, Vegetarian, Vegan, Entrees Spinach-Lentil Soup Need iron? This delicious soup will do the trick! Read Recipe Dips and Sauces, Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Vegan Green Bean and Walnut Spread Alene was proud of the recipe that she invented. Read Recipe Vegan, Vegetarian, Entrees Mango-Avocado Salad Serve as shown in sections in the bowl because it looks awesome. Then mix at the table. Read Recipe Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Baking, Cookies and Brownies, Vegan Ginger-Molasses Cookies G.F. V. "Would you like a pot of chamomile tea?" Read Recipe Dips and Sauces, Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Vegan Guacamole Salad In last week's grocery order I forgot tortilla chips and ate this with a spoon! Read Recipe Breakfast, Vegan, Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Cakes & Pies & Icing Almond Berry Breakfast Cake (gluten-free/vegan) Now Alene began measuring ingredients for Ruthie’s strawberry breakfast cake. Read Recipe Vegan, Dips and Sauces, Vegetarian Roasted Red Pepper Tahini Slathering his spinach pie with a bright roasted red pepper tahini, he talked about functional foods. Read Recipe Soup, Vegetarian, Vegan, Entrees Sweet Potato Black Bean Soup Add an avocado for garnish or sprinkle with a little cheese for the perfect dish! Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Baking, Vegan Gluten-Free/Nut Free/Vegan Banana Bread The recipes uses 2 bananas and a whole small seed apple. Read Recipe Vegan, Vegetarian, Baking, Cakes & Pies & Icing Chocolate Peanut Butter Frozen Pie A refreshing dessert in the summer and a pleasingly light dessert to nibble on after a heavy winter meal. Read Recipe Gluten Free, Vegetarian, Dips and Sauces, Vegan Edamame – Avocado Dip Alene pulled out her old blender and made an edamame/avocado dip followed by a kale and parsley... Read Recipe Vegetarian, Baking, Breakfast, Muffins and Breads, Cakes & Pies & Icing Chocolate Zucchini-Pear Cake GF Healthy enough for breakfast! Read Recipe Dips and Sauces, Vegan, Vegetarian Zucchini Dip/Sauce It's so delicious! You can use fresh dill or fresh mint for this perfect dip! Read Recipe Vegetarian, Cakes & Pies & Icing Cocoa-Bear Cake (AKA Dragon’s Milk Cake) Neal bought her a beer and invited her to a Cubs game. That had been her first stout, and she thought it was so... Read Recipe Entrees, Vegetarian, Vegan Oven-Baked Sweet Potato-Black Bean Empanadas Ruthie dropped off a tray of frozen sweet potato-black bean empanadas. Read Recipe Soup, Vegetarian, Gluten Free, Entrees, Vegan Alene’s White Gazpacho She blended a white gazpacho and served it with homemade rolls for lunch, then let the kids lie in her bed watching... Read Recipe Muffins and Breads, Baking, Vegetarian, Breakfast, Cakes & Pies & Icing Chocolate Zucchini – Apple Cake Yes, we eat this for breakfast! Read Recipe All Recipes Baking Breakfast Cakes, Pies, & Icing Cookies & Brownies Dips & Sauces Entrees Gluten-Free Muffins & Breads Soup Vegan Vegetarian Load More

< Back A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed Jason Brown January 7, 2020 The ten linked stories in Jason Brown 's A Faithful but Melancholy Account of Several Barbarities Lately Committed (Missouri Review, 2019) follow John Howland and his descendants as they struggle with their New England legacy as one of the country's founding families and the decaying trappings of that esteemed past. Set on the Maine coast, where the Howland family has lived for almost 400 years, the grandfather, John Howland, lives in a fantasy that still places him at the center of the world. The next generation resides in the confused ruins of the 1960s rebellion, while many in the third generation feel they have no choice but to scatter in search of a new identity. Jason Brown earned his MFA from Cornell University, and was a Stegner Fellow and Truman Capote Fellow at Stanford University, where he taught as a Jones Lecturer. He has received fellowships from the Yaddo and Macdowell colonies and from the Saltonsall Foundation. He taught for many years in the MFA program at the University of Arizona and now teaches in the MFA program at the University of Oregon. He has published two books of short stories, Driving the Heart and Other Stories (Norton/Random House) and Why the Devil Chose New England For His Work (Open City/Grove Atlantic). His stories have won several awards and appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Atlantic, Harper’s, TriQuarterly and other magazines and anthologies. Several of his stories have been performed as part of NPR’s Selected Shorts, and his collection Why The Devil Chose New England For His Work was chosen as a summer reading pick by National Public Radio. Stories from the new collection have appeared or will appear in Southern Review, Prairie Schooner (winning their editor’s prize and receiving special mention in the back of Best American Short Stories), Electric Literature, Bellevue Review, Dalhousie Review and the Editor’s Prize from the Missouri Review . Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Side by Side but Never Face to Face Maggie Kast July 1, 2020 During the first few stories, we think the book centers on Manfred, an Austrian Holocaust survivor whose parents converted out of Judaism to save him from centuries of oppression. He and his third wife, Greta, are forced to mourn the accidental death of their youngest child, a trauma that affects them deeply but differently. Only after several stories focused on Manfred’s upbringing and young adulthood do we realize that the protagonist is his wife and then widow, Greta. Starting in Jamaica, the stories shift back and forth in time and place, from Europe to Chicago to Door County, Wisconsin. We follow Greta’s emotional journey, spiritual longings, and religious awakening as she survives the complexities of a full life. Today I talked to Maggie Kast about her new book Side by Side but Never Face to Face: A Novella and Stories (Orison Books, 2020) Kast received an M.F.A. in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has published fiction in The Sun, Nimrod, Rosebud, Paper Street and others. A chapter of her memoir, published in ACM/Another Chicago Magazine , won a Literary Award from the Illinois Arts Council. Her essays have appeared in America, Image, Writer’s Chronicle, and Superstition Review and have been anthologized in Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs (Beacon Press) and Gravity Pulls You In: Perspectives on Parenting Children on the Autism Spectrum (Woodbine House). Kast is a Board Member of Links Hall , an incubator and presenter of dance and performance art in Chicago. When not writing, Maggie loves cooking, and although she loves traditional midwestern food, also specialized in Viennese cuisine. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back The Orphans of Mersea House Marty Wingate August 22, 2023 Olive Kersey is both penniless and alone at 37 – her brother and her boyfriend both died during WWII, her father not long after, and Olive spent all the years taking care of her ailing mother. Now her mother is dead and Olive has to vacate their rental. She lives in Southwold, a small town on the Suffolk coast of England and her choices are limited until her childhood friend Margery suddenly returns home. Margery has inherited a big old house, and hires Olive to run it, but the first two lodgers have secrets. Margery learns that she is the ward of an 11-year-old orphan, daughter of her first love. Olive adds little Juniper, whose legs were compromised by polio and requires braces, to her list of responsibilities in the old Mersea House. The officer in charge of placing children like Juniper begins keeping a close eye on the house, and in a small town, there are always those who want to expose secrets…… Marty Wingate began college life as a journalism major but ended up with an undergraduate degree in theater and a master’s degree in speech pathology from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. She worked as a speech therapist in Phoenix, at a school for the deaf in El Paso, and at the Central Remedial Clinic in Dublin, Ireland before settling in the Pacific Northwest where she met her husband and worked in public schools for many years. Her husband’s job as a newspaper and freelance copyeditor drew her back into the world of words by way of horticulture. She returned to school and obtained a second master’s degree, this one in urban horticulture from the University of Washington. She then wrote garden how-to books and magazine and newspaper articles and for several years could be heard taking gardening weekly on KUOW, the local NPR station. She segued from nonfiction to fiction writing with the appearance of her first mystery, The Garden Plot , in 2014. In the past nearly-ten years, Marty has written seventeen books. This includes eight books in the Potting Shed series featuring Pru Parke, a middle-aged American gardener transplanted from Texas to England; four Birds of a Feather mysteries that follow Julia Lanchester, bird lover, who runs a tourist office in a Suffolk village; three books in the First Edition Library series; and two historical fiction standalones including Glamour Girls , about a female, Second World War Spitfire pilot. More books are on the way. A Body on the Doorstep , the first book in The London Ladies Murder Club , set in 1921, will be out January 2024. Marty prefers on-the-ground research whenever possible, so she and her husband regularly travel to England and Scotland, where she can be found tracing the steps of her characters, stopping for tea and a slice of Victoria sponge in a café, or enjoying a swift half in a pub. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back What a Wonderful World this Could Be Lee Zacharias June 25, 2021 Today I talked to Lee Zacharias about her new book What a Wonderful World this Could Be (Madville Publishing, 2021). Alex has always wanted a real family. Her father commits suicide, her mother has never noticed where she is, and at 15, she falls in love with a 27-year-old photographer. When she comes of age, she’s about to marry him, but someone else has turned her head, Ted Neal, a charismatic activist on his way to Mississippi for 1964’s Freedom Summer. Alex just wants to take pictures, but she and Ted invite some of his friends to live together in a collective that functions like a sort of family. Alex is happy, but the conversations focus in on anti-war movement of the 60s, and some of the so-called family members get radicalized by the ‘Weathermen.’ Alex is incensed to learn that the FBI is following her even after the ‘family’ disperses and shocked when Ted disappears. Eleven years later he shows up again, but now he’s dying and Alex, who hasn’t remarried, has to figure out what love means. Lee Zacharias, who holds degrees from Indiana University Hollins, College, and the University of Arkansas, has taught at Princeton University and the University of North Carolina Greensboro, where she is Emerita Professor of English, as well as many conferences, most recently the Wildacres Writers Workshop. She is the author of a collection of short stories, Helping Muriel Make It Through the Night ; three previous novels, Across the Great Lake , Lessons , and At Random ; and a collection of personal essays, The Only Sounds We Make . She has co-edited an anthology of stories, Runaway, released in 2020, with Luanne Smith and Michael Gills. Zacharias has received fellowships and is a recipient of several awards. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous journals, including, among others, The Southern Review, Shenandoah, Five Points, Gettysburg Review, Crab Orchard Review, Outdoor Photographer, and Our State. Her essays have been named Notable Essays of the Year by The Best American Essays, which reprinted her essay "Buzzards" in The Best American Essays 2008, and she served as editor of The Greensboro Review for a decade. Zacharias, when she’s not writing, loves photographing landscapes and birds. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

< Back Pigs Johanna Stoberock October 31, 2019 In her new novel Pigs (Red Hen Press, 2019), Johanna Stoberock has written a lyrical fable about an island that receives all the world’s garbage. That garbage, both physical and psychological in the forms of dreams and memories, is consumed by six enormous, voracious pigs. Four filthy, starving children wearing rags and living in squalor are responsible for sorting the trash, feeding the pigs and taking care of each other, while the island’s adults indulge in fantasies, gorge themselves, and live in the comfort of a huge mansion. Although this isn’t the first time that pigs are depicted in literature, it is probably the first time their presence forces readers to consider how much trash we create, how difficult it is to dispose of it, and how we are going to cope with a world in which recycling is too expensive, refugees are treated as disposable, and the earth is facing the crisis of climate change. Originally from New York, Johanna Stoberock completed her undergrad education at Wesleyan, earned an MFA in Fiction at the University of Washington, and lived in NYC until moving with her family to Walla Walla in 2005. Author of the novel City of Ghosts , she has received many honors, and in 2016 was named runner-up for the Italo Calvino Prize for Fiction. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Best of the Net anthology, and Catamaran, among others. When she is not writing, Stoberock teaches academic writing, is an avid duplicate bridge player and loves watching large birds like herons while out walking in her area of rural Eastern Washington. She also loves owls, which can be spotted in her neighborhood only in winter. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next