Beth Cato's Blog, page 87
May 18, 2016
Bready or Not: Roasted Edamame
Roast your own edamame to make a delicious protein addition for salads, noodle dishes, or sandwiches–or as a healthy snack by itself!
Dry edamame is expensive in stores, often sold in small bags. My local Sprouts carried dry edamame in their bin section for an awesome price and I bought it often, but then they remodeled last year and the edamame vanished. Sigh.
So I decided, heck, I’d make my own!
A pound bag of frozen edamame is $2-4 in stores. It takes some planning and minimal work to roast it, and you can make it as crunchy as you like. I like to keep the beans a little chewy.
I do a lot of sweets on here, but this is the kind of food I like to do for myself as a treat. Om nom nom!
Modified from Bams Kitchen.
Bready or Not: Roasted Edamame
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Thaw and roast edamame for a cost-effective and delicious addition to salads, noodles, wraps–or as a healthy snack all by itself.
16-ounce bag frozen shelled edamame
olive oil or avocado oil
sea salt
pepper
Take the sealed edamame bag out of the freezer and set it on a plate in the fridge to defrost overnight.
Next day, open up the bag and place the shelled beans in a colander. Rinse and sort through to make sure they are thawed. Set out towels and let the edamame sit out to dry in a single layer; blot the top with another towel. The beans should be completely dry before roasting.
Preheat oven at 375-degrees. Prepare a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. Place your edamame on the sheet. Drizzle with oil and stir them for complete coverage. Add a sprinkling of salt and pepper.
Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, with breaks about every 15 minutes to stir the edamame. The longer they cook, the crispier and browner they get, so bake to preferred taste!
Eat right away, or store in a sealed container in the fridge. Roasted edamame is great as a snack, or in all sorts of dishes!
OM NOM NOM!
May 17, 2016
Sloth Does Chicago: A Nebula Weekend Recap
Over at Novelocity, I posted a photo blog about Nebula Weekend in Chicago. The experience was a blur of happy reunions and yummy food and inadequate sleep. Head over there for the full write-up!
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May 15, 2016
Sunday Quote is in Chicago
“Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”
~ Alexander Pope
[Context: I am setting up this post well in advance. The Nebula Awards will take place the night before this post goes live. I figure I have no chance of winning, but it sure is lovely to be nominated and among such fine company.]
May 12, 2016
Find Me At Nebula Weekend & BookCon
NEBULA WEEKEND. IT IS HERE. Tomorrow I travel to Chicago to lose a major award geek-out with my awesome writer-friends. If you’ll be in Chicago, there are many places to see me and get stuff signed.
Friday
PALMER HOUSE
8:00pm – Booksigning with over 60 science fiction and fantasy writers. FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Bring books or buy there.
Saturday
BOOK CON @ McCormick Place (requires ticket to enter)
1:30-2:00pm – in-booth signing at HarperCollins #2140-#2141 with copies of Clockwork Dagger, plus Clockwork Crown available for purchase!
2:00-3:00pm – in-booth signing at SFWA #1541 with early copies of Breath of Earth (yes! really!)
PALMER HOUSE
8:30pm (central time) – Nebula Awards. This will be streamed online!
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May 11, 2016
Bready or Not: Snickerdoodle Pie
I attend the Nebula Awards in a few days. I don’t expect to win, but the whole thing is freaky and exciting and a cause for celebration. Therefore, I am sharing a special recipe for Snickerdoodle Pie.
That’s right. Snickerdoodle Pie. It happens to be a photogenic pie, too, so brace yourself for an onslaught of pictures.
In all honesty, it would be faster to make Snickerdoodle Cookies than to make this pie. The thing is… this pie is awesome. It looks and tastes like you made an extra effort.
It really does taste like a giant Snickerdoodle, too. I used my tried-and-true pie crust recipe, which is reposted below, but you can use a store crust or your own reliable recipe.
It’s kind of weird how perfectly Snickerdoodley this is, even for being so thick. It’s kind of magical, if magic involves cinnamon, sugar, and cream of tartar.
My husband adored this pie. The slices were great straight out of the fridge, but he experimented and found out it’s even better reheated in the oven. Wrap up a slice in some foil and warm it just enough to caramelize the sugar crust some more. Yum!
This is a special occasion pie. A birthday pie. A holiday gathering pie. A hey-I was-nominated-for-an-awesome award pie.
Plus, if you have pie, you’re a winner no matter what!
Modified from the Taste and Tell Blog and the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book 16th Edition.
Bready or Not: Basic Pie Crust
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A basic, reliable pie shell recipe. Great for sweet pies! Reduce the sugar, and use for savory pies, too!
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon fine salt
1 cup (2 sticks) cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes
3/4 cup ice water
Make dough hours in advance or the night before. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt. Add in the cold butter cubes, and either use a pastry blender or pulse the ingredients in a food processor until the butter is pea-sized.
Pour in the cold water and pulse/mix together until the dough forms a loose ball. I like to use my hands at this point. The dough may be sticky, but it will firm up well.
Pour dough onto a floured surface. Divide into two balls and fallen them into discs. Wrap each disc in parchment paper, then in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least one hour before placing in pie dish, or freeze for up to 3 months.
Roll out the refrigerated dough into a 12-inch round. Press it into a 9-inch dish, trimming the excess and pinching the edges. Wrap loosely with plastic wrap and freeze at least two hours before using, or keep frozen up to three months.
Bready or Not: Snickerdoodle Pie
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This Snickerdoodle Pie really and truly tastes like a gigantic Snickerdoodle Cookie! The directions include divided ingredients, so read through carefully. The leftovers are incredible cold or reheated in the oven. Recipe modified from Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book 16th Edition, and the Taste and Tell Blog.
1 single unbaked pie crust
1 tablespoon raw or coarse sugar
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, divided
1 Tablespoon butter, melted
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, divided
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 cup milk (almond milk works)
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
Preheat the oven to 350-degrees. In a bowl, combine the tablespoon of coarse or raw sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon. Brush the 1 Tablespoon of melted butter on the bottom of the pie crust, then sprinkle 1 teaspoon of the cinnamon sugar mixture over the butter. Set aside on a cookie sheet.
In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the brown sugar, 1/4 cup butter, water, corn syrup, and remaining 3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon. Bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the brown sugar. Let everything boil for 2 minutes, then remove from the heat. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and set the pot aside to cool.
In a mixing bowl, beat the 1/4 cup softened butter until it's creamy. Add the 1/2 cup of white sugar, powdered sugar, baking powder, salt, and cream of tartar until it's just mixed. Beat in the egg and the remaining 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Slowly beat in the milk. Add in the flour until it's just incorporated.
Spread the cookie dough mixture evenly in the pie crust. Get the saucepan, and slowly pour the syrup over the top. Sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture.
Cover the edges of the pie with foil or a pie shield; bake for 25 minutes. Remove the foil/shield. Continue to bake about 20 more minutes, until the top of the pie is puffed and golden brown--and looks like a snickerdoodle! Use the toothpick test in the middle of the pie to make sure it's done.
Cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. The leftovers are good cold, but are even better if warmed in the oven or toaster oven. Reheat a slice wrapped in aluminum foil at 375-degrees for about 10-12 minutes; it'll get warm through, and caramelize the top.
OM NOM NOM!
May 8, 2016
Sunday Quote is nervous about next weekend
“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.”
~Beatrix Potter
May 5, 2016
New Poem in Uncanny Magazine
Uncanny Magazine just published a poem of mine that is near and dear to my heart. “Deeper Than Pie” is about a granddaughter’s love for her grandmother… and pie. My own grandma is in her 90s, and I rejoice in every moment I get to spend with her on trips back home. I cannot take that time for granted. I channeled a lot of that emotion into “Deeper Than Pie.”
My poem wasn’t simply published online, either. It’s also included in Episode 10a of the Uncanny Podcast, sandwiched between an extraordinary story by Seanan McGuire and an interview with Seanan. (Oddly enough, I was featured in a Far-Fetched Fables Podcast with Seanan a while back, too! I greatly admire her work, so this trend leaves me rather awed.)
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May 4, 2016
Bready or Not: Chili Lime Mozzarella Sticks
Hot, melted cheese is one of the finest things in life. Add some flavor oomph and you have the perfect yumminess to stuff in your face.
The concept is simple: freeze cheese sticks. Wrap them in egg roll wrappers. Apply seasoning. Bake. Devour.
To boost this to another level, I recommend jalapeno mozzarella sticks. I was a little worried they might be too hot, but it turned out the flavor was very mild. DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THE CHEESE STICK.
The wrapping process is pretty easy. It gives directions on the back of the egg roll wrap package. However, don’t be like me and forget to brush water on the edges. (I think that’s why my wrappers leaked cheese. This can be categorized as a fantastic problem, because I then had to eat puddles of seasoned cheese off the aluminum foil. Darn.)
Modified from Carlsbad Cravings. First posted by me at the Holy Taco Church.
Bready or Not: Chili Lime Mozzarella Sticks
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These dressed-up mozzarella cheese sticks are delicious hot or cold!
24 mozzarella sticks (regular or jalapeno)
20ish egg roll wrappers (only 21-22 come in a pack, so count your wrappers and maybe double stick some rolls)
1/4 cup water
Chili Lime Olive Oil
1 tablespoon lime juice
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon onion powder or flakes
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Unwrap mozzarella sticks and freeze for 1-2 hours. Do this on wax paper so they don't stick.
Whisk together the chili lime olive oil ingredients in a small bowl while the oven preheats to 400 degrees.
Wrap your sticks. Follow the directions on the package or you can Google it. Be gentle so you don't tear the thin pastry, and do remember to brush water on the edges so that it seals. Note that you likely won't have 24 wrappers in the pack, so count them and be prepared to eat some naked cheese or do some double-wrapped versions.
Place the wrapped cheese on a baking rack placed on a foil-lined baking sheet. Stir the seasonings again (the spices will settle) and then brush the oil all over the cheese sticks. Use up all that good stuff.
Bake for 15 minutes at 400-degrees. Adjust the rack and broil for 3-5 minutes, or until golden, then flip them to broil the other side.
Eat up! They are amazing fresh--dip them in the oil in the pan. Serve with salsa or guac. Also, these things are amazing cold out of the fridge, if you happen to have any leftover.
OM NOM NOM!
May 3, 2016
Interview with Ruth Vincent, author of Elixir
I’m happy to welcome author Ruth Vincent! Her debut urban fantasy novel Elixir is out today from Harper Voyager Impulse. Be sure to read the excerpt–if you’re like me, you’ll order the whole book immediately after.
- Elixir is about a fairy P.I. in New York City. Is this is a setting you know personally?
Oh yes! New York City is my adopted hometown. I moved around quite a bit growing up, but NYC was the first place I ever consciously chose to live as an adult, and as such will always have a special place in my heart. (I currently live a short commute away on Long Island.) The city provides so many perfect scene settings for my urban fantasy series – from transforming the Times Square New Year’s Eve Ball Drop into a portal to the fairy realm, to the gritty walk-up apartment-shares in the outer boroughs (where 20-somethings like my characters could actually afford to live!) I find real New York far more fascinating than the way it’s typically portrayed in Hollywood, and I tried to accurately reflect the city as I know it, both its brutality and its sublimity, in my series.
- Do you have any favorite private investigators in literature or on TV?
I actually grew up without TV, because I went to Waldorf schools, so I have about an 18 year gap in my pop culture knowledge! While I may have missed some of TV’s most famous P.I’s, my favorite private investigator from literature still has to be Sherlock Holmes! (His role as a “consulting detective” is basically a P.I) As a child, I devoured every single Holmes story Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ever wrote!
Although I have never been a private investigator myself, I think my interest in that career got piqued at one of my previous day-jobs, where I worked as an investigative researcher conducting high-level background checks. I think that job altered the way I think, and made me perennially fascinated by the processes by which we find out information about other people. (Don’t worry, I no longer have access to those databases and am no longer in that field – I promise I won’t be looking you up!)
- I really enjoyed the excerpt from your book. I cared about Mab right away, and the hints about her changeling past–and her guilt–really intrigued me. How would you sum up her character at the start of the book?
Thank you so much! The story begins twenty-two years after my main character, Mab, got tricked by the Fairy Queen into becoming a changeling. At this point, she’s acclimated to the human world, and trying to make the best of a life she never chose. However, she’s still needled by guilt, both for the human girl she unwittingly displaced, and for her human parents, who have no idea that Mab isn’t their real daughter (they think all her attempts to tell them the truth were a child’s game of make-believe.)
Mab’s “voice” was one of my favorite parts of writing this story. As a changeling, she’s in the human world but not of it, and her outsider’s perspective makes her simultaneously frustrated and fascinated by the human society into which she’s been thrust.
- Do you have a favorite type of fairy or famous fairy character, and do they perhaps make an appearance in your series?
I did background research on Celtic fairy folklore before writing Elixir (reading such works as W.Y. Evans-Wentz’s “The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries” etc…) but ultimately decided to make up my own mythologies!
However, I’ve always been fascinated by changeling stories, which is why changelings play such a big role in this series. Folklore is full of haunting tales of fairy-baby swaps, but the one thing all these old stories are largely silent on is why – why do the fairies want to take human children, and why would they leave one of their own behind?
I was familiar with the main theories on the origins of the changeling myth (that they’re actually memories of earlier inhabitants of Europe who were driven out by invaders, and switched their own sickly children with their conquerors’ healthy offspring, or that ‘changelings’ were an explanation for certain children’s developmental differences.) But I always found these explanations wanting – so I created my own explanation for changelings in ELIXIR.
- Well, Elixir is out today. What comes next for you?
Well, Elixir’s sequel, Book 2 in the Changeling P.I. series, will be coming out in October! I’m hard at work on it now! When I initially signed the contract, I had feared that writing a sequel would be difficult, however, I find I’m really enjoying it. Writing the second book in a series has given me the opportunity to dig deeper, go darker, and really delve into the complexity of my characters’ psyches. It’s been a pleasure to watch Mab and her love interest, Obadiah, grow as they grapple with some very complicated, morally ambiguous choices in Book 2.
I also have a wholly different manuscript, a gaslamp fantasy, going to submission with my agent. It’s also about fairies – though the Victorian variety. It was a lush, delicious world to build, with a narrative voice that I think (hope!) is both very period and yet immensely relatable. I’m excited to see where that story ends up!
Amazon | Barnes & Noble |Google Play | iBooks
About Ruth:
Ruth Vincent spent a nomadic childhood moving across the USA, culminating in a hop across the pond to attend Oxford. But wherever she wanders, she remains ensconced within the fairy ring of her imagination. Ruth recently traded the gritty urban fantasy of NYC for the pastoral suburbs of Long Island, where she resides with her roguishly clever husband and a cockatoo who thinks she’s a dog.Ruth Vincent is the author of the CHANGELING P.I series with HarperCollins Voyager Impulse, beginning with her debut novel, ELIXIR.
May 2, 2016
Free Public SFF Booksigning in Chicago May 13th
The Nebula Conference is a week and a half away (yikes!). I’ll be there Friday through Sunday, taking part in events at the conference and at BEA/BookCon not far away. My previous “visit’ to Chicago consisted of a switch between connecting flights at Midway Airport back in 2003, so I’m pretty excited to explore a city that I have seen on TV my entire life. The land of Oprah! And Navy Bootcamp!
But let’s get to the to-do that is mentioned in the topic. On Friday May 13th, there is a huge booksigning that is free and totally open to the public. Take a look at the image below to get an idea of the authors who will be present. I mean, wow. You can bring books or buy from a bookseller there. This will be awesome!
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