Diane Chamberlain's Blog, page 7

Recipe of the Week: Simple Shrimp and Linguine

A shrimp recipe recently made the rounds on the Internet. Maybe you even made it. It’s a simple oven baked recipe that involved melting butter on a rimmed cookie sheet, then laying slices of lemon in the butter, and placing shrimp on top of the lemon. If you’d like to try this recipe yourself, just Google ‘shrimp’ ‘butter’ and lemon’, and I’m sure you’ll find it. I made it one time and served the shrimp on rice, but the rice was inedible because of bitterness that leeched out of the lemon skin. <>. (I must add that I only know of one other person who had this problem with the recipe and plenty who did not, but I wasn’t willing to take the risk again).

I decided to alter the recipe a bit, and now I’m totally in love with it. Here’s the altered version:

Simple Shrimp and Linguine

makes 2 large servings (John and Diane sized)

Ingredients

-12 to 16 ounces medium to large size shrimp (I usually buy frozen peeled (no tails!) and deveined shrimp and keep it on hand. So easy to thaw in a colander in 5 minutes under cold running water.

-1/2 stick butter

-1 clove garlic, crushed

-juice from one large lemon

-1/2 package Italian seasoning (I use Good Seasons Italian dressing seasoning)

-8 ounces linguine

-Parmesan cheese

Directions

-Heat oven to 350 degrees and put a big pot of water on to boil (for the linguine)

-Cover a large rimmed cookie sheet with foil (for easy cleanup)

-put the butter on the cookie sheet and melt it in the oven

-stir in the lemon juice and garlic, then lay the shrimp over it all. You don’t have to be neat about this.

-sprinkle the Italian seasoning over the shrimp

-Bake for about 15 minutes, depending on the size of the shrimp. Don’t overcook or the shrimp will be rubbery.

-5 minutes into the baking time for the shrimp, add the linguine to the water and boil for the recommended time.

-Drain the pasta and put it in a large serving bowl or two individual pasta bowls. Spoon the shrimp on top, then pour as much of the butter/lemon juice as you like over the linguine. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese to taste.

-Eat up, and let me know what you think!

 

 

 

 

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Story Weekend: The Taxi

I’m even giving you the title for your 100-word story this week! I’ll start it out with my own and hope you’ll join in.

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

 

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Easy Lo-Cal Ratatouille

Easy Lo-Cal Ratatouille and Variations

I’ve made ratatouille for decades, ever since my vegetarian days of long ago. In the past, I made it with lots of olive oil (eggplant positively drinks olive oil!) and lots of work. This is much easier and just as delicious. I’m on the 5:2 Fast Diet (I eat 500 calories on Mondays and Thursdays and “normally” the rest of the week. It’s a great lifestyle change. Google it if you’d like more information). Anyhow, this recipe is VERY low in calories. However, it’s also very low in protein, so if you want to eat it as a main dish and you can afford the calories, toss in an 8 ounce can of garbanzo beans (drained). Or you can serve it as a side dish to any meat, fish or foul. Or eat it my favorite way—stuffed into split pita bread with hummus. Yum!

(By the way, I have never ever gone to the trouble of salting an eggplant to get the bitterness out. I’ve probably cooked three hundred eggplants in my life and have only hit one that was too bitter to enjoy. I’d skip the salting.

Servings: Totally depends on how you’re using it.

Easy Lo-Cal Ratatouille
Ingredients

-1 large onion, cut into medium pieces

-1 clove garlic, crushed

-2 large peppers (I used yellow and red), cut into 1 inch pieces

-8 ounces sliced or quartered mushrooms (optional. I didn’t have any when I made the dish above)

-1 large eggplant, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks

-2 medium zucchinis halved lengthwise, then cut into half-inch pieces

-1 14.5 ounce can diced tomatoes with basil

-1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

-s and p, if you insist

-grated parmesan cheese for sprinkling

Directions

-Pour the itty bitty bit of olive oil into a large non-stick frying pan and spread it over the bottom with a brush

-saute the onions over medium heat until almost translucent. Stir often and watch the heat to keep from burning. The teeny amount of oil makes this a bit tricky, so be careful.

-add the garlic and give it a stir. You don’t want it to burn.

-add the peppers, mushrooms, eggplant, and zucchini and cook for a few minutes, stirring every once in a while. It looks like a ton, but it will cook down so don’t freak out.

-add the tomatoes, undrained, and the Italian seasoning

-cover and cook until everything’s tender and looking good

-dish it out and sprinkle with parmesan cheese

Enjoy!

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Story Weekend: Mentors

Do you have a mentor? Do you wish you did? Who would you choose? Or perhaps you’re a mentor yourself? Tell us a your mentor story. Thank you, reader Dana Crano for suggesting this weekend’s theme.

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

 

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Totally Yummy Beef Stew

Disclaimer: I’m not a cook. I know nothing about the science of cooking.  I do enjoy cooking if I have the time to plan, shop and put a recipe together, but that’s so rare. Wow, though, do I love to eat! That’s why I thought it would be fun to occasionally share my favorite recipes. I have no ego attached to my cooking, so feel free to suggest changes and improvements. Anything goes!

Totally Yummy Beef Stew

This is seriously good beef stew, even better the second day, so be sure to make a bunch. As to how many servings this makes…if you eat dainty little bowlfuls of stew, it would probably serve eight.  If you eat like John and I do, expect four servings, enough for two evenings of delicious stew. Serve it with biscuits or a crusty bread.

Ingredients

-3 pounds stew beef (OK, I guess this is chuck? I just grab stew beef at the grocery store when it looks good, which to me means cut into about 1 to 2 inch chunks, with very little fat I need to cut off.)

-Vegetable oil for browning (I use olive oil because I don’t have any vegetable oil. I know technically olive oil isn’t supposed to be used for browning because of the high temperature, but I don’t care)

-flour for dredging

-1/4 cup more flour

-s and p

-3 T butter

-2 medium onions

-2-3 cloves garlic, crushed (I have a few garlic presses, but this has become my favorite. So easy to use and clean)

-2 T tomato paste (when I open a can of tomato paste, I divide it into 2 T batches and freeze so I always have it on hand)

-1 ½ cups red wine

-5 cups low sodium beef broth

-5-6 medium potatoes (I’ve noticed most stew recipes call for russet potatoes, but I think they get too mushy. I prefer red, but last night I had yellow and used them with delicious results)

-6 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into chunks (I used a package of fat baby carrots and cut them in half)

-3 celery stalks, cut in 1 inch slices (if you happen to have any celery leaves, chop up a few and toss them in when you add the celery)

-1/2 tsp dried rosemary

-1/2 tsp dried thyme

-2 bay leaves

-a handful of chopped parsley (which I didn’t have, but which I think would have been the crowning glory)

Directions:

-In a large Dutch oven, heat enough oil to cover the bottom

-Dredge the chunks of beef in the flour and brown it well in the oil. You’ll probably have to do this in two batches. Remove the browned beef to a plate with tongs or a slotted spoon. You can salt and pepper at this time, but I don’t add them until later.

-Add the butter to the pot and heat it

-Saute the onions in the butter until they begin to turn translucent, 5-ish minutes

-Add the garlic and sauté, but don’t let it burn.

-Stir in the ¼ cup flour and mix it all up

-Add in the tomato paste and keep stirring for a few minutes

-Add the wine and deglaze. This is my favorite part. I love scraping up all the brown goodness from the bottom of the pan and watching the wine begin to thicken.  Simmer for a few minutes

-Add the broth, beef and herbs

-Bring to a simmer, cover and cook on low for at least an hour.

-Add the rest of the vegetables and continue simmering  for 30-45 minutes, until the veggies are tender.

-uncover and continue simmering, stirring occasionally until the liquid is the thickness you like. This is where John (finally) takes over. He likes his stew thick.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Story Weekend: It’s a Small World (and a giveaway)

Yes, Story Weekend is back! I’ve appreciated hearing from those of you who missed it. This weekend’s topic is “It’s a Small World” and I’ll start it off with my own story in the comment section to get things rolling. On Monday evening, 7pm EST, I’ll use a random number generator to pick one of your stories to win an audio book.

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

 

The post Story Weekend: It’s a Small World (and a giveaway) appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Why I can no Longer List my Top Ten Books of the Year (and a Giveaway)

For the past few Januarys, I’ve posted my ten favorite books of the previous year on my blog. Some of you have been asking me when I’d be posting my list for 2013 and I promised it would be “soon”. However, as I sat down to work on my list, I realized I can’t do it. Here’s why.

I have too many friends who are wonderful writers and who had great books published in 2013. That gives me a couple of dilemmas. Could listing the book of a friend appear to be promotion rather than a true statement of my love for the book? Worse, how do I list one friend’s book and not another’s?

I live in a geographic area rife with writers, and I connect with dozens of other writers at conferences, author events and through social media. After nearly thirty years in this business, I’m honored to say that I’m surrounded by friends and acquaintances who also happen to be phenomenal writers. And how I love their books!

So then I thought I would simply leave out the books of my closest friends. Have you tried sorting your friends by degree of closeness? Most challenging! ‘Is this person a friend or an acquaintance?’ Arggh. I finally realized the only way out of this conundrum was to skip making a list altogether.

This is where you can help. In your comments, I hope you’ll list your favorite books of 2013. Two, five, ten. It doesn’t matter how many. Please share them. On Wednesday at 9pm EST, I’ll use my random number generator to pick a commenter who will receive a hundred dollar gift certificate to his or her favorite bookstore, online or bricks and mortar, anywhere in the world.

I can’t wait to see your favorites!

The post Why I can no Longer List my Top Ten Books of the Year (and a Giveaway) appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Story Weekend: Money Pits (and a giveaway of an audio book)

I’m now the happy owner of my second beach condo, this one a three bedroom. They are both rentals, but we use them when we can and we looooooove being right on the ocean. This one was a tad dated and I knew I wanted to spruce it up a bit. My youngest stepdaughter, Caitlin, is an interior designer in California (check out her company, Symmetry Designs), and she asked if she could do the design work. That sounded like great fun, so of course I said yes. And as many of you know, my oldest stepdaughter is Brittany, aka Pretty Handy Girl–a professional do-it-yourself blogger. And my middle stepdaughter, Alana, is an architect, and while she wasn’t able to physically help out on this project, she’s contributing some of her beautiful photography for the walls. Of course, John’s photography will be well in evidence, too! So, as you can imagine, the “sprucing up” has turned into a complete gutting! It’s going to be so wonderful when we’re all finished with our contributions. The new floor is in (those tall things are the painted closet doors, waiting to be reinstalled, and the dog is Brittany’s sweet Buddy). My job has been mainly to pay the credit card bill. Yikes! (I know I went over my word count, but I’m excited!!)

So what’s your Money Pit story? Monday evening, I’ll randomly select one commenter to receive her (or his) choice of one of my audio books.

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve been contributing. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

 

The post Story Weekend: Money Pits (and a giveaway of an audio book) appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Story Weekend: Acting (and a Giveaway of a Large Print Edition of Necessary Lies)

As a kid, I always wanted to be an actress. My friend Joyce and I would practice a scene from the movie The Bells of St Mary’s, in which the priest (Bing Crosby) tells the nun (Ingrid Bergman) that she has leukemia, and she cries (with relief, because of the storyline). Joyce and I would sob, certain we’d be great actresses one day. As it turned out, I was way too shy, soft-voiced, and anxious to ever make it on stage even in grade school, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming. (note: If you’ve read my novel Secret Lives, the scene I describe above may be familiar to you, since it inspired the same behavior in my character Eden in that novel. Eden, though, did indeed go on to be a star).

So how about you? Everyone has an acting story, I’m sure of it. What’s yours? (By the way, I just received a couple of large print editions of Necessary Lies and will randomly choose one commenter to receive one of them!)

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve been contributing. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

 

The post Story Weekend: Acting (and a Giveaway of a Large Print Edition of Necessary Lies) appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Birth Control Craziness

I lost my virginity at the age of eighteen.

I loved the boy; in retrospect I can’t imagine why. Still, I was head-over-heels smitten, the sort of smitten that had me sketching his picture in my notebooks and skipping classes to be with him. I hadn’t completely lost my mind, however: I knew I didn’t want to get pregnant. I needed to get The Pill.

The year was 1968 and the pill had only been approved for use as birth control a few years earlier. Nervously, I made an appointment with a gynecologist in my small college town and endured the embarrassment of my first pelvic exam. As I sat up afterward, trying to cover myself with the crinkly paper sheet, I told him I wanted the pill.

He slowly shook his balding head.

“You’re a pretty girl,” he said. “You need to put the mistake you’ve already made behind you and wait until you’re married.”

Needless to say, I didn’t get the pill that day and I learned from talking to other young women that his response was common. That conversation was much on my mind as I wrote my new novel, Necessary Lies, set in 1960 North Carolina. My protagonist Jane, a soon-to-be-married social worker, requests the new birth control pill at her “premarital exam”–something else that used to be common. She’s turned down by the doctor who tells her he’ll prescribe it after she’s married . . . if her husband calls with his permission.

Her experience sets the stage for the rest of the story, which has a lot to do with who had the power over child bearing in North Carolina half a century ago. As a naïve and idealistic social worker, Jane is put in contact with women, men and children who are slated to be sterilized because of perceived or real mental illness, retardation or epilepsy. It’s one thing for Jane to hear about the state’s sterilization program in the abstract, but when she realizes the toll it might take on her client Ivy, an endearing fifteen-year-old girl she’s come to care about, she knows she must take action, and that her action will cost her dearly.

While the forced sterilization program truly existed, it only forms the landscape for Necessary Lies. It’s Jane and Ivy’s story that I hope will touch you the most and that will leave you wondering, “What would I do in their place?”

Sometimes I think back to that gynecologist I saw when I was so young and unsure of myself. Maybe he was right. Maybe his advice to wait was sound and wise. But I remember thinking as I got dressed after the exam, my cheeks red with humiliation and anger, that it wasn’t his decision to make. It’s that idea that drives Necessary Lies. I’ve loved hearing from those of you who’ve already read the book, and I look forward to hearing from more of you soon!

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