Beef and Sherry Casserole #recipe from Eris Field

Guest Post from Eris Field

If it is one of those times when you want the heady scent of something delicious cooking gently in the oven to welcome people coming home, go for labor-free, my fail-proof Beef and Sherry casserole, but add a surprise with the refreshing taste of a gremolata topping.

Warning: This dish creates powerful memory traces of pleasure.

BEEF and SHERRY CASSEROLE

1 ½ pound of chuck beef
1 can Campbell’s Golden Mushroom Soup
½ can of water
½ package of Lipton Onion Soup mix
½ can of good sherry, use the one you drink and have a glass before dinner.

Preheat oven to 325°F

Cut the beef into bite size pieces, about ¾ of an inch, (no browning thank goodness). Lay meat in a Dutch Oven. Stir in the other ingredients, cover, and then bake for 2 ½ hours.

GREMOLATA

Photo by Popo le Chien

¼ cup finely chop parsley, flat parsley is better but curly is good too
2 tbsp. coarsely grated lemon rind
2 garlic cloves, crushed

Mix these ingredients together. Cover tightly and refrigerate until needed.

Serve the casserole over cooked noodles or rice. Or add cooked baby white potatoes, tiny boiled onions, and mushrooms at the last minute to cooking the beef and heat through.

Top the dish by sprinkling the gremolata.

This recipe serves four but can be doubled and the cooking time increased to 3 hours.

In my contemporary novel, No Greater Love, on a snowy evening in Western New York, Janan adds gremolata to a casserole of lamb shanks and serves it to the man she has just fallen in love with. Here’s a little more about their turbulent romance.

Janan, orphaned at age eight by an earthquake in Turkey and adopted by an American couple in a small town in Western New York has grown into a beautiful woman, a Circassian beauty. She dreams of having a home of her own, a home with love, but spends her time working as a nurse and looking after her family that includes an elderly, honorary uncle, Carl who had been sent as a child from Leiden to escape Nazi deportation of Dutch-Jews and now yearns to go home.

Jilted once, Dutch child psychiatrist Pieter has retreated from life and devotes himself to caring for the child refugees flooding into Amsterdam. Now, struggling with late-onset leukemia, he travels to New York for a second opinion and to visit his old friend and mentor, Carl. At Carl’s home, he meets Janan and feels love again.

Janan recognizes Pieter as the man of her dreams. Believing that love is passing her by and knowing that Pieter will be gone in the morning, she asks him for one night. Pieter introduces Janan to the purposes and outcomes of each of eight magical kisses and vows to himself to overcome his illness and return a well man.

Later, alone and facing complications of pregnancy, Janan accepts an unusual offer of help even though it may destroy her chances of finding happiness.

AMAZON BUY LINK

Eris Field was born in the Green Mountains of Vermont—Jericho, Vermont to be precise—close by the home of Wilson Bentley (aka Snowflake Bentley), the first person in the world to photograph snowflakes. She learned from her Vermont neighbors that pursuit of one’s dream is a worthwhile life goal.

As a seventeen year old student nurse at Albany Hospital, Eris met a Turkish surgical intern who told her fascinating stories about the history of Turkey, the loss of the Ottoman Empire, and forced population exchanges. After they married and moved to Buffalo, Eris worked as a nurse at Children’s Hospital and at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

After taking time off to raise five children and amassing rejection letters for her short stories, Eris earned her master’s degree in Psychiatric Nursing at the University at Buffalo. Later, she taught psychiatric nursing at the University and wrote a textbook for psychiatric nurse practitioners—a wonderful rewarding but never to be repeated experience.

Eris now writes novels, usually international, contemporary romances. Her interest in history and her experience in psychiatry often play a part in her stories. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America and the Western New York Romance Writers. In addition to writing, Eris’s interests include: Prevention of Psychiatric Disorders; Eradicating Honor Killings, supporting the Crossroads Springs Orphanage in Kenya for children orphaned by AIDS, and learning more about Turkey, Cyprus, and Kurdistan.

Learn more about Eris Field on her website. Stay connected on Facebook.

Sneak in one more picnic this fall #romance #picnics

Picnic Power
Guest Post by Eris Field

Picnics have long been known to have the power to move wooing to marriage. Wooing or courting is different from dating. It is the process by which one person, having decided that he/she has found an acceptable life partner, convinces the other person that they should forsake all others and move forward toward marriage.

In the past, a certain hierarchy of enticements was used by a gentleman wooing a lady. Love letters written in perfect penmanship on personal stationery was often the opening salvo. Unlike email or text messages, letters could be stroked, sniffed, hidden in bodices, tucked under pillows, and read repeatedly by candlelight.

Photo by John Kasawa

Candy and flowers followed. Boxes of candy—carefully selected candies nestled in elaborately decorated boxes were delivered to the lady with a brief message written on a card. The language of flowers was carefully studied so that the right message would be conveyed by the bouquet.

While letters, candy, and flowers were effective, they took time. A gentleman determined to marry, and soon, pulled out the heavy artillery—the picnic. Picnics have two elements—seeming innocence and surprise. The gentleman would not disclose the destination or the contents of the picnic basket. Please note it was a basket not a cooler, Styrofoam chest, backpack, or plastic bag from the deli. The gentleman carried a blanket over one arm that had the purpose of keeping grass stains off the lady’s dress and the picnic basket over the other arm.

Contents of the basket included the essentials: a bottle or two of wine, two glasses, napkins, and delicious food that was usually not encountered at regular meals and so had a slightly forbidden quality. Tempting items included: crisp bread or rolls, cheeses (Brie, Gruyere, Provolone or Jarlsberg), thinly sliced smoked turkey, cold fried chicken, prosciutto, Lebanon salami, hard boiled eggs, olives, nuts, and fruits. The basket always held the lady’s favorite dessert.

Picnic settings, with careful planning, were private and, with the blanket, fairly comfortable. The wine was crisp and the food delicious. In fact, over time it was found that a properly planned picnic had a fairly strong correlation with marriage.

In my contemporary novel, The Gift of Love, psychiatrist Andrew, in a hurry to convince Laurel to marry him, finds himself using his elderly Aunt’s courting instructions, including the picnic.

Laurel, a slightly impulsive pediatric nurse who spent her early years in foster care, dreams of having a family of her own—six children, no men in the dream. Laurel doesn’t just dream, she has a plan—stop her stepsister’s compulsive hoarding, clear out the mountains of paper engulfing every room, and sell the old house that is pushing her toward bankruptcy. As a last resort, she raids her retirement fund to go to a conference on the newest treatments for compulsive hoarding.

Andrew, a psychiatrist, is never impulsive. A reticent, somewhat austere man, he limits his interactions with people to his work. About to leave for the conference where he has agreed to fill in for a colleague, he suddenly finds himself the reluctant caretaker of a two and a half year old boy.

When they first meet, a series of unfortunate events cause Laure to view Andrew as arrogant, rude, but disturbingly attractive, while Andrew to view Laurel as a dangerous distraction to be avoided. Faced with a crisis, they are forced work together, but will they be able to put aside their protective armor and trust each other enough to let love in?

Amazon Buy Link

Eris Field was born in the Green Mountains of Vermont—Jericho, Vermont to be precise—close by the home of Wilson Bentley (aka Snowflake Bentley), the first person in the world to photograph snowflakes. She learned from her Vermont neighbors that pursuit of one’s dream is a worthwhile life goal.

As a seventeen year old student nurse at Albany Hospital, Eris met a Turkish surgical intern who told her fascinating stories about the history of Turkey, the loss of the Ottoman Empire, and forced population exchanges. After they married and moved to Buffalo, Eris worked as a nurse at Children’s Hospital and at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

After taking time off to raise five children and amassing rejection letters for her short stories, Eris earned her master’s degree in Psychiatric Nursing at the University at Buffalo. Later, she taught psychiatric nursing at the University and wrote a textbook for psychiatric nurse practitioners—a wonderful rewarding but never to be repeated experience.

Eris now writes novels, usually international, contemporary romances. Her interest in history and her experience in psychiatry often play a part in her stories. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America and the Western New York Romance Writers. In addition to writing, Eris’s interests include: Prevention of Psychiatric Disorders; Eradicating Honor Killings, supporting the Crossroads Springs Orphanage in Kenya for children orphaned by AIDS, and learning more about Turkey, Cyprus, and Kurdistan.

Learn more about Eris Field on her website. Stay connected on Facebook.

Dining Turkish Style: #menu and #recipe from Eris Field

Guest Post from Eris Field

Kadin Budu Kofte or Ladies Thighs are a delightfully different meatball and each Turkish grandmother has a special recipe. In my novel, Lattices of Love, the heroine, Emine, kicks a hole in the lattices formed by her Turkish grandmother’s harem rules refusing to marry the man her grandmother has chosen, but, she discovers that it is not easy to gain the love of the man she chooses instead. She goes into battle with the ammunition at her disposal. For the first round, she uses the recipe for her grandmother’s famous Kadin Budu Kofte.

For a delicious summer meal, try Kadin Budu Kofte and roasted layered vegetables topped with Cucuk, a Turkish dish of yogurt and diced Persian cucumbers.

Make the Layered Vegetables and Cucuk first. Let them stand while you make the meat balls.

Kadin Budu Kofte
1 cup cooked rice, cooled
1½ pound ground lamb, or beef, or a mixture of lamb and beef
1 medium yellow onion, chopped fine
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
3 ounces of a soft white cheese grated (any soft white cheese)
1 tbsp. dill, chopped
½ cup parsley, chopped
1 egg, beaten

Mix the ingredients together in a medium-size bowl. Knead until the mixture is a smooth paste.
Shape into egg shaped meat balls and place on a rimmed plate.

Pour the egg over the meat balls.

Fry them in medium-hot vegetable oil until done. Turn to brown all sides. Cook 6 minutes or so. You want them done but not dried out.

Layered Vegetables
1 medium red onion, chopped coarsely
1 slender eggplant, cut into ½ inch cubes
1 yellow pepper, cut into ½ inch cubes
1 red pepper, cut into ½ inch cubes
1 slim zucchini, cut into ½ inch cubes leave skin on
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp. dried oregano or dried thyme
½ tsp. salt
⅛ tsp. red pepper

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Scatter onion in a shallow baking dish. Add the remaining vegetables and the garlic.

Sprinkle olive oil, your herb of choice, salt and red pepper over the vegetables. Gently toss together.

Bake for 45 minutes, stirring once after 20 minutes.

Cucuk
2 cups yogurt
2 Persian cucumbers (small cucumbers) or ½ an English cucumber, leave the skin on and diced fine
½ tsp salt
Olive oil
Chives, chopped

Put two cups of yogurt into a serving bowl. Stir until smooth. Add the cucumber and salt. Mix well.

Just before serving, drizzle olive oil over the top and add chives. Cucuk is served at room temperature and a spoonful is placed on the top of the baked vegetables.

Here’s a little from Lattices of Love for you.

Emine Wheeler, a 26-year-old Turkish-American professor of psychiatric nursing, has vowed to marry for love, like her American father. When she meets Marc van Etten, a reticent Dutch psychiatrist, at a conference in Amsterdam, she recognizes him as the man she has been waiting for and knows that she can’t live behind the lattices of old harem rules any longer.

Marc, who believes that his colleagues blame him for his wife's suicide, restricts his life to work and caring for the troubled four-year-old girl he calls his daughter. But, when Emine runs into difficulties, he offers his assistance. Emine, ignoring the age-old harem rule that forbids talking or spending time with a man who is not a family member, accepts his help.

Later, when Emine must choose between accepting the family-approved proposal of a man she does not love or damaging her family's honor, Marc offers a solution—marriage. It will save her family’s honor and provide a mother for his daughter.

Believing that her fierce love for Marc will be enough, Emine agrees, only to discover that it is not. When Marc erroneously accuses her of betraying him, she flees. Realizing belatedly that he loves Emine beyond everything in his life, Marc must find a way to win her back.

Amazon Buy Link

Eris Field was born in the Green Mountains of Vermont—Jericho, Vermont to be precise—close by the home of Wilson Bentley (aka Snowflake Bentley), the first person in the world to photograph snowflakes. She learned from her Vermont neighbors that pursuit of one’s dream is a worthwhile life goal.

As a seventeen-year-old student nurse at Albany Hospital, Eris met a Turkish surgical intern who she later married. He told her fascinating stories about the history of Turkey, about the loss of the Ottoman Empire, and about forced population exchanges. After they married and moved to Buffalo, Eris worked as a nurse at Children’s Hospital and at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

After taking time off to raise five children and amassing rejection letters for her short stories, Eris earned her master’s degree in Psychiatric Nursing at the University at Buffalo. Later, she taught psychiatric nursing at the University and wrote a textbook for psychiatric nurse practitioners—an endeavor requiring a great deal of hard labor.

Eris now writes novels, usually international, contemporary romances. Her interest in history and her experience in psychiatry often play a part in her stories. She is a member of the Romance Writers of America and the Western New York Romance Writers. In addition to writing, her interests include Honor Killings, eradicating female genital mutilation, supporting the Crossroads Springs Orphanage in Kenya for children orphaned by AIDS, and learning more about the old cities of the world.

Learn more about Eris Field on her website. Stay connected on Facebook.