Charlotte Denver Cozy Mystery Box Set
Page 63
After 15 minutes the rice will be part-cooked. At this point, pour in the rest of the stock and add the chicken thighs back to the pan along with the peas, prawns, and the mussels and squid if you are using them. Push the prawns and the mussels well into the rice.
Cover the pan and cook for 10 minutes more, after which time the rice should be al dente, the chicken thighs cooked through, the prawns perfectly pink and the mussels open. NOTE: If you are using mussels, please discard any that remain closed at the end of the cooking time.
When the paella has finished its cooking time, remove the pan from the heat, cover with a lid (or foil or a clean tea towel) and leave to rest for five minutes.
Then decorate with chopped parsley and lemon wedges and serve from the cooking pan.
NOTE: If you don't like shellfish, you can replace it with pork, white fish, extra chicken, sausage, or whatever you like.
Grandma Doris’s Boiled Fruit Cake
Ingredients
2 medium eggs, beaten
1 cup sugar
8 oz butter or margarine
1½ cups dried, mixed fruit of your choice, plus ½ cup dried (or glacé) cherries or cranberries
1 cup water
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
½ teaspoon mixed spice
1 cup plain flour
1½ cups self-raising flour
Method
Place fruit (except the cherries or cranberries), sugar, butter and water into a saucepan of cold water, bring to a boil and cook for five minutes.
After five minutes, transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl to cool.
When cool, add the bicarbonate of soda, mixed spice and beaten eggs to the mixture and mix everything together.
Fold in the flour, a spoonful at a time, before adding the cherries or cranberries.
Line and lightly grease a seven inch baking tin and pour the mixture into it
Bake in the middle of a preheated oven at 325ºF/170ºC/Gas 3, for 1 - 1¼ hours, or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.
Allow to cool before slicing.
Charlotte’s Chicken Casserole with Dumplings
Serves four to six people
Ingredients
1 whole chicken, jointed into eight pieces
6 rashers of smoked bacon, chopped
25g/1oz butter
225g/8oz whole baby onions, peeled
1 teaspoon mixed herbs or a bouquet garni of thyme, bay leaves, peppercorns, rosemary sprigs and a celery stalk
800ml/27 fl oz chicken stock
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 medium onions, peeled and chopped
2 leeks, washed and sliced
3 large carrots, chopped
2 potatoes, peeled and chopped
2 bay leaves (use these even if you are using a bouquet garni)
Salt and pepper to season
Chopped parsley to garnish
For the dumplings
250g/8 ½ oz self-raising flour
125g/4 ¼ oz cold butter, straight from the fridge
100ml/3 fl oz cold water
Method
Preheat your oven to 170ºC/325ºF/Gas mark 3)
Heat the oil in a large cast-iron casserole dish, or frying pan, and fry the chicken pieces, in batches, until brown. Transfer them to a plate.
Gently fry the bacon pieces in the same pan and then put them on the plate with the chicken.
Add the butter to the oil in the casserole and gently cook the onions until they become soft and golden brown.
Add the chicken and bacon back to the casserole.
Add the carrots, leeks, potatoes, bay leaves, herbs or bouquet garni and chicken stock to the dish and season well.
Cover with a lid and put into the centre of the preheated oven to cook for 40 minutes.
While the casserole is cooking, make the dumplings as follows:
Put the self-raising flour into a mixing bowl with a pinch of salt.
Coarsely grate the cold butter and rub it together with the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Add the cold water to the flour and butter and mix together gently until you form a ball of dough. NOTE; Don’t knead the dough too vigorously, or the dumplings will be tough. The ingredients only need a gentle bringing together with your hands until they’re all combined.
Divide the dough into twelve and roll into balls.
At the end of the 40 minutes cooking time, carefully take the casserole from the oven and place the dumplings on top.
Replace the lid and return the casserole to the oven for a further 30 minutes, after which, the dumplings should be cooked through and fluffy and the chicken, meltingly tender.
Sprinkle with freshly chopped parsley and serve.
Big Al’s Burgers
Serves four very hungry people
Ingredients
800g/1lb chuck steak mince, coarsely ground. NOTE; I’ve found that between 25% and 30% fat content in the meat makes the tastiest, juiciest burgers—even if you like them very well done—and it helps them stay together. If you can, ask your butcher to mince the chuck steak for you. If you can’t, you can buy ready minced meat
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 anchovy fillets from a can or a jar (secret ingredient)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil to mash the anchovies in
110g/4oz mature cheddar cheese, grated
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons vegetable oil for frying
4 burger buns
Mayonnaise, ketchup and/or mustard and sliced tomatoes, lettuce and pickles to serve, if required
Method
Divide the cheese into four and form into balls. Put into the fridge until needed.
Put the anchovy fillets into a small bowl with one tablespoon of the vegetable oil. Mash them with a spoon until they break up and ‘dissolve’ into the oil.
Place the minced meat into a large bowl.
Drizzle the anchovy/oil mix evenly over the meat and add the chopped onion and salt and pepper. NOTE; you won’t need as much salt as you may normally add because the anchovies are quite salty.
Mix everything together with your hands—it’s a little messy but it’s the best way to combine all the ingredients.
Divide the mince mixture into four and form into flat patties, making sure to leave a well in the middle.
Put a cheese ball into each well and mould the meat around it until all the cheese is covered.
Flatten the burgers a little with your hands or with a fish slice.
Heat the remaining vegetable oil in a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and brown the burgers on both sides.
Keeping an eye on them, cook the burgers gently for between twenty-five and thirty minutes, flipping a couple of times during cooking. NOTE; If you have a pan with a heatproof handle, you can cook the burgers in the oven which has been preheated to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas 4, if you prefer, but don’t forget to use an oven glove to take the pan out!
When the burgers are cooked to your liking, slice the buns and spread each half with mayonnaise, ketchup or mustard. Add the burger and fill the buns with additional ingredients if required before serving.
Note from Sherri Bryan
Thank you for downloading a copy of this box set, which I hope has given you a real taste of the Charlotte Denver Cozy Mystery Series.
I hope you enjoyed the books. If you did, I’d love to hear from you, and constructive criticism is also welcome!
Although these books have been proofread and edited more times than I can recall, there may still be the odd mistake within their pages. If you should come across one, I’d be grateful if you could let me know so I can put it right.
Also, if you’d just like to get in touch to say hello, that’d be great! I’ll get back to you as soon as I can but apologies in advance if there’s a bit of a wait. I answer every email personally and, sometimes, it can take a while if I have a few to read and reply to.
You can contact me by email at sherri@sherribryan.com, on Twitter @sbryanauthor or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/sherribryanauthor.
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Thanks again for taking an interest in my books. I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of the Charlotte Denver Cozy Mystery series.
Sending you best wishes, and wishing you very happy reading,
Sherri.
About Sherri Bryan
Sherri lives in southern Spain with her husband and their beloved rescue dog.
She's an avid people watcher (aka nosy), and loves to write relateable characters she hopes readers will love, and plots that will have them scratching their heads as they try to figure out whodunnit.
She currently has two series, with more books in each on the way, and all her stories have twists she hopes readers won't see coming, and happy heartwarming endings.
When she's not tapping away on her laptop, you'll most likely find her in the kitchen cooking up something experimental; playing with the dog; curled up with a book; watching crime dramas, or dreaming up new mystery plots.
Acknowledgements
A huge virtual hug, and a heartfelt thank you, to everyone who has followed the Charlotte Denver series from the beginning and without whom, there would only be a book one.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, and publisher, of this piece of work, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews
This is a work of fiction. All characters (apart from one), businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination, or are used in an entirely fictitious manner.
Whilst I have tried to be accurate throughout, for dramatic purposes, my imagination may have called for actual facts and procedures to be slightly ‘skewed’ from time to time, and I hope this will not detract from your enjoyment of the story.
Any other resemblance to organizations, actual events or actual persons (apart from one), living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published by Sherri Bryan - Copyright ©2019