Dining with Angels: Bits & Bites from the Demonica Universe
Page 4
1 teaspoon salt
1 deep dish pie crust
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 cup green onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon pepper
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with paper towels and place tomatoes in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt to remove excess juice. Bake pie crust for 10 minutes. In a medium bowl, mix together the sharp cheddar cheese, mozzarella cheese, grated Parmesan and mayonnaise. Firmly press the tomatoes with paper towels to soak up juice then place them in the bottom of the pie crust and top with basil, green onion, minced garlic and pepper. Then spread the cheese mixture evenly across the tomato filling. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to rest for 10 minutes before slicing.
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Larissa’s Sinful Twist
5-6 Roma tomatoes, sliced
1 1/4 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon celery salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (or to taste)
1 deep dish pie crust
1 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped
1/4 cup green onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Green Olive Tapenade (Click here for recipe.)
3 teaspoons Frank’s Red Hot Sauce or tabasco
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with paper towels and place tomatoes in a single layer. Sprinkle with ¾ teaspoon celery salt to remove excess juice. Bake pie crust for 10 minutes. In a medium bowl, mix together the 3 cheeses, mayonnaise, garlic, hot sauce, Worcestershire, and red pepper flakes. Firmly press the tomatoes with paper towels to soak up juice then place them in the bottom of the pie crust and top with basil, green onion, ¼ teaspoon celery salt, and black pepper. Then spread the cheese mixture evenly across the tomato filling. Reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. Top with Green Olive Tapenade.
Green Olive Tapenade
¼ cup olive oil
1 tablespoon capers, drained
1 clove garlic
1 cup green olives
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
½ cup green olives stuffed with pimentos
Place all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until coarsely chopped. If you don’t have a food processor, mince garlic and olives, and then stir all ingredients together.
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Pumpkin Spice Loaf with Spiced Icing
1 cup sugar
1 (8 count) can flaky layer biscuits
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 can pumpkin filling
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, melted
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray 9 x 5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. On a large plate, mix together sugar and pumpkin pie spice. In a separate bowl add the butter. Separate dough into 8 biscuits. Separate each biscuit into 2 layers, making a total of 16 biscuit rounds. Dredge each biscuit in the melted butter, then dip each side into the sugar mixture. On a second large plate, place 4 biscuit rounds a time. Top with 1-2 tablespoons of pie filling. Stack biscuits in 4 piles of 4 biscuits each. Place stacks on their sides in a row in loaf pan, making sure sides without filling are on both ends touching pan. Bake 50 minutes or until loaf is deep golden brown and center is baked through. Cool 10 minutes. Top with Spiced Icing to serve.
Spiced Icing
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, softened
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
3 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
In a large bowl, using a hand mixer, combine butter, cream cheese, vanilla and pumpkin pie spice until blended. Add powdered sugar one cup at a time until all 3 cups are blended.
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Egg in a HellHole Avocado Toast
1 medium ripe avocado, peeled and seeded
2 tablespoons lime juice
2 tablespoons green onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 slices Texas toast
2 tablespoons butter
2 large eggs
In a medium bowl, add the avocado, lime juice, green onion, salt, and pepper. Coarsely mash the avocado with a fork and stir to combine, then cover with plastic wrap and set aside. Cut a 3-inch circle from the center of each bread slice with a cookie cutter or glass. In a large non-stick skillet, heat the butter over medium-low heat to melt. Add the bread and bread rounds, and cook until golden brown on the first side, about 1 to 2 minutes. Flip everything over, crack one egg into the hole of each piece of bread, and season eggs with salt and pepper. Cook until eggs are as set as desired, about 3 to 6 minutes. The bread rounds need to be removed after 2 minutes. Remove the egg in a hole from the skillet as soon as the egg is cooked to desired doneness. Evenly spread the avocado mixture over the bread and bread rounds and serve immediately.
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Maple Sausage and Waffle Casserole
8 frozen waffles
1 pound maple sausage, cooked and crumbled
1 cup cheddar cheese
6 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup maple syrup
Pinch of cinnamon
Maple syrup (for topping)
Tear waffles into bite size pieces and place half on the bottom of an 8 x 8-inch cake pan. Top with half of the sausage and half of the cheese. Repeat this process to finish building casserole. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, milk, syrup and cinnamon. Pour over casserole and cover. Refrigerate for at least an hour to overnight. Bake at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Serve with maple syrup, if desired.
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Breakfast Burrito
1 batch Fried Chicken Nuggets (Click here for recipe.)
1 batch Thin Pancakes (Click here for recipe.)
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese
1 batch Honey Sriracha Sauce (Click here for recipe.)
Place 3-4 chicken nuggets in the center of a thin pancake. Top with 1/4 cup cheddar cheese and Honey Sriracha Sauce. Fold into a burrito and enjoy.
Fried Chicken Nuggets
Oil for frying
6-8 boneless, skinless chicken breast tenders
3 cups flour
1 tablespoon seasoning salt
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
Heat oil in a deep fryer or Dutch oven to 350 degrees. Cut the chicken tenders into 1-inch chunks. Mix together the flour and seasoning salt. Then whisk together the eggs and milk. Place the chicken in the egg mixture. Dredge 6 chicken pieces at a time in flour, shaking off excess. Fry the chicken pieces in the oil until golden brown, about 4-6 minutes. Remove from oil and drain on a paper bag. Continue with remaining chicken.
Thin Pancakes (burrito)
2 eggs
1/2 tablespoon sugar
2 cups milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups flour
3-4 tablespoons butter
In a large bowl, beat together eggs and sugar. Add the milk, salt and flour and mix until smooth. Allow batter to rest for 10 minutes. In a large non-stick skillet, melt ½ tablespoon butter over medium heat. Pour 2-3 tablespoons of batter into the skillet and tilt skillet around so the batter spreads out to make a 6-7 inch pancake. Cook for 1 minute on each side or until golden brown. Remove from skillet and repeat with remaining batter. Makes 8-10 thin pancakes.
Honey Sriracha Sauce
> 1 cup honey
¼ cup mayonnaise
3 tablespoons sriracha
Add all ingredients to a small blender and mix on low for about 1 minute.
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Wraith and Serena
When Serena thought back on the highlights of her life, she always found that there were too many to list. Sure, there had been a lot of tragedy, but the good things far outnumbered the bad.
The day she’d become a vampire was one of the best. So was the day she bonded with her mate, Wraith, an incubus who also happened to be a vampire. And the day Wraith’s brother Shade brought them Wraith’s infant son, born in the hospital run by Wraith and his brothers. It didn’t matter that Serena hadn’t given birth to Talon, who they affectionately called Stewie. He was her son, and she’d loved every minute of her seven years of motherhood.
She and Wraith hadn’t explained the circumstances of Stewie’s birth to him yet, but they needed to do it soon, before he figured it out on his own. His world—and his knowledge base—was expanding thanks to the friends he’d made at the special academy for underworlder children in Switzerland. The academy, hidden in plain sight in a Bern neighborhood, was easily accessible via Harrowgates, making it just a ten minute walk from their house in New York.
Humans—and more importantly, The Aegis, a demon-slaying organization that made no distinction between good underworld beings and evil ones—believed the academy was an elite boarding school for rich kids, and so far, it had been a good fit for Stewie. Shade and Runa’s triplets and Eidolon and Tayla’s son went there as well, and Lore and Idess’s son would start next year.
Right now, though, Idess was on her way over to drop off little Mace for Serena to watch while Idess and Lore enjoyed a night out.
In fact, when Serena heard the front door open, she thought it might be Idess, but a moment later Wraith’s booming voice echoed through the house.
“Hey, sexy vampiress, I’m home!” He swept into the kitchen where she was making Stewie a snack, looking like sin and sex in a tall, blond package. In three strides he crossed the room and swept her into his arms. “Hello, mate.”
She laughed and gave him a kiss. “You’re in a good mood.”
He grinned, flashing fangs, his blue eyes twinkling. “That’s because I cured cancer today.”
“You.” She raised a skeptical eyebrow. Wraith liked causing medical maladies. Fixing them wasn’t his thing. “You cured cancer.”
“Hell, yeah. It’s a rare form of lunecarcinoma that affects werebears.” He released her and propped his hip against the counter, his stance relaxed, but inside he was always coiled tight with deadly energy, ready to leap into danger at a moment’s notice. “I mean, I found a clove in Sheoul last year that Eidolon turned into a treatment. But I did the important part.” He shot her his patented roguish wink and smirk that had drawn her in from the moment she met him all those years ago in Egypt.
“Daddy?” Stewie’s dark head popped up from the table, where he’d had his face buried in twelfth-grade science books. At seven, he had the reading comprehension of a high school senior and the career focus of a thirty-year-old.
Wraith pushed off the counter toward his son. “Hey, little dude. I didn’t even see you there. You doing homework?”
Stewie ignored the question and blurted out one of his own. “You cured cancer? For real?”
“Yes, he did,” Serena said as she turned back to the Mini Chicken Gyros she was going to taste test on Stewie before she made a few dozen of them for Cara’s upcoming baby shower. “Aren’t you proud of him?”
Stewie’s head bobbed excitedly. “You gonna be a doctor now? Uncle Eidolon would let you, I bet. He says they always need help at the hospital.”
“No way, kiddo.” Wraith ruffled Stew’s hair playfully. “Someone’s gotta find all the rare stuff your uncle needs to heal patients.”
Disappointment practically leaked out of Stew’s pores as he slumped back in his seat. “I guess.”
Stewie had worshipped Eidolon practically from the moment he was born, and he wanted to follow in his uncle’s footsteps. Nothing would make him happier than seeing his father do the same.
Wraith didn’t seem to notice Stew’s change of mood as he reached into the pocket of his favorite worn leather jacket. “Hey, I got something cool. Tickets to Monster Mash & Demon Trash this weekend. All species of underworlders battling it out in over a dozen themed arenas. Awesome, huh?”
Serena huffed, hands on her hips. “I thought we were going to talk about this first. You know I don’t like the violence.”
“Most of the time no one dies,” Wraith protested. “And it’s perfectly safe for spectators.”
“No thanks.” Stewie hunkered down with his books again. “Mom and Uncle Eidolon said I could watch a surgery this weekend.”
“Seriously?” Wraith shot her an accusatory look. “You think watching a bloody surgery is okay, but lion shifters versus Ragenor demons on an obstacle course is bad?”
Um...yes.
“The obstacle courses have moving, razor sharp blades, pools of lava, and bear traps.” She plated two gyros for Stewie and set aside the rest for Wraith and Mace. “The surgery Eidolon invited him to see is a minor outpatient procedure on a child, and E thought Stewie could comfort the boy.”
She felt Wraith’s heat on her back as he reached around her to snag a gyro. “Why would E do that?”
“To encourage Stewie’s interest in medicine.” She turned her head to give him a peck on the cheek. “Eidolon’s a doctor. It’s not like he’s teaching him how to be an assassin or something.”
Even the assassins in the family wouldn’t do that.
“Eidolon has his own kid to screw up,” Wraith muttered as he dipped his gyro into the bowl of tzatziki sauce she’d made earlier. “He needs to keep his surgical gloves off mine. Besides, Stewie is only seven. He’ll change his mind.”
“No I won’t,” Stew called out.
Wraith waggled his eyebrows at his son. “Just wait until your mom decides you’re old enough to go one on of our artifact hunts. It’s exciting. It’ll awaken your Indiana Jones spirit. You’ll see.”
Stewie rolled his eyes and looked back down at his books.
“Hey.” Serena held out the plate of gyros to Stewie. “Why don’t you take your snack to your room and clean it up before Mace gets here? I’ll bring you something to drink in a minute.”
Scowling, Stewie took the plate. “Why is he coming over? I don’t want to play with him. He’s a baby.”
“Listen to your mother.” Wraith palmed another gyro. “And your cousin is four. He’s not a baby.”
“He’s not my cousin.” Stewie slammed his book shut and shoved to his feet. “He’s my brother, and I hate him.”
“Stew!” Serena spun around from the cabinet she’d opened to get a cup. “That’s not nice. You don’t mean that.”
“Whatever,” Stewie muttered as he gathered his books and stormed out of the kitchen.
Wraith started after him, but Serena stopped him with a gentle grip on his forearm. “Let him go. I think he just needs time to process.”
“He’s known that Mace is his biological brother for a month.” Wraith frowned as he stared down the hall where Stew had gone. “He should have processed by now.”
She cringed as Stewie’s door slammed. He’d always had his father’s temper, but he’d never mistreated a door.
“He’s only seven,” she reminded Wraith. “I know he acts older in a lot of ways, but he is a child, and he figured out on his own that Mace is more than his cousin.”
Wraith sank heavily onto a barstool. “We explained how it happened when he asked us about it, though. He knows the whole thing about Lore being sterile. He said he understood.”
And what a fun conversation that had been. As a human, Serena had different ideas about parenting than Wraith, a sex demon did. She hadn’t been prepared for the rather frank way Wraith h
ad explained how he, Shade, and Eidolon had, with their mates’ help, “hand-mixed some baby batter” so Idess could conceive.
“But it’s like he blames me for something.” Wraith looked down at the dermoire on his arm, a series of glyphs every Seminus demon was born with, Stewie included. “He acts like he hates me lately.”
Serena wanted to tell Wraith he was wrong, but Stewie had been acting out a lot since he’d found out that Mace was his brother. Everyone had assured her it was just a phase, and she had to believe that, because she hated seeing Wraith and Stewie in pain.
“He just needs time.” She tenderly pushed a lock of his shoulder-length hair back from his handsome face, loving how he leaned into her touch. “He feels like we betrayed him by not telling him. He’ll come around.”
Wraith again looked down the hall after Stew. “I hope you’re right,” he said, but the troubled expression on his face said he didn’t think she was.
* * * *
Wraith spent the next two days trying to convince Stewie to go to Monster Mash & Demon Trash with him, but his son was dead set on spending the day at the hospital with Eidolon.
What the hell? How had Stew not inherited Wraith’s adventurous gene? Instead he’d gotten Eidolon’s starched sense of duty, and the more Wraith tried to bond with him, the more he pulled away. Serena kept insisting that Wraith needed to back off and let Stew come around on his own, but Wraith wasn’t exactly known for his patience.