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Ten days ago, Amy M. Bennett, author of the Black Horse Campground mystery series, wrote about imbuing her books with local flavor. As a follow up, here are three of her New Mexican recipes that appear frequently in her books.

 

In the Black Horse Campground mysteries, campground owner, Corrie Black, hosts an enchilada dinner on alternate Fridays at the campground.

RED ENCHILADAS

This is Corrie’s recipe for red chili enchiladas, as handed down to her from her mother, who was born and raised in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Corrie uses whole dried chili pods, but the frozen puree is easier and just as good!

Red chili sauce for enchiladas:

2 containers (14 oz. each) Bueno brand frozen red chili puree, thawed (I use one hot and one mild, just to balance it, but be as daring or cautious as you please!)

2 tablespoon oil

4 tablespoon flour

2 containers of water (14 oz. each); or 1½ containers if you prefer a thicker sauce

4 cloves garlic, minced

½ teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon salt

 

Heat oil in large pot over medium-high heat. Add garlic and flour and stir to make a roux, about two minutes or until golden brown. Add chili puree and water gradually, stirring well after each addition to eliminate lumps. Add oregano and salt and stir, bringing it to a boil. Reduce heat and let simmer for 20-25 minutes while you prepare the rest of the ingredients.

2 dozen corn tortillas (Any brand is fine, as long as the tortillas are not too thick.)

4 cups shredded mild or sharp cheddar or Monterey jack cheese

1 cup finely chopped onion

Oil

NOTE: Corrie and I both hate to clean up a big mess, so we usually tape sheets of aluminum foil to the walls and cabinets above the stove where we are making the enchiladas. Clean up is easy!

Pour sauce into a shallow pan and allow to cool slightly. Set up a large skillet or griddle (with a raised edge) on a burner over low heat, oil it well, and allow it to warm up. Mix cheese and onions together (or you can keep them separate) and have handy. Dip each tortilla into the chili sauce. Let excess drip off tortilla, then fry briefly in the oiled skillet, about 5 minutes for each side until they sizzle. (You will be thankful you lined the walls and cabinets with foil!) If the skillet is big enough, you can do three at a time. Remove to a large shallow pan and roll up a good-sized pinch (sorry, this is best measure I can think of!) of the cheese and onion mix evenly in each tortilla. Lay the rolled up tortillas side by side in a baking dish. When all the tortillas are fried, filled, rolled, and placed in the pan, drizzle the remaining sauce evenly over the enchiladas; then sprinkle the leftover cheese and onions over them as well. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes (just to heat through and melt the cheese). Serve with rice and beans. Top with sour cream if the heat is too much for you!

Makes 8 servings of three enchiladas each.

 

BONNEY COUNTY POSOLE (RED OR GREEN)

Posole is a traditional New Mexican stew made with pork, hominy, and chili (not to be confused with menudo!) and is often used to serve a crowd at church or community gatherings. You can use either red or green chile, pork or chicken, and the variations are given below. Serve with white bolillo or French rolls.

2 cans (29 oz. each) white hominy, drained (I know, I know, but this is faster than the traditional kind!)

2 quarts water

3 lbs. pork (for red) or chicken (for green), cut in 1-inch cubes

1 medium onion, chopped

1 or 2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 to 2 cups chopped green chile, roasted and peeled, to taste

OR

1 to 2 cups red chile sauce, to taste (see recipe for Corrie’s red enchiladas)

Optional: 1 can (16 oz.) chopped tomatoes (for green chile)

finely diced radishes and thinly shredded cabbage (for red chile)

 

Combine water, pork or chicken, onion, and garlic and bring to a boil. Boil about one hour or until meat is done. (At this point, you can cool and chill the soup overnight, if you want to remove the hardened fat from the top.) Add hominy and chili (usually green for chicken, red for pork, but there’s no law that says you can’t switch it around!). If you want to cut the heat from the green chili, add the tomatoes. Serve the red chili posole with a garnish of radish and cabbage.

Serves 12.

 

MIGAS

What do you serve a couple of hungry, tired lawmen on short notice? In my third Black Horse Campground mystery, No Vacancy, Corrie whips up her favorite comfort food for Rick and J.D. While traditionally served for breakfast or brunch, migas make a great quick supper as well!

2 tablespoons oil

4 corn tortillas, cut in half and then crosswise into ¼ inch strips

1/3 cup chopped onion

1 or 2 chopped or sliced fresh jalapeno or serrano peppers, with stem, seeds, and vein removed

3 eggs, beaten with a splash of milk, salt and pepper to taste

½ cup shredded cheddar cheese

 

Heat oil in skillet over medium heat and add the tortilla strips. Fry until almost golden. When they are starting to crisp, add the onion and jalapeno or serrano. Fry until tortilla strips are crispy, then add beaten eggs. Stir gently until eggs are almost at the desired doneness, then remove from burner. Sprinkle cheese over top and cover skillet until cheese is melted. Serves one, but you can double the recipe if you have a big enough skillet!

Oak Tree Press PR Director par excellence Jeana Lynn Lomprez just let me know CHANUKAH GUILT is now available on Nook. Buy early and often:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/chanukah-guilt-ilene-schneider/1100069857?ean=2940157769185

I always enjoy hosting guest blogs by fellow Oak Tree Press writers. And not only because it saves me from having to come up with a topic, but because their posts are just as entertaining and enjoyable as their books.

Amy Bennett’s debut mystery novel, End of the Road, started as a National Novel Writing Month project in 2009. It went on to win the 2012 Dark Oak Mystery Contest and launched the Black Horse Campground mystery series. It was followed by No Lifeguard on Duty and No Vacancy, both of which have been awarded the Catholic Writers Guild Seal of Approval. At the Cross Road is the fourth book in the series. (Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page to read a description of and excerpt from At the Cross Road+.)

When not sitting at the laptop actively writing, Amy works full-time at Walmart of Alamogordo (not too far down the road from fictional Bonney County) as a cake decorator and part-time at Noisy Water Winery in Ruidoso (where you can find some of the best wines in the state of New Mexico, including Jo Mamma’s White!) She lives with her husband and son in a small town halfway between Alamogordo and Ruidoso. Visit her website at www.amymbennettbooks.com and The Back Deck Blog at http://amymbennettbooks.blogspot.com

Here are Amy’s thoughts on one of my favorite topics: food. And I am in complete agreement with her first three sentences! (And salivating at the rest of her post.)

One thing that always bothers me is reading a book in which the characters never eat.

While I’ve never been a huge fan of books or series that revolve around recipes, I do enjoy reading about characters that are human. And humans eat!

I’ve never been one to go on in great detail about food—and you will rarely find food photos on my Facebook page—but what your characters eat can tell a lot about them and their setting. Stories that are set in coastal areas will, most likely, have the characters enjoying seafood. My stories are set in New Mexico and there are some things that New Mexicans eat that are unique to the area.

Chile peppers are a staple in the diets of many New Mexicans. The official state question is “Red or green?” and many New Mexicans, due to the fame of Hatch green chiles, have a definite preference for green and it goes into everything… even apple pie! It only makes sense that the residents of Bonney County enjoy the flavor and heat of green chile. Some characters, most notably J.D. Wilder, the transplant from Houston, Texas, feel that too much of a good thing can be overdone!

Another New Mexico favorite is the piñon nut from the state tree, the piñon. This nut has a particular flavor that melds beautifully with coffee to make a distinctive addition to the courtesy table at the Black Horse Campground and is Corrie’s favorite morning beverage.

New Mexico is also the oldest wine producing regions in the United States. The New Mexico wine industry has flourished in recent years and the area where fictional Bonney County is located, Ruidoso, is home to Noisy Water Winery, which produces up to thirty wines all made from only grapes grown in New Mexico. Because I love their wines—and I love working there!—it only made sense to me to include Noisy Water wines as a particular element of life in Bonney County!

So while I won’t be including recipes in any of my Black Horse Campground novels, you will read about my characters enjoying a cookout with green chile on the burgers, a bowl of posole at a church function, a plate of migas as a comfort food, and Mexican sweet breads (pan dulce) and breakfast burritos. After all, solving mysteries requires energy and there’s always room for one more around the table in Bonney County!

DESCRIPTION OF AMY M. BENNETT’S LATEST BLAK HORSE CAMPGROUND MYSTERY, AT THE CROSSROAD:

Trouble often comes in threes. It’s no different at the Black Horse Campground.

On his first day as detective with the Bonney Police Department, J.D. Wilder finds three cold case files on his desk—three women who have disappeared over a fifteen year period at five year intervals. It seems that no one has ever taken the cases seriously… or even properly investigated them.

Then J.D. receives a visit from two former colleagues who inform him that he’s about to receive another visitor; a woman from his past who is in trouble and needs his help. Again. The timing couldn’t be worse, since he’s finally about to ask Corrie on a date, but then Corrie also has a visitor from her past show up… someone who’s hoping for a second chance with her. In the meantime, Sheriff Rick Sutton has his hands full dodging his ex-wife, Meghan, who insists on discussing personal business with him… business that has to do with digging up a painful past.

When three bodies are discovered that prove the missing women were murdered, J.D.’s investigation reveals that all of their visitors have some connection to the victims. But which one of them killed three women… and is prepared to kill again?

When trouble comes to Bonney County, Corrie, Rick, and J.D. band together to protect each other and their community. But can they solve the mystery before the murderer strikes again?

EXCERPT FROM CHAPTER 14:

J.D. returned to the Black Horse more wide awake than he had been in days. Amato’s words rang in his ears, while a voice in his head warned him that if he didn’t get some rest, he was going to be completely useless when the time came to have his wits about him and his energy. Still, a night spent in mostly inactivity wasn’t going to allow him to rest. He went into his cabin and changed into his running clothes. He needed to release some tension and energy if he was going to rest at all.

He slipped out of the cabin, casting a glance toward the campground store. It was almost six thirty a.m. and Corrie’s apartment light was on but the store’s lights were still out. He had missed the Friday night fish fry dinner, but he hoped to be back once she was open and be able to talk to her more. And get a decent breakfast.

He started out, following the path he’d taken a couple days earlier. The cool morning air was amazingly refreshing, helping clear his mind while invigorating and relaxing him at the same time. His breathing eased as his strides became more purposeful. He was near a breakthrough in the cold cases. He could feel it. Officer Amato had information that could help reveal the truth about what happened to the three women. After that… he’d have to wait and see.

He rounded the curve where he had seen the small cemetery the last time he had run this path and he slowed to a stop. He had pushed it to the back of his mind and had all but forgotten about it until this moment. Now was as good a time as any to pay his respects. His run had already accomplished its purpose. He knew he’d be able to sleep when he got to his cabin and he’d probably stroll back to the campground after this. He allowed himself a grin as he left the path, picking his way through the tall grass and brush to where the grave sites were.

Unlike most small cemeteries he’d encountered, there was no fence surrounding this one. In fact, there were only three wooden markers, crosses, all of them uniform but in different stages of weathering. He stopped when he got close enough to make out the lettering and suddenly the breath rushed out of him, leaving him feeling weak and dizzy with shock.

The first marker, the most faded, bore the name Carla Sandoval. The second, Rosalie Edwards. The third, the one with the least amount of weathering and the least faded lettering, read Benita Rojas.
Beside the one for Benita Rojas was an open grave. A plain wooden cross lay nearby. Both looked recent. Only a few days recent.

J.D. stumbled back, afraid that his eyes were playing tricks. He fumbled for his cell phone and let out an expletive when he realized he’d left it in his cabin when he changed his clothes. He reached the path and took off at a dead run back to the Black Horse Campground.

He’d been right; there had been more to the disappearances than what was common knowledge.

He hated it when he was right.

I don’t check Amazon all that often, and serendipitously did today. A new 4-star review was posted on Sunday. My heartfelt thanks to Dindy Robinson, former publisher at Swimming Kangaroo Press, for being the first to have faith in me. After receiving her email accepting the manuscript of CHANUKAH GUILT (10 years ago!), I knew how Sally Fields felt when she gushed, “You like me! You really like me!”

“I used to read a lot of cozies, but in recent years have gone more for police procedurals. However, Unleavened Dead has everything I like in a cozy: a strong heroine with a sense of humor, a believable plot, an interesting premise, and zany characters. Unleavened Dead is the second Aviva Cohen mystery (full disclosure, in another life I owned a publishing company that published the first Aviva Cohen mystery, Chanukah Guilt).

“Aviva is a rabbi of a fairly small congregation, surrounded by lots of colorful characters, including her former husband, the interim police chief, her niece and her niece’s partner/soon-to-be wife (Sherry), and members of the congregation. When Sherry comes under suspicion of driving the car that hit and killed the director of the department of the local college from which Sherry had just been fired, Aviva goes into full sleuth mode to find out the truth.

“The book is a fun read, told with lots of humor and a believable plot. Rabbi Aviva Cohen may not be Rabbi David Small, but she comes pretty close!”

I’m pleased to welcome J. L. Greger to my blog once again. She is celebrating the publication of her latest Sara Almquist thriller, I Saw You in Beirut.Read on as Janet explains how you can learn a little science as you read and enjoy I Saw You in Beirut.

So, can you learn science from a thriller?

Yes, you’ll learn a bit of science when you read I Saw You in Beirut. Sara Almquist, the heroine, and several of the supporting characters are scientists who have worked in the Middle East. But don’t panic: the science tidbits in this thriller aren’t boring. They’re perfect for Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuits.

For example, did you know?

• In 1971, the U.S. shipped seed grain treated with methyl mercury fungicide to Iraq during a drought. Peasants in the northern provinces of Iraq ate the grain because the planting season was over. When the mistake was recognized, the farmers dumped the remaining grain and polluted the streams. The net result was thousands suffered permanent neurological symptoms.

• In the early 1960s, scientists identified zinc deficiency in Iran. At that time, 2-3% of the villagers in some regions of Iran didn’t pass the physical for the army because of stunted growth. Dr. James Halstead, Sr. who was married to President’s Roosevelt’s daughter, Anna, headed the research team.

• Camels are a reservoir for a virus that causes Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). About a third of the rare reported cases during the last three years have died.

Why were these science tidbits included in I Saw You in Beirut?
They advanced the plot and gave me a chance to “show not tell” readers about my characters. As you may have noticed, most thrillers are filled with muscle-bound men. I think you’ll find the smart, active characters in this thriller are a lot more believable, but granted not as sexy as Daniel Craig as James Bond.

Are all the characters stodgy scientists?
No, and who says scientists are staid? The romance between Sara and Sanders, a secretive State Department official, is non-traditional. The incident in the third chapter where a female graduate student threatens a fellow (but very annoying) male graduate student with a knife, which she was using to cut a birthday cake, really happened in my research laboratory at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The rest of the details are changed, but I couldn’t resist including the real “knife incident.”

Don’t the facts slow the plot?
No, the whole story occurs during a forty-hour period. Yet, Sara manages to travel from Washington, D.C. to Chicago to… Wait! I don’t want to give too much of the plot away. You’ll have to read this novel to learn where she travels in the Middle East. When you finish the book, you’ll feel like you’ve really been to the exotic locations, and only Sara suffers from jet lag.

How could science enhance a plot?
In I Saw You in Beirut, a mysterious source of leaks on the Iranian nuclear industry, known only as F, sends an email from Tabriz: Help. Contact Almquist. Intelligence sources determine the message refers to Sara Almquist, a globetrotting epidemiologist, and seek her help to extract F from Iran. As Sara tries to identify F by dredging up memories about her student days at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her work in Lebanon and the Emirates, groups ostensibly wanting to prevent F’s escape attack her repeatedly. She begins to suspect her current friendship with Sanders, a secretive State Department official, is the real reason she’s being attacked.

How can I obtain a copy?
I Saw You in Beirut is available at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1610092201.

NEWS FLASH: GoodReads will give away free copies of this thriller from January 9-15, 2016. https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/166390-i-saw-you-in-beirut

Bio: JL Greger’s thrillers and mysteries include: Malignancy (winner of 2015 Public Safety Writers’ annual contest), Ignore the Pain, Murder: A New Way to Lose Weight, Coming Flu, and I Saw you in Beirut. Bug (shown in the picture) rules their house and is a character in all her novels. Her website is: http://www.jlgreger.com