Monday, September 25, 2017

FREEZER APPLESAUCE

Perhaps it's because I live in the midwest, but fall seems like the best time to cook. My family is fortunate enough to have both apple and pear trees in our yard, and I use them to make both applesauce and apple crisp.



Helpful hints to think about prior to starting:
- a mix of different types of apples seems to produce the loveliest applesauce
- remember, it doesn't matter how pretty the apples are for making sauce, seconds are just fine
- decide what size glass jars you wish to use -- larger ones seem more cumbersome to me because it takes so long for them to defrost -- my favorite size are the 2 cup (1 pint) glass jars (but this might depend on the size of your family and the height of your freezer shelves)
- cutting up apples can get a bit boring or tedious, so I recommend turning on HGTV (or whatever you like) in the background (or an audio book) -- make the task enjoyable for yourself

Supplies:
- apples (mixture works best)
- maybe pears
- cinnamon
- nutmeg (if you like it)
- water
- crock pot
- glass jars
- sharp knife and cutting board

My favorite version is the sugarless, but to account for taste I'll include both versions

SUGARLESS VERSION (lighter colored)
1) put 1.5 cups of water into the crock pot
2) sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg into the water to taste (a good rule is way more cinnamon than nutmeg, but again it's to taste)
3) start with slicing up either two good sized pears or several more smaller pears (removing cores and skin) -- this makes the applesauce sweeter naturally, but not enough pears are present to ruin the nice, soft texture of the sauce
4) add apple slices to fill the crock pot (sliced, cored, cut into chunks -- the smaller the chunks, the faster the applesauce gets made)


SWEET VERSION (darker colored)
1) 1.5 cups water in the crock pot
2) add 1/2 cup brown sugar
3) sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg into the water (again, more cinnamon than nutmeg unless you're just crazy for nutmeg)
4) slice and dice apples into chunks to fill up the crock pot

With my crock pot, this process works best when set on HIGH for 3-4 hours -- keep checking on it and stirring the contents (keep in mind that just as everyone's stove is different, crock pots could act the very same way). It's pretty disappointing to put in all the work (takes me about a half hour or so) to fill the crock pot with apple slices and then have the whole mess burn.

Turn off the power once the apples are mostly dissolved into the sauce. This lets the reserved heat slowly cook the rest without risk of overcooking. Stir more frequently at this point. Once the sauce consistency is pleasing to your eye, then cool however you wish-- setting outside if the night is cool or putting in the fridge. Once the sauce has cooled at least somewhat, you can spoon it into glass jars, leaving a little space below the lid.

I'm not honestly sure how long it is safe to keep in the freezer, but that's never an issue with my family. We eat everything up each winter, and nothing gets left over to ruin.

Enjoy!




Wednesday, September 6, 2017

COVER REVEAL for PHOENIX DESCENDING by DOROTHY DREYER

Today I'm helping reveal the gorgeous cover for Dorothy Dreyer's upcoming NA fantasy, Phoenix Descending! The cover was designed by Deranged Doctor Design. You can learn more about the book, which releases on November 28 from Snowy Wings Publishing, below. But first, check out the cover!



Title: Phoenix Descending (Book One of The Curse of the Phoenix Duology)
Author: Dorothy Dreyer
Release Date: November 28, 2017
Publisher: Snowy Wings Publishing


Since the outbreak of the phoenix fever in Drothidia, Tori Kagari has already lost one family member to the fatal disease. Now, with the fever threatening to wipe out her entire family, she must go against everything she believes in order to save them—even if that means making a deal with the enemy.

When Tori agrees to join forces with the unscrupulous Khadulians, she must take on a false identity in order to infiltrate the queendom of Avarell and fulfill her part of the bargain, all while under the watchful eye of the unforgiving Queen’s Guard. But time is running out, and every lie, theft, and abduction she is forced to carry out may not be enough to free her family from death.

Add Phoenix Descending on Goodreads!



Monday, August 28, 2017

GOT PLUMS? - MAKE FREEZER JAM

FREEZER PLUM JAM





Necessary ingredients to fill 4 of the 8 oz jam jars (with a little left over for tasting purposes):
-       2 envelopes/packets of Knox Gelatine – unflavored
-       4 cups cut up fruit (in this case, pitted and quartered plums)
-       ½ cup white sugar
-       1.5 cups water - use half to dissolve gelatin and the rest to blend up with the fruit

Directions (adapted from the Knox website for strawberry jam):
1)   First get the fruit ready, which takes the longest time. Pit plums and cut into quarters or more, depending on size and the strength of your blender.
2)   Place cut up fruit into the blender, then add sugar and half of the water to the mix. Using a blender grinds up the plums so that the skins aren’t an issue for those squeamish about fruit skins in their jam. Set aside while preparing gelatine.
3)   Empty gelatine packets into cold water in a large enough saucepan for stirring. Let this stand at least a minute before adding LOW heat.  Stir until dissolution, which should take just a few minutes (don’t overheat).
4)   Pour prepared fruit into the saucepan, stirring as you bring it to a mild boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 5 minutes, continuing to stir.
5)   Spoon liquid jam into prepared glass jars (watch out, they get hot fast), leaving enough space between the jam and the lid. Don’t forget to use a damp cloth to remove any spilled jam on the outside or top edge of the jar.
6)   Cool jam slightly before covering (careful again, the glass containers will be hot) with the lids.
7)   Refrigerate overnight, then move to freezer.

Good for 4 weeks in the refrigerator and 1 year in the freezer, if it lasts that long.


Wednesday, August 16, 2017

THE TALE OF BRYANT ADAMS by MEGAN O'RUSSELL

A new young adult urban fantasy novel from Megan O’Russell


The Tale of Bryant Adams:
How I Magically Messed Up My Life in Four Freakin’ Days




Ever wanted to grow a five-story tall flower in central park? How about fight a deadly battle under the subway tunnels of Manhattan?

Don't worry. I never wanted to either. But if you're ever being chased by ladies made of mist and you have to save the girl with the sparkly eyes you've never had the guts to say actual words to, there's an app for that.

I found a magic cell phone, opened an app I shouldn't have, burned down the set shop for my high school's theatre, and it was all downhill from there. A drag queen seer who lives under a bridge is my only hope for keeping my mom alive, and I think the cops might be after me for destroying my dad's penthouse.

But it gets better! Now I'm stuck being the sidekick to the guy who got me into this mess in the first place. It'll be a miracle if I survive until Monday.

Purchase on Amazon
Read more at Curiosity Quills
Find reviews on Goodreads
Learn more about the author at MeganORussell.com

Don’t miss the Goodreads giveaway running through August 31st. Enter to win a paperback copy at:



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Megan O'Russell is a native of Upstate New York who spends her time traveling the country as a professional actor. Megan's current published works include YA series Girl of Glass and The Tale of Bryant Adams: How I Magically Messed Up My Life in Four Freakin’ Days as well as the Christmas romance Nuttycracker Sweet. 2018 projects include The Chronicles of Maggie Trent: The Girl Without Magic and book two in the Girl of Glass series Boy of Blood



Tuesday, April 11, 2017

WICKED TREASURE - by Jordan Elizabeth

WICKED TREASURE
Book 3 of the Treasure Chronicles
A young adult novel of romance and the paranormal set in a steampunk world.




An asylum patient has a cryptic vision: Clark will overthrow the presidency. She's just insane...right? 

When a clockwork lion kidnaps their daughter, Clark and Amethyst's calm new life shatters. Hunting down the beast leads the Grishams and Treasures to a conspiracy not just against Clark, but also against the country. 

The conspirators attacked their little girl. An offense like that can’t go ignored. With his old gang at his back, Clark is ready to take on an abandoned circus, dethroned royalty, a corrupt orphanage, and the presidency itself. 


WICKED TREASURE is available now on Amazon from Curiosity Quills Press.
Check out early reviews on GoodReads!





Can’t wait to read the next installment in the Treasure Chronicles world?  Check out the first chapter:
They washed her hair, so she knew it was coming: the next visit. The nurse shoved Samantha’s head beneath the water in the tin tub, the liquid already cold from the air, and she stayed still; if she fought, they might bind her wrists. Last time they did that, the linen ropes had cut her skin.
Droplets splashed over the edge as the middle-aged woman shoved her deeper, Samantha’s chin striking the bottom. Blood filled her mouth where her teeth had nipped her tongue. She fought to not gasp as the nurse pulled her up to drench her hair in lavender oil.
The gas lamps shone too bright in the ceiling. Yellow glows twirled around each other like macabre dancers. She could drift back into the soapy water and inhale; death would take her to join that dancing.
“Filthy nits,” the nurse mumbled as she yanked a silver comb through Samantha’s ginger curls. Oil splattered onto Samantha’s bare shoulders, pooling along her collarbone.
She could say the nits weren’t her fault. She could request regular bathing.
Samantha stared out the room’s lone barred window as tears stung her eyes. Each jerk of the comb snapped more hairs from her scalp, and the oil’s scent burned her lungs.
A bell rang from somewhere deep within the asylum, muffled by brick and wood. Two nurses laughed in the hallway. They all got to go home at the end of their shifts. They had families and houses.
Samantha could have pushed them into the tub until the final air bubbles burst past their lips.
The comb clattered onto the side table, where cosmetic products had been lined up on a silver tray like medical instruments. Her gums where they’d ripped out her molars ached at the thought. Whatever rich sod received her teeth better have taken care of them.
“Ugly thing.” The nurse jabbed pins into Samantha’s hair to keep her curls up. “Should shave your head, we should. Get rid of those nits and all this fussing. Get you a wig then. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, chit?”
If it kept away the suffering of bathtime, then yes.
“Rise.” Nurse Hairy Molethe huge brown mole grew at the tip of her noseslapped a ragged towel against Samantha’s frame. “We’ll put you in the sitting room this time. He didn’t like the parlor, said it was too cold. That man doesn’t like a thing.”
And Samantha didn’t like him.
#
Captain MacFarland gritted his teeth as he took the front concrete steps two at a time. The stone plaque beside the door matched well with the asylum’s cold interior.
Wade Asylum. The only institute in the northeast for the mentally unhinged.
He hummed under his breath to keep away morbid thoughts, and the bronze attendant opened the door for him with a nod that sent the machine’s gears grinding. They might think him off, bringing music into the darkness, but the walls tended to close in around him, as if he too might become strapped into one of the cribs.
He’d seen the cribs once when his friend had insisted they come to visit his wife. The cribs, Captain MacFarland understood, were reserved for those who fought confinement, and his friend’s wife had screamed as though a banshee had possessed her.
Come night, dreams of Wade Asylum plagued him, and she’d haunted the majority for the past year. He could still hear her shriek, “You only put me here so you could be with that slut!”
His friend had stroked his fingers across her arm, her wrists bound to the sides of the metal crib. “Of course. I’ll always love you, but you didn’t like my mistress. You’ll need to stay here until you can accept her. They’ll help you right your mind here.”
The woman had spit at him, one of her eyes swollen shut. No one had told them who had punched her.
Captain MacFarland hummed louder as he approached the mahogany front desk where a young nurse in a low-cut white bodice wrote in a journal.
“Hello, Captain MacFarland.” She closed the journal and clasped her hands atop the leather cover. “Always so punctual, aren’t you?” The girl bent forward to expose more of her pale bosom. The song faltered in his throat as he pictured hopping over the counter to push her against the wall. He could push up her skirt, he imagined her without bloomers, and take her there in the waiting room that smelled of lamp oil. Those pink-painted lips of hers would part in a gasp, and she might even bite his neck. He loved it when they bit.
“I pride myself on punctuality.” He pulled the brass pocket watch from his brown jacket to flash her the time, and she smiled enough to show her straight white teeth.
“I made sure to assign you the sitting room in her ward, Captain. I recall how much you loathed the parlor.”
How anyone could call that drafty room a parlor escaped him. “Wonderful. I was wondering, Miss Nurse, about how you would feel meeting over a meal this evening. We could talk more about what it’s like here at Wade.”
“Captain, yes! I get done here at six if that works.” She chewed on her fingernail before she tipped back in her seat, her bosom bouncing. “I’ll get an orderly to show you to the patient, sir.”
He leaned one arm on the desk and winked. “I’d like that.”
His pleasure diminished with each step as he followed the brass orderly, who moved on wheeled feet, toward Ward 8. The machine unlocked door after door, and sealed them behind, until he seemed he’d entered a box he could never escape. Bars covered the few windows; bare bricks replaced wooden paneling on the walls. Gas lamps flickered close to the ceilings.
The air adopted a damp, musty odor, mixed with medicine he didn’t recognize.
The orderly unlocked a final door and entered what he assumed counted as a sitting room. Unlike the parlor with a table and chairs, this space offered velveteen settees. Light shone through two windows across the chipped tile floor.
Samantha sat on the settee closest to the door. Iron cuffs fastened her ankles together, visible beneath her black velvet skirt. The material matched the collar of her purple brocade jacket.
“I see you’re wearing the clothes I sent.” He cleared his throat when it rasped, and he glanced at the orderly, but of course it couldn’t make judgments on what it overheard. By order of the government, the orderly who attended them had to have its recorder removed so the conversation wouldn’t leave.
Someone had painted her lips a too dark red. “You can take them with you when you leave. I never get to see them again.”
“What do you wear normally?” Captain MacFarland had always imagined the girl posing in them before a mirror whenever he departed. He chose the highest fashion for her to make her feel… well, like she wasn’t a mental patient.
“A shift.” Samantha shrugged. “We’re not allowed anything else, and it’s sewn on us, didn’t you know. If we had loose sleeves, we could strangle ourselves.”
Her matter of fact tone made him shudder. He dropped onto the settee across from her. The last time he’d sat beside her, she’d lunged toward his eyes, and the orderly had pinned her down while administering a sedative from those brass fingers. The trip had been wasted.
“Do you remember,” he murmured, “when you were a child and I brought you peppermint sticks?” He should have done that for her again. Her green eyes had always adopted a life then, rather than the bloodshot, bulging quality they possessed otherwise.
“Better than the toys. They took those away after you left.”
He coughed. “How are you, Samantha?” It seemed wrong to take what he wanted and leave. She deserved a social call; he knew he was her only visitor, and his boss only required one visit every two months.
“They don’t allow me to take lessons anymore now that I’m sixteen.”
Captain MacFarland winced. Her birthday had occurred earlier in the month. He should have given her more than the clothes, no matter they would vanish. A nurse probably commandeered them.
“What do you do with your days then?” When she was younger, before she realized what it meant to be in Wade Asylum, she would have chatted with him about nonsense, like shapes she spotted in the clouds. He could have told her about the upcoming date with the nurse, and she could have told colors looked best on him. Brown, he already knew, but hearing from her had always brightened him.
Then, she asked questions he couldn’t answer. She learned about life outside from the nurses. She came to hate him as her jailer.
Samantha tipped her head as if judging his query. He’d brought her a hat this time, and it slid cockeyed across her head. Sixteen… young lady now despite her frail frame. He was thankful he’d delivered the white blouse with the high lace collar, fastened with a cameo one of the nurses must have supplied; it fit with a more mature age.
“I’m drugged up,” she said. “They didn’t give me anything, because of you I suppose. This is Ward 8. I hear stuff, you know. Ward 9 is the toughest. Constant lockdown. Violent criminals. I’m just in the criminal wing.” She scowled, her yellow teeth crooked. “We can’t wander. Oh no, that would be too dangerous. We get ropes and medicine.”
Ropes and medicine. Bile burned his throat. It wouldn’t help if he voiced aloud his wish for a different life, one where his boss didn’t make her stay under lock and key. One where he didn’t have to venture into the sterile building to see her on a clockwork basis.
“I’m not crazy.” She’d said that at every visit since she turned ten. “I know why I’m here. Someday the doctor’s going to believe me.”
“Oh, sweetie.” The doctor could believe her all he wanted. Money kept him quiet and her confined, and so long as he kept getting his checks, he wouldn’t so much as whisper the truth in his sleep.
Her pale face hardened, and she stuck out her hands, the fingernails broken, blood caked under them. “Come get what you want.”
He pulled off his leather gloves and placed them in his jacket pockets. Something told him he’d be doing this for the rest of his life, and was only thirty-four. “Tell me what the country needs to know.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed through her mouth, the sound loud and harsh in the room where the only noise came from the tick-tock of the orderly’s body. He gripped her hands and interlaced their fingers, hoping it would lend her strength.
Perspiration dotted her skin despite the frigid winter air. Snowflakes stuck to the window glass. A trickle of blood seeped from her left nostrils and her teeth chattered. Her eyeballs rolled back in her head as her lids fluttered.
“Tell me what the country needs to know,” he repeated.
“Clark Grisham will overthrow the presidency.”






Jordan Elizabeth became obsessed with steampunk while working at a Victorian Fair.  Since then, she’s read plenty of books and even organized a few steampunk outfits that she wears on a regular basis (unless that’s weird, in which case she only wears them within the sanctuary of her own home – not!). Jordan’s young adult novels include ESCAPE FROM WITCHWOOD HOLLOW, COGLING, TREASURE DARKLY, BORN OF TREASURE, RUNNERS AND RIDERS, GOAT CHILDREN, PATH TO OLD TALBOT, and VICTORIAN.  WICKED TREASURE is her sixth novel with Curiosity Quills Press.  Check out her website for bonus scenes and contests. 


In honor of WICKED TREASURE, check out book one, TREASURE DARKLY, on sale now for 99 cents!