Wednesday, December 18, 2013

What's Your Favorite Holiday Treat with Thirteen Nights Author Sabrina Garie


Favorite Holiday Treats

The best parts of winter are not just the holidays or time spent with friends and family or the cool beauty of snow-covered trees, but also the special foods that manifest only around the season. Here are my favorites (including some recipes).

·        Everything pumpkin.  I love everything pumpkin, so a season filled with pumpkin pies, pumpkin break and pumpkin-spiced teas and lattes is gastronomic heaven.  The pumpkin dishes break out in October and last until December, so it is way too easy to over indulge.  One way I manage that is to make the stuff myself, especially pumpkin bread. My favorite recipe comes from Jane Brody, because she reduces fat and sugar without any loss of culinary decadence. It’s delicious. Here’s a link to it if you want to try. 

http://caloriecount.about.com/jane-brodys-pumpkin-bread-recipe-r267655 For a little extra zip, I add a quarter teaspoon of ginger.

·        Latkes with apple sauce.  My family is Jewish so latkes are one of my favorite epicurean traditions.  Crispy, fried potatoes pancakes smothered in apple sauce. Ymmm. It took me years to learn how to make them just right. This year, a unique alignment of the stars had Chanukah overlap with Thanskgiving, creating an opportunity to cross-fertilize recipes for bold new flavor experiences.  I whipped up pumpkin latkes with cranberry apple sauce.  I entered those recipes in a Thansgivica cook-off.  The latkes took first place and the cranberry apple sauce tied for third.  For those who know how to make latkes, the trick is to add pureed pumpkin (half a cup to five potatoes) to the egg mixture. If any wants the full recipe, let me know in the comments and I’m happy to share.


Here’s the cranberry apple sauce recipe.

o   1 pint cranberries
o   Six apples, peeled, cored and sliced (preferably tart ones or red delicious)
o   One cup of sugar
o   Water
§  Boil one cup of water with the sugar. Add cranberries until they are soft.
§  In another pot, put the apples with half a cup of water. Cook until soft. Mash.
§  Combine the cranberries mixture to the apple mixture.
§  Refrigerate.
§  Eat and enjoy.

·        Gingerbread.  Thank goodness this comes out for the holidays or managing my weight, never a fun or easy task, would get that much harder. I have not mastered making gingerbread, but have molds to make a house.  It’s on my to do list this year. If anyone knows any tricks or hints, do share.

·        Egg Nog/Soy Nog.  Spiked, or not spiked, this is a holiday favorite.  During the season, I always have Silk Soy Nog in my fridge. The soy version is not as thick as the regular milk/egg based nog but is just as delicious. Actually my daughter likes the soy version much better.

·        Mulled Wine.  To celebrate the new year, I always make mulled wine. Here is my favorite recipe.
o   1 bottle red wine
o   1 wine bottle full of water
o   1 orange
o   Whole cloves
o   3-4 cinnamon sticks
o   ½ cup of sugar
o   Dash of nutmeg
§  Punch the cloves into the whole orange
§  Put all the ingredients into a large pot
§  Heat but do not boil. Let simmer 15 to minutes.
§  Drink and Enjoy.
§  Variations:  Add sliced oranges or lemons into the mix as well as the cloved orange. Play with sugar levels to your taste.

What’s your favorite holiday treat?






Thirteen Nights
Divine Temptation
Book 1
Sabrina Garie

Genre:  Paranormal/Fantasy

Publisher:  Ellora’s Cave

Date of Publication:  December 6, 2013

ISBN:  9781419941764
ASIN:

Word Count:  23,000

Cover Artist:  Kelly Martin

Book Description:

Annie’s always been different. An empathic Amazon, she hides her emotional anomaly beneath her legendary fighting skills. To avoid passing on her genetic disorder, she’s always avoided the Thirteen Nights Ritual—the annual breeding rite among the warrior races of the Greek Pantheon. Only months away from 30, she is now duty-bound to participate. When she meets Tai, a half-human warrior who revs her up beyond legal limits and nurtures the gentleness she’s had to keep secret, thirteen nights of pleasure don’t seem nearly enough.

As a half human, Tai has survived by being faster, more lethal, and a whole lot smarter than his brethren. While the male warriors accept him for his achievements, the Amazons have never given him a second look. Until he meets Annie, whose smile is warm and real and whose body shudders with desire—for him. Determined to have her, he hacks into the Thirteen Nights database and rearranges the pairings to make Annie his breeding partner. Together, their strength and tenderness combust into pure love.

But Tai’s actions are forbidden under Amazon law, subject to a death. To stay together and alive, they must take on the Greek Pantheon and win.

Ellora’s Cave      Amazon      BN    Kobo  Goodreads


About the Author:


Sabrina Garie is on a journey to create the most kick-ass heroine romance fiction has ever known and the hero who can take her. A believer that big, audacious goals spice up life, she relies on coffee, red wine and laughter to make those goals (and her characters) come alive.

When not at the computer, she wrangles vegetables and extra helpings of homework into her fashion-loving progeny, kowtows to a fat cat and reads, a lot.

Since it is more fun to travel in packs, come along for the ride.

Catch the train at www.sabrinagarie.com


Twitter: @sabrinagarie


Other Blogs: www.darkertemptations.wordpress.com

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1 comments:

Sabrina Garie said...

Thanks for hosting me Roxanne and organizing this awesome blog tour. I love the site banner.