Archive for the ‘sweet treats’ Category

Dinner With A Hero – AJ Llewellyn

Sep 16, 2011 Filed under: guest blogger, sweet treats, vampire

Having salivated over the delectable descriptions of food in his books, I knew I wanted AJ Llewellyn to be part of this series. So I asked, and he sent me a yummy vampire who knows his way around both food and men.

AJ is also offering a copy of A Vampire in Wakiki (or another title in the series if you own it already) to a lucky reader. Just leave a comment to enter. Enjoy….

Blood for Breakfast
by Divine Thunder

Hey There,
My name is Divine Thunder, or as my husband calls me, Div. I used to go by Jimmy Thunder, until I met Temeura…who was Angelis when I met him. Have I confused you yet? Well, let me explain. I’m a vampire and I live in Waikiki.

Being pretty well endowed, I noticed a guy at the gym down here on Kalakaua Avenue checking me out. I was kinda between girlfriends…well, I had two, actually but one was sweet and the other one was a total bitch. You can probably guess the bitchy one was damned hot in the sack and Clancy, the sweet one was well, sweet, but something was missing. I’d never met a woman who could be both sweet and hot…and then this guy at the gym approached me.

His name was Angelis and he was a good-looking Hawaiian-Asian guy. I’d heard rumors he was a gay porn star and he asked if I’d like to shoot some gay porn. I can’t explain it but I took one look at his massive cock and I kinda liked the idea of fooling around with him. The work was at night and I don’t know…I’d never thought about being with a guy but he was handsome and seemed to want to work with me.
It was the best sex of my life.

We fell in love. I have never met anyone like Tem and yeah, he’s mine. So no more porn for either of us. He is now my vampire lover and husband in every way and it might surprise you to learn that we eat. Yes. Waikiki Vampires enjoy their food. I can tolerate sun up to a point but my favorite dinner with Tem – unless he’s cooking – is to go to Duke’s at the Outrigger Hotel in Waikiki.

I think we are the only couple in the whole, wide world who don’t request beach tables. Tem, being a fairly new vampire is still very sensitive to sunlight.

We get nice and toasty on a couple of mai tais, my favorite island drink and we love the crab macadamia wantons. After a couple of mai tais, my husband likes to “have a party in my pants” which can get embarrassing so we sometimes get a room upstairs. We get dessert of hula pie to go. By the way, we both love blood for breakfast. We drink from each other. It’s a crazy-good high.

Tem and I share our wonderful, sprawling ranch-style home on top of Tantalus, mountain on top of Waikiki. We live with my sister, Heavenly, and her wife, Clancy. Yep, I hooked up my ex girlfriend with my sister. I told you, Clancy is sweet. I am legally married to her, but that was for immigration purposes since she is Australian and needed residency.

Clancy and Tem are the best things that ever happened to me and Heavenly. We were the two loneliest souls before we met them. For two hundred  years, we just existed. Cursed by a bad kahuna because of my grandfather’s gambling debts, we became vampires, doomed to live alone. Now, we have love, sex and unbelievably great food. I have a fantastic family. Tem and I are proud parents of the bossiest cat in the world, Midnight, and we have a nephew who is a storm demon. But that’s another story.

Tem and Clancy are great friends and cook together. I’ve never heard them argue, except over the subject of Vegemite. Clancy, being Australian, thinks it’s the best thing since sliced cheese. The rest of us tolerate it. Actually, I’ll be honest, I’ve come to crave a slice of hot-buttered toast smeared with vegemite.
If you were to come to the Thunder residence, you will find a house filled with Hawaiian antiques and fresh flowers Heavenly cuts from our garden. You would have your choice of cocktails. Actually, you won’t. My husband makes the best bloody mary’s ever.

We have a cellar full of gourmet wine that was once ransacked by French-Vietnamese eunuchs, but that’s another story, too. So, you’d get great wine and if you and your partner decide to have a party in each other’s pants, that’s just too bad because Tem is the hostess with the mostest.

For an appetizer he would present you with sake and ginger-poached shrimp cocktail. It’s not your mom’s shrimp cocktail. This one comes with Asian sesame remoulade. If you want to make my husband unhappy, ask him for the traditional red dipping sauce.

For your main course, you would have your choice of sea-salt crusted prime rib or fresh ahi seared with ginger and shallots. You can have a little of both, if you like. Or a lot. Ahi is Hawaiian tuna and Tem and Clancy buy it every day from a little old man who catches it himself. He brings it to our door. All our meals come with salad and vegetables pulled from our garden.

By the time we’ve refilled your wine glass several times, you will definitely want to have a party in your husband’s pants. We’re well prepared for this. We have plenty of guest rooms…and we’ll give you a big hunk of hula pie to share in bed.

It’s yummy. Almost as good as blood for breakfast.

Aloha oe (love forever),
Div xoxo

Learn more about Div and Tem and more delightful characters than I can count at AJ Llewellyn’s website.

Dinner with a Hero – Silvia Violet – Setiwan

Sep 9, 2011 Filed under: book release, erotica, m/m, paranormal, recipes, shapeshifter, sweet treats

If I’m not writing or reading, you’ll likely find me in the kitchen trying out a new recipe or baking up sweet treats. I have a deep and abiding love for food. I think eating a really good chocolate cake is one of the most erotic experiences anyone can have. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that as I get to know my characters one of the first things I ask them is what they like to eat.

These details don’t always make it into my books, but I can’t really understand a man until I know what I would cook for him if he came to dinner at my house. I’ve asked some of my favorite authors to join me in making dinner for a character of their choice. Each week, one of us will be sharing a little about one of my heroes and a dinner I would make for him.

Today I’m cooking for Setiwan, one of the heroes of my latest release, Reef’s Guardian. He’s a Guardian, a magical creature who has a human form but can also take the form of any creature who lives on or around the coral reef his family is sworn to protect. When underwater he prefers the form of a cuttlefish, a blacktip reef shark or one of the reef’s other predators, and he enjoys a diet of fish and crustaceans. When on land he’s still likes to indulge in good, responsibly harvested seafood. He’s also got a sweet tooth, especially for anything involving tropical fruit and cream. So I’ll be making a spicy seafood bisque served with crusty grilled bread and an Asian-inspired salad. For dessert, I’m make my own recipe for banana pudding.

This Spicy Seafood Bisque is very easy to prepare, and it is one of my favorite dishes to make for guests. I replace the tomato juice and hot sauce with spicy V8 (the low salt version).  I always serve it with a loaf crusty bread that I slice, brush with olive oil or melted butter and grill either outside or on my stove top grill pan.

An Asian Salad with oranges and water chestnuts makes a perfect accompaniment.

Silvia’s Banana Pudding

1/3 cup flour

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 cups milk

2 egg yolks

2 T butter

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup heavy cream, whipped until stiff peaks form

4-6 bananas, slice (they should be fully ripe but not mushy)

Vanilla Wafers  (approximately half a box)

To make the custard:

Combine flour, sugar, and milk in a pan, cook over medium heat until thick and bubbly stirring frequently. Let it cook for about a minute at this stage then remove from heat. Stir about a cup of the hot mixture into beaten egg yolks. Return egg mixture to pan and bring to a boil. Let boil, stirring frequently for two minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla. Cool to room temperature. (To speed this up, I put the pan into a large bowl filled with ice and stir frequently. Once the mixture has cooled, fold in whipped cream.

To assemble:

Layer the bottom of a 2 qt casserole dish with vanilla wafers. Cover with banana slices. Then layer on 1/3 of the custard. Repeat two times. Cover and chill for at least an hour.

 

Sweet Treats: Pecan Pie Cupcakes

Aug 26, 2011 Filed under: recipes, sweet treats

My daughter thought these would be the perfect back-to-school cupcakes so we made them this week and they were amazing. They’re my favorite of all the new cupcakes we’ve tried lately. The pie crust cut outs that we put on top were supposed to be leaves but we didn’t have a small leaf-shaped cutter so we used a duck.

The Frosting

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup dark corn syrup

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup cornstarch

4 egg yolks

1/4 tsp salt

4 T butter

1 tsp vanilla

Stir first six ingredients together in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until boiling, stirring very frequently. (I often play fast and loose with directions that say “stir constantly” but this mixture sticks fast!) Allow to boil for a minute or until thickened. Take off heat. Stir in butter and vanilla. Lay plastic wrap against the surface and chill in refrigerator for at least three hours.

The Cake

1 cup butter

1.5 cups sugar

4 eggs

3 cups flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

Preheat over to 350F. Cream butter and sugar in mixer. Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Sift dry ingredients into a medium mixing bowl. Add vanilla to milk. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk, starting and ending with dry ingredients. Mix until thoroughly combined. Fill lined cupcake cups 2/3 full. And bake 12-15 minutes.

The Toppings

1 cup toasted pecans

Pie crust rolled out and cut into leaves or other small shapes and baked at 450 for 5-10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Sweet Treats: Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Jul 28, 2011 Filed under: recipes, sweet treats

Cupcakes and brownies are my current obsessions. I’ve got a whole list of new recipes to try and this week, I made Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. They were amazing!! So I had to share the recipe.

Chocolate Cake

• 1 cup sour cream (yogurt works too)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 cups flour
• ½ cup Dutch process  cocoa powder
• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ½ cup light brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs, plus 2 egg yolks

Combine baking soda and sour cream in a bowl and set aside. Combine flour and cocoa and set aside. Beat butter and sugars until creamy. Add salt and eggs and mix until thoroughly combined. Add flour mixture and sour cream mixture alternately starting and ending with flour. Mix after each addition.

Fill lined cupcake cups 2/3 full and bake at 350F for approximately 20 minutes.

Mint Frosting

1 cup butter, softened

1/3 cup heavy cream

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp peppermint extract

4 cups powdered sugar

1 cup crumbled Andes mints

Place first five ingredients in mixer bowl and mix until creamy. Add sugar 1/2 cup at a time mixing until icing is the right consistency.

Ice cupcakes and top with Andes mints.