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Cat Got Your Tongs: A Vintage Kitchen Mystery
by Victoria Hamilton
Cat Got Your Tongs: A Vintage Kitchen Mystery
Cozy Mystery
12th in Series
Setting: Queensville, MI, USA
Publisher : Beyond the Page Publishing (March 18, 2025)
Paperback : 228 pages
ISBN-10 : 1966322046
ISBN-13 : 978-1966322047
Digital ASIN : B0DF64BMT5
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A perplexing murder on a local river leads Jaymie into uncharted waters in the new Vintage Kitchen Mystery from the author of Sieve and Let Die . . .
Despite the brutally cold winter, vintage cookware collector Jaymie Müller is happy to help out a friend by looking after a colony of cats while its caretakers are away. The location on a high bluff overlooking the St. Clair River makes for bone-chilling work, and her task takes on an air of menace when an elderly neighbor reports suspicious goings-on at the river. Jaymie’s inclined to dismiss the woman’s fears as the product of an overactive imagination, but it’s not long before she discovers a dead body there.
When it becomes clear the dead man was the victim of foul play, Jaymie turns to the older woman looking for more information. What she learns is that the river has long been used for illicit smuggling, and Jaymie suspects there was a falling out among thieves. But then mysterious clues begin turning up at the cat colony and another victim is found, and Jaymie realizes there’s something much more sinister behind the killings. And while cats may have nine lives, Jaymie has just one, and she discovers too late that she’s perilously close to losing it . . .
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Includes a vintage recipe!
Jaymie’s German Spaghetti
By: Victoria Hamilton
Jaymie Müller of my Vintage Kitchen Mysteries married into a German family. She’s always looking for German recipes that she can adapt and impress her in-laws with. So when I saw recipes online for German Spaghetti I thought of her!
The recipes I found varied so widely, though, that there was almost no point of agreement. One made a version with a beer-infused cheese sauce. Some used bacon as the only protein, while another used stewing beef. So I’ve taken hints from the majority, which show a recipe that has ground beef and canned tomatoes, but no tomato paste or tomato sauce.
A note about bacon; many German recipes online include bacon, but Germans often cook with a pork product called ‘Speck’, which comes in hunks that you cut pieces off of. I had no Speck, but it’s true that a good substitute is bacon.
Try as I might, I have never found out why it’s called German Spaghetti. It is markedly different from a traditional Italian spaghetti, which has a thick tomato sauce. This is lighter and you can see the vegetables in it. What’s true is, it’s a delicious hearty family meal.
For a weird sidenote, have you ever heard of Spaghettieis? That is apparently a German invention, Spaghetti Ice Cream, vanilla ice cream extruded to look like spaghetti, with a strawberry sauce to look like spaghetti sauce. Don’t believe me? Check out this Wikipedia entry! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghettieis
Here is my version of German Spaghetti, made in one pot and delicious! Enough to feed a large family.
Jaymie’s German Spaghetti
Feeds a herd! At least 5 – 6 servings.
*Note: I made this in a deep electric frying pan, one of my fave go-to tools, but it can easily be cooked on the stove in a deep and wide saucepan.
Ingredients:
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 lb. lean ground beef
3 slices of bacon, cut into small pieces.
1 small diced yellow onion
½ cup celery, diced fairly small
2 medium carrots, coarsely grated
1 – 19 ounce can of petite cut tomatoes. *Note: I’m in Canada, so I used a 540 ml can of petite cut tomatoes with garlic and olive oil.
2 tsp oregano
1 – 2 tsp sugar.
Garlic powder and minced garlic in oil, onion salt, salt and pepper to taste.
9 ounces uncooked Spaghetti
4 tbsp. butter
*Optional: I happened to have some heads of garlic that I had roasted, so I added about 5 or 6 cloves of roasted garlic, which gave it an unctuous depth of flavor that I loved, but it is definitely not necessary. The butter added at the end will add that silky mouth-feel too!
*Some recipes for German Spaghetti used more sugar, but I decided against too much. 1 – 2 teaspoons is just enough to take the acidic edge off the tomatoes.
Method:
1 – Sweat the onions in olive oil until translucent, then add the diced bacon. Brown, then add celery and grated carrot. Sautee together, letting the celery and carrot get soft. Then add the ground beef and cook until browned/cooked through.
2 – Add about 1 – 1 ½ tsp garlic powder and the same of onion salt, and some chopped or minced garlic. (I use jarred garlic in oil when I’m in a hurry!) Add the 19 ounce can of tomatoes, and a full can and a third or so of water. Bring to a boil.
4 – Break up the spaghetti into manageable pieces and add into the mix, cooking it on medium until the spaghetti is done and the mixture has reduced to the right texture, not too watery, but with some broth, still. Add 4 tblsp butter and stir to melt it in.
Your German Spaghetti is read to eat. Without a heavy sauce, the vegetables shine! I thoroughly enjoyed it in a nice bowl, with a little sprig of parsley and an added sprinkle of parmesan cheese! I liked it so much, the recipe is going on repeat!
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Guten Appetit, meine Freunde! (Sorry for my Duolingo German!)
Victoria Hamilton
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About Victoria Hamilton
Victoria Hamilton is the pseudonym of nationally bestselling romance author Donna Lea Simpson. Victoria is the bestselling author of three mystery series, the Lady Anne Addison Mysteries, the Vintage Kitchen Mysteries, and the Merry Muffin Mysteries. She also write a Regency-set historical mystery series, starting with A Gentlewoman’s Guide to Murder. Visit her website at victoriahamiltonmysteries.com.
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Purchase Links for Cat Got Your Tongs:
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Paperback Version:
Amazon Canada Paperback: Paperback Link to come on publication day.
Amazon USA Paperback Barnes & Noble Paperback
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