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Muffalettas and Murder: Small Town Girl Mysteries
by Jann Franklin

 

Muffalettas and Murder: Small Town Girl Mysteries
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Louisiana
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rougarou Press (January 30, 2023)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 238 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8987739402
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BPQYJQ3T

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Evangeline Delafose is finding Graisseville, Louisiana just as she remembered—boring and uneventful. Until her brother Nate asks her to help solve a murder.

Follow Ev as she navigates clues, dead bodies, and quirky small-town residents to solve a mystery. And of course, show her little brother that she’s still got it.

If you like cozy mysteries with twists and turns, deep South settings, and a hint of romance, you’ll love this series! Let’s not forget quirky yet charming characters who remind you of family—sometimes you want to hug them, and sometimes you want to disown them. Enjoy small town Graisseville with Ev as she solves crime with help from her family and friends. This is a clean faith based read with no profanity, sex, or graphic violence.

This book is the first of the Small-Town Girl Mystery Series.

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In my first in series, “Muffalettas and Murder”, Evangeline Delafose can’t pay her private investigator. They are childhood friends, and she knows how much he adores her mother’s muffalettas. She pitches the idea of paying him with the tasty Louisiana tradition instead of cash, and he eagerly accepts.

 

The muffaletta (also spelled muffuletta) traces its roots back to early 1900 New Orleans. Salvatore Lupo set up his shop, Central Grocery along with a flood of other immigrants with the same idea—to peddle delicious food from their home country. Salvatore noticed his customers purchasing the ingredients separately, and came up with the brilliant idea to slice a loaf in half and put them all together as a sandwich.

 

The soft round bread was called muffuletto, so Salvadore borrowed the name for his sandwich. Eventually, the name morphed into muffaletta or muffuletta, and the sandwiches became part of New Orleans culture.

 

You can make your own muffalettas, completely by scratch or with a few cheats 😊 :

 

INGREDIENTS:

• Round Italian bread
• Smoked ham
• Pastrami
• Salami
• Provolone cheese slices
• Mozzarella cheese slices
• Olive spread- from Jason’s Deli or Amazon link
• Tony Chachere’s seasoning Amazon link

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cut loaves of bread in half horizontally, hollow out some of the excess bread to make room
2. Spread each piece of bread with equal amounts of olive spread
3. Layer bottom half of each loaf with salami, ham, mozzarella, provolone
4. Replace top half on each loaf and cut sandwiches into quarters
5. Serve immediately, or wrap tightly and refrigerate for a few hours to all flavors to mingle and olive spread to soak into the bread

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About Jann Franklin

Jann Franklin is a faith-based cozy mystery writer living in Grand Cane, Louisiana with slightly less than three hundred other people. Many of her stories are based on the tales she hears from residents.

She and her husband John enjoy Sundays at Grand Cane Baptist Church, dinner with family and friends, and watching the lightning bugs in their backyard. Their kids come to visit, when they aren’t too busy living their big-city lives. Visit her at www.jannfranklin.com

Author Links: Website / Blog / Facebook / Instagram / Goodreads

Purchase Links – Amazon – B&N – Kobo – Bookshop.org

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Bread Over Troubled Water

A Bread Shop Mystery

by Winnie Archer

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Bread Over Troubled Water (A Bread Shop Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
8th in Series
Setting – California
Kensington Cozies (November 29, 2022)
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1496733568
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1496733566
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09TX2QMZY

Rising cozy mystery author Winnie Archer cooks up her latest installment in her delightful and delicious Bread Shop Mystery series.

 

Photographer Ivy Culpepper is soon to make a home with her husband-to-be in the California beach town of Santa Sofia—but the Yeast of Eden bakery remains her second home. It’s not just a place to work, but a community. And now one member of the community has been murdered . . .

 

A regular who used Yeast of Eden as a workspace, Josh Prentiss always turned heads with his startlingly good looks and thousand-watt smile. But Ivy can’t help noticing one morning that he seems distracted and off his game. Later, during a visit to the park where she and Miguel plan to hold their engagement party—with plenty of baked goods on the menu—her rescue pug, Agatha, sniffs out Josh lying in a bed of poppies…scone cold dead.

 

There’s no reason for Ivy to get involved. She’s busy enough holding down the fort as the shop’s owner, Olaya, cares for her recently orphaned niece, not to mention the stress when a new employee is fired and storms out in a rage. Then a band of rabble-rousers starts picketing the bakery, claiming that Olaya’s sourdough roll is what killed Josh—and Ivy hears some salacious gossip about her beloved boss. She doesn’t think there’s a grain of truth to the seedy rumors—but to prove it, she’ll have to start sleuthing . . .

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Check out this yummy Recipe:

Blueberry Cornmeal Cake

 

Ingredients

 

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• Zest from 2 lemons
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour or cup gluten free flour
• 1/2 cup medium-grind yellow cornmeal
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup buttermilk
• 1 1/2 cups cups fresh blueberries (or frozen, patted dry)

 

Directions

 

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or grease an 8-inch springform pan. You can also cut a parchment round to fit the bottom of the pan.
2. Stir together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream sugar and butter using stand mixer or hand held mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add lemon zest.
4. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture, alternating with buttermilk End with flour mixture.
5. Pour batter into prepared cake pan. Sprinkle fresh blueberries on top.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 40-50 minutes. The cake should starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and springs back when lightly pressed in the center with a fingertip.

Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove cake from springform pan; serve warm or at room temperature.

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About Winnie Archer

Winnie Archer is the nationally bestselling author of the Bread Shop Mystery series, as well as the Lola Cruz Mysteries and the Magical Dressmaking Mystery series written as Melissa Bourbon. A former middle school English teacher, lives in North Carolina with her educator husband, Carlos, and the youngest of their five children. Visit Winnie Archer online at www.MelissaBourbon.com!

Author Links: Website / Facebook / Instagram

Purchase Links: Kensington – Amazon – B&N – Kobo – IndieBound

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The Chamomile Conspiracy

A Garden Lover Cozy Mystery

Seasons Of The Witch

by Louise Marvin

The Chamomile Conspiracy: A Garden Lover Cozy Mystery (Seasons of the Witch)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Maine
Witchy Mysteries (September 30, 2022)
Print length ‏ : ‎ 311 pages
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BCM2VJ17
GoodReads Link Coming Soon

Green witch Pax Thatcher leads a busy life. Between working two jobs, applying to grad school, and helping out at the old herb shop that belongs to her friend and mentor, Miss Millie, Pax doesn’t have much time for practicing spells. She’s lucky she can keep her enormous plant collection alive.

 

Fortunately, she can talk to her plants, and they talk back.

 

But when Pax arrives for a visit to her seaside hometown of Honesty Harbor, Maine, and discovers Miss Millie is missing, she drops everything to find her. When she does, it’s just in time to hear Miss Millie’s dying words:

 

Poison. Find them.

 

Unable to believe anyone would want to murder the kind old woman, Pax vows to fulfill Miss Millie’s last request. But how can a boring little witch who doesn’t even own a cauldron solve a murder? Ask the only witness—a potted plant—what happened.

 

But the more she listens to her leafy allies, the more questions she has. And when others begin to view her as the prime suspect, Pax must hurry to weed out the killer before someone else gets whacked.

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Recipe

In The Chamomile Conspiracy, teashop and restaurant owner Daniel says his new chef is from Menorca and as a result there’s a new soup on the menu, Caldereta de Langosta!

 

It is a lobster stew that takes advantage of Honesty Harbor’s proximity to good lobster grounds and ingredients that bring to mind the Mediterranean. A perfect summer dish, especially if you’re fortunate enough to live on the coast where the lobsters roam!

 

It’s a bit labor-intensive, and considering it contains both lobsters and saffron it might put a dent in your wallet, but if you want something super savory and so different than your traditional soups like clam chowder, you should give Caldereta de Langosta a try! Especially for a special occasion!

 

Here’s the rest of what you need:

 

• Two 2 pound live lobsters (female if possible!)
• 1/2 cup of extra-virgin olive oil (get the good stuff)
• 1 large Spanish onion, diced a quarter-inch
• 2 plum tomatoes, chopped coarse
• 4 thinly-sliced garlic cloves
• Sea salt and ground black pepper
• 1 Bay leaf
• 2 large sliced green peppers
• 1 liter stock from the lobsters

 

Topping

 

• 3 thinly sliced garlic cloves (no vampires are gonna get you after you eat this)
• 1 large bunch of parsley, leaves removed, finely-chopped
• 4 threads of saffron
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1/4 cup brandy
• 10 toasted almonds
• (Optional) Roe from the lobsters if they have it

 

For this dish, the lobster should be prepared while alive. However, not everyone can do that, so it is perfectly acceptable to have the lobster prepared at the counter. The heads should be removed from the tail, along with the legs. Throw out the insides but reserve the roe. Pop that in the fridge until you need it. Cut the tails crosswise in four pieces. Cut the head in half. Crack open the legs and reserve the claws. Keep lobster on ice and be ready to cook it immediately.

 

(If you do this at home, put the lobsters in ice water for an hour. This numbs them and they feel nothing when you prepare them.)

 

Heat the oil in a casserole dish on high and sauté the tomatoes, onions, garlic, a little parsley, and peppers, stirring often. Reduce heat to medium and simmer for another 20 minutes, continuing to stir frequently.

 

Put the sauce through a food mill and add it back into the dish, on very low heat. Don’t let it burn!

 

Now, the lobsters. Boil the head and legs over high in salted water enough to cover them. Set heat down to medium and simmer for half an hour. Drain and reserve the stock.

 

Add the tail pieces and claws to the sauce. Mix the sauce and the lobster well, add the stock, bay leaf, and salt, raise heat to medium and bring to a boil. Cover and let cook for 20 minutes.

 

Crush the lobster roe, parsley, almonds, garlic, and saffron (you can add a little olive oil if you like) and mix until you have a paste. You’ll need a mortar and pestle for this part! Then add the brandy and lemon juice, mix. Add paste to the lobster and sauce, stir lightly, and simmer for five minutes.

 

Be sure to fish out that bay leaf! (I always forget.)

 

You should serve this immediately, and it’s best with a baguette to dunk in the sauce, or you can serve over a hunk of toast in a bowl. Be sure to have somewhere for the shells!

 

Enjoy!

 

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About Louise Marvin

Louise Marvin’s mother wrote Star Trek fanfiction in the 1980s, so it was only natural that Louise follows in her footsteps. FanFiction played a big part in Louise’s development and coincidence as a writer, inspiring her to try her hand at original fiction. THE CHAMOMILE CONSPIRACY is her first book. Louise lives in New England with an elderly cat and an extensive LEGO Star Wars collection and works at a medical cannabis facility.

Author Links: Website / Twitter / Tumblr / TikTok

Purchase Link – Amazon 

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