Henny Penny Farmette

This newest offering in the Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries provides a recipe for pure pleasure.

Take one medium-sized volume, mix up an ex-cop turned lady farmer, toss in one small town, and add the murder of the local herbalist. Combine a little mystery, add the angst of an old lover, sift in a new admirer, and squeeze in the bitter juice of one uptight New Age guru. Let the pressure build until the top blows. Enjoy with a cup of tea.

Novel #2 in the Henny Penny Farmette series, available September 27, 2016

THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE
Author: Meera Lester

Review Issue Date: July 15, 2016
Online Publish Date: June 30, 2016
Publisher:Kensington
Pages: 288
Price ( Hardcover ): $25.00
Publication Date: September 27, 2016
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-1-61773-913-2
Category: Fiction
Classification: Mystery

Kirkus Reviews July 15, 2016

A beekeeper gets a second chance at love and solving a murder.

Former police officer Abigail Mackenzie and her ex-partner Kat Petrovsky are supposed to be having lunch at Abby’s farmette with local shop owner Fiona Mary Sullivan, who’d asked to have a talk with Abby. Fiona recently split from a New Age group whose new leader created a cultish atmosphere, leaving her husband, Tom Davidson Dodge, behind at the commune. When Kat gets a call reporting a burning car with a body, both of them rush to the scene to discover that the body is Fiona’s.

The police chief wants no interference from Abby, but she can hardly help investigating the murder of a friend. After being nearly forced off the road and shot at, she’s not in the mood to discuss relationship problems with Clay Calhoun, the sexy carpenter who loved her and left her heartbroken. Clay evidently wants her back. He plans a fabulous bathroom makeover as a gift to help win her.

Meanwhile, Abby helps Fiona’s brother, Jack Sullivan, straighten out Fiona’s affairs and seeks to discover what lock a mysterious key Abby found in one of Fiona’s diaries unlocks. Though there are plenty of suspects for Abby and the police to check out, Abby naturally finds it hard to concentrate on murder while she’s trying to decide what to do about Clay and her newfound attraction to Jack.  The second from Lester (A Beeline To Murder, 2016) is long on romance, sweet tips, and honey recipes. There’s a thin little mystery, too.

The peaches are ripe now and beginning to fall from the tree. I decided to whip up a fresh peach cobbler from scratch. It’s easy and won’t take more than 15 to 20 minutes to get the cobbler made and into the oven.

Elberta peaches are firm and juicy. That makes them perfect for cobbler, pies, tarts, and jams.

All you need to make this super-simple summer dessert are a few fresh peaches and a basic cobbler batter.

The cobbler crust forms as the fruit and batter bake. The dessert is even tastier with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

RECIPE: FRESH PEACH COBBLER

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

pinch of salt

1 cup of milk

5 to 6 medium to large fresh peaches (peeled, pitted, and sliced)

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 teaspoon cinnamon or ground nutmeg (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit

Select a baking dish that measures 13 x 9 x 2 inches and pour the melted butter to coat the bottom.

Combine in a medium bowl the dry ingredients (set aside 1 cup of sugar for the peaches). Pour the milk over the dry mixture and stir gently to combine to create a batter. Do not overmix. Pour the batter into the butter-coated baking dish.

Put peaches into a saucepan and cover with the remaining cup of sugar and lemon juice. Over high heat, bring the peaches to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and pour the peaches over the batter in the baking dish, but do not stir.

Sprinkle the cinnamon and/or nutmeg over the fruit. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. The cobbler batter will become a crusty topping through which the hot peach filling bubbles through. Serve it hot or cold, plain or with a dollop of whipped cream or a scoop of rich vanilla ice cream. Serves 4-6

An amazing wild plum tree sprouted up and grew tall at the back of our property with a full canopy of gorgeous burgundy leaves. This, without any attention or coddling from us. It’s now three-years-old and loaded with red plums.

Making a test batch of a few jars is advised when you are not sure about a fruit jam

The fruit itself is quite juicy and sweet, but the skins are tart. I made a small test batch of five jars and then waited 24 hours to sample the jam. After I tasted the test jam and realized how exquisitely delicious it was, I vowed to can at least a couple dozen jars.

I got out cases of unopened jars and lids and ran the jars through a hot water wash cycle in my dishwasher. Then I rinsed the plums under water and pitted them before making the fruit into jam. My plan is to not only enjoy eating the jam throughout the summer and fall but to pack jars of it into food baskets for holiday giving this year.

This jam is perfect for spreading on a slice of toast or a croissant. The sweet-tart taste means it would nicely accompany chicken or pork. The taste is sweet but tangy. The texture is lighter and smoother than strawberry.

The smallest dab of this fruity jam goes well with a little goat cheese on toasted sourdough

RECIPE: WILD PLUM JAM

Ingredients:

5 cups wild plums (washed and pitted)

3 cups sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/3 cup water

5 Tablespoons Classic Pectin

Directions:

Place the pitted plums into a large cooking pot and add all ingredients except pectin.

Stir well to combine.

Cook on high and bring the plums to gelling point. Stir constantly for 15 minutes as mixture thickens.

Sprinkle in the pectin by spoonfuls and stir after each addition to mix well.

Ladle jam into hot jars. Leave about 1/4-inch at the top. Attach lids and screw rings and then process in boiling water for 20 minutes according to your canner instructions.

Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start to summer, which means time to grab a little reading pleasure and sample some locally grown produce to go with whatever you’re putting on the grill. And don’t forget dessert.  My mind is already spinning with ideas.

Hanging out in the hammock calls for a book, so if you haven’t already snagged a copy of A BEELINE TO MURDER, get your e-book today through May 30 for a great price from KOBO Books. Here’s the link: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/a-beeline-to-murder.

The first book in the Henny Penny Farmette series, Kensington Books 2015

For your grilling pleasure, choose some sweet corn to grill to go with the barbecue ribs or chicken. Here on the Henny Penny Farmette, our corn won’t be ready until July, so we’re going to pick some up locally grown corn at the farmers’ market in downtown Concord.

This corn has just started growing

We’ve got more than a dozen heirloom tomato plants with fruit on them. Vine-ripened heirloom tomatoes for a cool Caprese salad are also available from the farmers’ market. And as I consider salads for our weekend meals, a red-skin potato with pesto and shredded basil leaves sounds almost as good as a conventional country style potato salad. But then again, I’d love a fresh broccoli-carrot salad with an Asian sesame-seed dressing or a simple cold slaw.

We’ve got plenty of zucchini and sweet snap peas in my garden that are ready to eat. These taste divine tossed into a garlic and butter shrimp pasta with a little shaved Parmesan cheese. Add a nice chardonnay or a traditional Cuban lime mojito along with some fresh baked bread and you’re ready to head for the table in the orchard.

Sunflower-design bundt pan makes this cake pretty enough to eat without the the caramelized pecan frosting.

Desserts are on my mind too–a simple cake or a plate of berries or watermelon rings my chime. But then again, with company, I could bake some linzer torte cookies with home-canned apricot jam. Or make a rhubarb-strawberry pie. The rhubarb stalks are cherry red and ready to cut.

These are some of my ideas of simple pleasures for Memorial Day to get you thinking about yours. Wishing you a peaceful, blessed Memorial Day weekend.

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If you enjoy reading about keeping bees and chickens, raising heirloom vegetables and fruits, and other aspects of modern farmette life, check out my series of cozy mysteries from Kensington Publishing (New York).

A BEELINE TO MURDER, available in hardcover, will be released in paperback format in October.  THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE will be released October 1, 2016. Find these titles on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Walmart.com and other online bookstores and retailers as well as in traditional bookstores everywhere.

First book in Meera Lester’s Henny Penny Farmette series of cozy mysteries

Novel #2 in the Henny Penny Farmette series, available Oct. 1, 2016

Honey is the liquid gold that we harvest from our backyard honeybee hives. Until recently, I had to take frames out of the hives, open the cap cells, and drain the honey through a strainer into a bucket.

This electric honey extractor holds four frames of the liquid gold

Just before Mother’s Day, my hubby purchased an electric honey extractor. He set it up in the kitchen. This weekend, we plan to open the hives and harvest some frames, giving our new machine a test run.

A hand-cranked or electric honey extractor makes it much easier to get honey out of the wooden frames. After the capped cells are opened with a hot knife, the frame goes into the machine. It spins honey against the cylinder walls and the sweet liquid then drains out the spigot.

A frame of honey from the hive

I use a fabric paint strainer taped over a five-gallon honey bucket (also with a spigot) to filter the honey and fill the jars. The jar of liquid gold is then labeled and ready to distribute to customers and friends.

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If you like reading about keeping bees and chickens, harvesting honey, and creating delicious recipes, check out my novels in the Henny Penny Farmette series.  Besides offering an intriguing cozy mystery, these books are chocked full of farm sayings, tips for gardening, yummy recipes, and much more.

My novels are published by Kensington Publishing and are available through online stores of Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Walmart, Kobo and conventional bookstores everywhere.

A BEELINE TO MURDER is the debut novel and THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE is the second  book in the Henny Penny Farmette series from Kensington Publishing.

The storms have been steadily sweeping over the farmette, thanks to the El Nino effect. And on rainy days, I like to ride out the battering rain and blustery winds with indoor work. Invariably, a tea break calls for cake.

I’m particularly fond of apple cake and this recipe adds a cream cheese layer which makes the cake super moist. The praline frosting with toasted pecans partners perfectly with the apples and spices.

William Tell’s Never Miss Apple Cake

Ingredients (for the cream cheese layer):

1 8-ounce package of cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

The combination of apples and carrots make for a dense, moist cake

Ingredients (for the cake)

1 ¾ cups sugar

1 cup canola oil

3 large eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon Kosher salt

¼ teaspoon baking soda

2 cups peeled, cored, and chopped Granny Smith apples

1 cup shredded carrots

½ cup chopped pecans, toasted

Ingredients (for the icing):

½ cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup butter, cubed

2 tablespoons whole milk

½ cup confectioner’s sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ cup chopped pecans, toasted

Cream cheese, sugar, and egg mixture is layered between two batter pourings

Directions for the prep:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Grease and flour a 10-in. fluted tube pan.

3. In a small bowl, cream together the cream cheese and sugar until smooth and then beat in egg.

Directions to make the cake:

1. Fit the large bowl to an electric mixer.

2. Add to the bowl the sugar, oil and eggs and beat to blend well.

3. In another large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt and baking soda.

4. Add gradually the flour-and-spice mixture to the sugar-oil mixture.

5. Stir in apples, carrots and toasted pecans.

6. Pour one-half of the batter into the prepared pan.

7. Pour the cream cheese mixture on top of the batter and spread it evenly into a layer.

8. Add the remaining batter to the cream cheese layer.

9. Bake 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in cake portion comes out clean.

10. Cool cool completely before inverting the fluted pan to remove the cake.

The praline icing drizzled over the top tastes great but diminishes the contours of the sunflower petals

Directions to make the praline icing:

1. Combine brown sugar, butter and milk in a large saucepan and bring to a boil.

2. Boil the mixture, stirring constantly, for 1 minute and then remove the pan from heat.

3. Use a whisk to combine confectioners’ sugar with vanilla until smooth.

4. Drizzle the frosting over the cake.

5. Sprinkle with toasted pecans.

Serves: 12

For more delicious farmette recipes, folksy sayings, farming tips, and a cozy mystery, check out A BEELINE TO MURDER and the forthcoming THE MURDER OF A QUEEN BEE (Kensington Publishing), available on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com and other online and traditional bookstores everywhere.

Pomegranate seeds add sweetness and crunch to salads but can eaten fresh, or you can extract the juice to make a lovely sauce.

Use fresh pomegranate juice if you would like a delicious sauce to use in salad dressing or other culinary creations. Pomegranate sauce made into a warm salad dressing dresses up a plain spinach salad like nothing else.

The warm pomegranate dressing is made by combining to blend 1/2 cup pomegranate sauce (recipe below), 1 Tablespoon of honey, 1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger, 1 cup California extra-virgin olive oil, and 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts. Warm the dressing and pour over over a pound of freshly washed spinach leaves, 1/2 cup red onion, and 1 orange (peeled, seeded and with segments quartered).

Here’s how to make and preserve the pomegranate sauce.

INGREDIENTS:

5 cups of pomegranate juice (reamed from about 10 large fruits)

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 cup sugar

DIRECTIONS:

Wash thoroughly ten large pomegranates.

Cut in half and use a reamer to extract the juice from the seeds, discarding the membrane.

Strain the juice through cheesecloth several times to obtain 5 cups.

Combine the juice, lemon, and sugar in a large saucepan over medium-high heat.

Bring to a boil and then turn down the heat and simmer at 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

Reduce the sauce by half.

PROCESS:

Have ready 4 half-pint jam jars that have been washed on a hot cycle in the dishwasher and dried.

Fill the canner with water, place on heat, and bring to a simmer.

Simmer jar lids and rings.

Fill the jars with the pomegranate sauce, leaving 1/4 inch head space.

Affix hot lids to the jars and screw on the rings.

Lower the jars on the rack into the canner (water must cover the jars by at least an inch) and boil the water for 10 minutes.

Remove the jars of sauce and allow to cool.

Check seals, label, and then store until needed.

For more delicious recipes, farming tips, and beekeeping strategies as well as a cozy mystery, check out the first book in the Henny Penny Farmette series from Kensington Books in New York. Available on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and in other online and traditional bookstores everywhere.

Happy New Year! What are you planning for your New Year’s Day dinner? Here on our Northern California farmette, we love a New Year’s meal of cracked crab, sourdough bread, and a crisp winter salad, but this year I think we’ll have duck instead.

Crab season in Northern California has been put on hold thanks to an unprecedented algae season. Our local Dungeness crab has become infected with domaic acid, a neurotoxin produced by the microscopic algae that can cause human illness and death. Testing continues until the crab is safe to eat.

In the meantime, crab is being imported to local stores and restaurants, but it is expensive. With other issues with salmon, sardines, shrimp, and tuna, a seafood shopper might turn to Safeway. The store now offers Fair Trade Certified seafood, in an effort to reduce the seafood/fishing industry’s human rights abuses. But if there’s crab, it’s not local.

There are many other options, but I wouldn’t mind a farm-raised (mind you, I don’t mean “factory-farm raised,” which I’m against), free-range duck for dinner. I was raised on a farm and my grandparents (who raised me for a period in my life) kept chickens, cows, pigs, and horses. Meat (like Boone County ham and, yes, pickled pigs feet) was part of our diet along with all the delicious vegetables and fruits my grandmother grew and in her various gardens and preserved in myriad ways.

Maybe the rest of our duck meal could include a winter salad with citrus, pears, goat cheese, and sugared pecans; roast potatoes, green beans, and a chocolate sheet cake. We’ve got sparkling cider and wine. That sounds pretty good, but it isn’t crab, which is really the meal with which we wanted to start 2016. So, I guess duck will have to do.

I’ve been going through my mom’s old cookbooks, organizing recipes she’d written down on scraps of paper and tucked inside. Finding one for molasses cookies on a holiday card inside her Pennsylvania Dutch cookbook, I decided to bake a batch. They turned out lovely so I packed a few in festive boxes along with sugar cookies to give as gifts between Christmas and New Years.

These cookies benefit from a dusting of turbinado or muscovado sugar while still warm

Raisin-Walnut Molasses Cookies

Ingredients:

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon of ginger

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter (softened)

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup molasses

1 egg

3/4 cup raisins

3/4 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

Directions for Mixing:

Combine flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves in a bowl.

Put butter and sugar in a medium bowl of an electric mixer and cream together until fluffy.

Pour molasses and egg into the butter/sugar mixture.

Add 1/3 the flour/spice mixture at a time to the creamed butter and sugar until all has been added and well blended.

Add the nuts and raisins and mix well.

Directions for Baking:

Set oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit

Line 2 or 3 cookie sheets with parchment paper

Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate until ready to sue (at least 1 to 2 hours)

Divide the dough into thirds.

Work with one ball of dough at a time to roll and bake the cookies.

Place dough onto a work surface that has been sifted with flour.

Roll out the dough.

Cut out the cookies with a cookie or biscuit cutter.

Space cookies 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet.

Bake for 20 to 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool.

*Optional: dust with turbinado or muscovado sugar while cookies are still warm.

Store in an air-tight container.

I sometimes have to resort to bribes to get a helping hand with farmette chores. A bribe that nearly always works is the promise of freshly baked , homemade cookies.

These cookies are characterized by a golden brown color and lovely texture

The old standard peanut butter cookie is a family favorite. These cookies are easy-peasy to make and bake. Best of all, they’re delicious. If they aren’t devoured the same day they’re made, they tend to get a little crisper with time.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

8 tablespoons unsalted butter (softened)

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)

1/2 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup chunky peanut butter

2 large eggs

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 cookie sheets lined with parchment paper (or foil)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

Cream the butter and peanut butter with the sugars until smooth.

Add one egg at a time to the mix, beating after each addition.

Add vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt, baking soda.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the mixture of wet ingredients.

Make each cookie by rolling 1 teaspoon of the dough at a time.

Place cookies about 2 1/2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets.

Flatten with  the tines of a fork or bottom of a jar.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes.

Slide paper from pans to racks and let cool.

Store in a cookie tin or a container with a tight-fitting lid (place wax paper between cookie layers).

For more recipes, farming tips, and craft ideas, check out my newest book, A BEELINE TO MURDER. This hardcover book makes gift-giving easy. Available online and a brick-and-mortar bookstores everywhere. See, http://tinyurl.com/p8d6owd