In Bad Boyfriend, on the morning after their intensely hot hook-up, Quinn wakes up to find Eli rummaging through his kitchen cabinets. Eli explains that he’s looking for tarragon, for the eggs he’s making for breakfast. Through the rest of the series, Eli enjoys feeding his friends, something he never got to do before living with Quinn.
One of the things I love about cooking is that adding something to a basic dish can really make it special. And no, that special ingredient isn’t always love. I got to thinking about some of those regular-turned- special dishes and I invite you to stumble down memory lane with me as I reminisce on five favorite special ingredient twists.
1. Tuna Twist!
The jingle went “I’m Sir Celery, I’m Miss Parsley and we are the Onion Twins! New Tuna Twist makes tuna taste fresh as a garden.” This was a mix in package for ye old tuna-mayo (in my case, Miracle Whip) combo. Back when I was a teenage pescatarian, I loved mixing up some Tuna Twist. Unfortunately, the product was short-lived on the shelf. I tried replicating it on my own with minimal success considering I was working with breadcrumbs, celery salt and dried minced onions.
2. Maile’s Magic Dressing
Moving on to my college days and living off campus, we were all dirt poor in my apartment, but my housemate Maile had this way of turning spices and condiments into this super tasty dressing that made everything taste amazing. I wish I had that recipe. Maile, if you’re out there, send it on.
3. Next Level Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese
This one is something I’m sure everyone’s familiar with. I swear my first girlfriend and I lived on this for those two years (until she cheated and broke my heart, of course). You fry onions in butter and then layer them into your ordinary plastic American cheese grilled cheese sandwich. Tossing those onions in with the canned soup is also yummy. But even if you don’t like onions, here’s something my Great Gran taught me about canned tomato soup: make it with half water and half milk and just before you serve it, throw in a little pat of butter. It melts and makes the soup taste rich.
4. Beanie-Jos
If I want to make my wife the happiest woman in the world, I just tell her I’m making Beanie-Jos for supper. It’s my own recipe, basically a vegetarian take on sloppy joes: kidney beans with spices, ketchup and molasses and wheat germ. Sounds kind of gross when I write it out like that, but I swear it’s really good. The secret ingredient this time is liquid smoke. A few drops give the dish a yummy barbeque taste.
5. Triple-O Brownies
Body Problems: High degree of stress weakens the immune system making the cheap no prescription cialis person succumb to various infections and diseases. Janumet 50 500 mg tablets are one sided film-coated with 78 debossed, bi-convex oval and light blue learn this here now order generic cialis in color. The ability to enjoy a healthy and satisfactory intimate relationship can be a big problem for some women. levitra online purchase Here people usually give up and finally realize that there is no treatment to it where in some try really hard cialis without prescriptions to overcome the issue but fail to get over it. Finally, I have a link to an actual recipe for you, but when you check it out, you’ll see that they’re actually called Cappuccino Brownies. I made them for my writer friends one time, and that’s what they started calling them. The first time I made them, I wasn’t positive about the outcome. I’m more of a tea than coffee person and while I like cappuccino, I wasn’t sure how cinnamon in the frosting would turn out. But coffee—or instant espresso if you can find it—is exactly what these brownies need to be worthy of the name. The original recipe calls for walnuts too, but walnuts are an abomination that should never despoil food. If you want the walnuts, do walnuts, but don’t @ me about your dessert perversions. *dramatic shudder*
http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/features/gourmet/brownie.shtml
Now, I’ve got to finish up book 6. Eli’s still feeding people. No Eli, I’m pretty sure what you’re thinking of is not the special ingredient either no matter what the brownies are called.
Causing trouble has never been more fun.
Eli Wright doesn’t follow anyone’s rules. When he was seventeen, his parents threw him out of the house for being gay. He’s been making his own way for the past five years and he’s not about to change himself for anyone’s expectations. For now, romance can wait. There are plenty of hot guys to keep him entertained until he finds someone special.Quinn Maloney kept the peace and his closeted boyfriend’s secrets for ten years. One morning he got a hell of a wake-up along with his coffee. Not only did the boyfriend cheat on him, but he’s marrying the girl he knocked up. Inviting Quinn to the baby’s baptism is the last straw. Quinn’s had enough of gritting his teeth to play nice. His former boyfriend is in for a rude awakening, because Quinn’s not going to sit quietly on the sidelines. In fact, he has the perfect scheme, and he just needs to convince the much younger, eyeliner-wearing guy who winks at him in a bar to help him out.
Eli’s deception is a little too good, and soon he has everyone believing they’re madly in love. In fact, he’s almost got Quinn believing it himself….
About the Author: K.A. Mitchell discovered the magic of writing at an early age when she learned that a carefully crayoned note of apology sent to the kitchen in a toy truck would earn her a reprieve from banishment to her room. Her career as a spin-control artist was cut short when her family moved to a two-story house and her trucks would not roll safely down the stairs. Around the same time, she decided that Ken and G.I. Joe made a much cuter couple than Ken and Barbie and was perplexed when invitations to play Barbie dropped off. She never stopped making stuff up, though, and was thrilled to find out that people would pay her to do it. Although the men in her stories usually carry more emotional baggage than even LAX can lose in a year, she guarantees they always find their sexy way to a happy ending.
K.A. loves to hear from her readers. You can email her at ka@kamitchell.com. She is often found talking about her imaginary friends on Twitter.
Buy the book at Google, Dreamspinner, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon.
Thanks for sharing your recipes. This cover concept is great. Did you design it?