Release Day for ONE NIGHT STAND EVER AFTER!

Cue the trumpets, the swans, and especially the belly dancers! The final book in the Unforgettable Fire series is available, and I’m thrilled to share it with you!

Max is obsessed with rules. Anna has never met a boundary she didn’t want to push. Especially Max’s – he’s fascinated her since they were teens. Ten years later, she gets the chance to rock his world – and maybe get a little payback for all the times he teased her back in the day.

This book is for readers who love: opposites attract, brother’s best friend, teenage fantasies come true, small town romance, belly dancing, burlesque…and pancakes.

A shout-out to my writer pal, Kelsey Maxwell, who suggested a trivia contest. I had so much fun writing that scene (and the scene after it, which includes a dock and underwater fireworks)!

Here’s a snippet:

She chuckled softly. “What’s the bet?”

“Winner makes new rules?” She’d wanted an encore, and he’d blown it. He wasn’t going to blow it again.

Her honeyed gaze heated. “To be clear, are we talking about sex?”

He bent to speak directly into her ear. “Did your crush on me inspire any other teenage fantasies? If so, I’d love to make them come true.” He just had to win, so he could make the rules.

“You’ve got a deal.” She stuck out her hand, and he took it, feeling electricity shoot from his fingers to his balls. She pumped his hand once—a motion he felt everywhere. “But I’m still going to kick your ass at trivia first.”

Game on.

One Night Stand Ever After is available in eBook and print copies from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, Google Play and more!

I’m going to celebrate with my besties and D.A. Taste TACOS.

And I just might have one of these:

Because it’s the heroine’s go-to drink, and the only thing better than a classic margarita is a margarita with unsweetened cranberry juice! Why? Because it’s good for your bladder! And citrus helps prevent scurvy. Basically, I’ll be enjoying a healthy beverage! (Get the recipe for the Best Homemade Margarita here. Full recipe video available soon!)

I hope you’ll raise a glass (and a copy of ONE NIGHT STAND EVER AFTER) to the final book in the Unforgettable Fire series!

Buy the Book

Covid Cooking. And Eating.

And drinking. It’s totally a thing. My kids have stayed healthy, thank the Universe, but my daughter missed the end of her senior year in high school, and my son missed the end of eight grade. No big deal compared to what some are suffering. I get that. But it does make me want to nurture them. For me that means food. (Shocking, I know.)

Since I was working four ten hour days for a few months, that meant I had three days off a week. What that REALLY meant was that I had no good excuse to get out of cooking dinner!

I’ve made some old favorites and discovered some new ones, thanks to Pinterest and my FB friends. My favorite finds of 2020 thus far are: Homemade falafel, veggie burger breakfast sandwiches, and ramen bowls. All vegetarian, but not vegan, because of our pescetarian kid. Oh! And I put everything bagel seasoning on a pizza crust before I baked it. That was good, too. It’s raw dough from the grocery store, but the trick to making it awesome (which I learned from my husband, lol) is to let it proof, press it out, let it proof, press it out, let it proof, press it out…until it stays at the edges of the pan. Then top it. Let it proof…and ta da!

I’m a falafel fan, and this one from Foodie with Family is great. Don’t double it. I made that mistake. The recipe will make enough! If you make the tahini sauce, add water. It really needs it. This pic is from our Quarantine Birthday Passover Fafafel fest.

I can’t stop eating these:

Three friends and I go on a yearly writers’ retreat to an Airbnb above a vegetarian cafe where I had the most epic breakfast sandwich ever. Of Covid-course, it got canceled this year, but the cafe lists the ingredients on their menu! Wheee! TRY IT. My version goes like this: broil a quinoa crunch veggie burger for eight minutes. Flip it. Hard fry an egg while you broil the veggie burger for another six minutes. Okay, fine, maybe you prefer your eggs over easy or whatever. Do that then. 🙂 Get a bun. I like brioche buns. Put your veggie burger on the bun. Add cheese if you, like me, believe everything needs cheese. Put your egg on there too. Now, you are gonna have to trust me. Spread peanut butter, apricot preserves, and Sriracha on the top bun. I know. Sounds weird. Maybe you’d rather combine those ingredients and THEN put them on the bun. I’ve done it both ways several times. Like I said, I can’t stop eating this sandwich. OH MY GOD SO GOOD.

And I don’t know about you, but I love me a ramen bowl, and the kids do, too. HOWEVER, I am not spending hours in the kitchen making broth. Nope. I spend hours doing a ton of other shit. SO! I needed a recipe that was good but not too time consuming, preferably vegetarian. BOOM. Pinterest via Supper with Michelle delivered. I’ve made this a few times, and it’s super. My cheap hack: I use the packaged Ramen noodles minus the flavor pack. The in-laws gave us a space-age egg cooker for Hannukah, so I add egg, avocado, grated carrot, barely cooked zuccini noodles, scallions, baby pepper rings, kimchi…and I usually grill a chicken on the side for the omnivores in the family. Slurp, slurp, yum! And I don’t have to agonize over the broth.

Last, but certainly not least…an oldie but goodie. Since my husband built a bar in the garage…since the bar-age has recently acquired a commercial grade drink blender…since it’s June…since the past four months have been a little blurry anyway…my favorite homemade margarita!

I hope you are finding ways to nurture yourself, your people, and strangers during these strange days.

XOXO,

Amanda

Hot Greek Sausage Right Here!

* The winner of the Ripped Bodice Giveaway is Anita H.! Anita, you will hear from me soooon! Thanks to ALL for the comments! ❤ *

EAT ME. Said every sausage ever.

Did you click because you have a dirty mind, and you saw the word sausage? You aren’t the only one! An e-mail from Wegmans appeared in my inbox with the subject heading, “4 ways to make your sausage sensational!” I couldn’t resist. I didn’t expect to see anything I hadn’t seen before *snerk*, but I was wrong. So wrong. Once I saw it, I had to have it. I did promise a forthcoming dinner party menu in my “Friends For Dinner” post…

I struggle with sausage. *giggle* What do you put on it? Onions and peppers? Okay, that’s good, but it needs some goo. Ketchup? Mustard? Both? Sriracha? I like spicy sausage. *that’s what s/he said* (I’m really sorry. I won’t be able to stop. You should know this now. But the recipe will be worth it.) Dijon? Also good, but it only works for me without the bun. The bun just gets in the way of the fatty sausage/astringent mustard battle for mouth domination. I also like sausage with tomato sauce and melted mozzarella, hoagy-style, but that isn’t exactly backyard barbecue, is it? Sausage is good plain, but I’ve always wanted an epic sausage condiment experience.

The first Wegmans sausage idea blew me away. Hot Italian sausage (actually theirs was chicken sausage with spinach and feta, but this is MY sausage fantasy) getting it on Greek-style with tzatziki, cucumbers, tomatoes, feta, and red onion. The other three were variations on sausage with onions, but this one? PURE GENIUS.

Tzatziki on my sausage makes me haaaaapppy!

Coincidentally, we were having family over this weekend. My husband grilled sausage, hot dogs, and burgers and I put out tzatziki, chopped tomatoes with diced cucumber and feta, red onion, bacon, pickles, banana peppers, jalapenos, ketchup, mustard, crunchy fungus (something my husband picked up at the Asian store), basically, everything in the fridge that could go on a grilled food. Plus three bags of chips.

Absolute sausage satisfaction. I tore through that thing so fast I didn’t even take a picture. The sausage you see in front of you is the leftovers I’m having for lunch. I might have another one for dinner. Yes, you should have sausage envy…and go buy the stuff to make your own. (I like red onion near my food but not actually on it which is probably why I forgot to put it on for the picture.)

Click here for the tzatziki recipe. Or click any pic for the recipe. I linked them all!

Grilled Grapefruit Margarita heaven is within your grasp.

During cocktail hour, we enjoyed a grilled grapefruit variation of my margaritas with some chips salsa and guacamole, and for dessert…

Red Velvet Oreo Brownies. OMG.

Head on over to Sally’s Baking Addiction for the recipe. I normally don’t go for red velvet. It just seems silly to add food coloring to something for no reason but to make it red. (Well, I guess that’s an excellent reason since the colors practically FORCED me to make the recipe. The visual impact cannot be denied.) I even made them again sans dye for a party because the combination of rich chocolate brownie, sweet creamy buttercream, and crunchy Oreo hit all my happy places.

Happy National Yoga Day everyone! And happy SUMMER! Do you have a favorite way to eat sausage? I’m all eyes and mouth…

 

 

Impulse Control Margarita

I’m on the road to Lori Foster’s Reader & Author Get Together! Since I put this picture on some of my swag, I figured I’d better get the recipe up. Thank goodness for my iPhone hotspot! The number of things on my to-do list multiplied all week as I packed for the con, and I THINK this is the last thing to check off. If it didn’t get done, it’s not getting done until I get home! (And if you are anywhere near Cincinnati, come see me! I’ll be signing books on Friday 6/5, From 3-5 pm!

In my latest release, IMPULSE CONTROL, the heroine mixes up a homemade margarita for her BFF. I LOVE margaritas, but I don’t love the jaw-stinging sweet and sour mix from a bottle. I think half the reason I put a margarita in the book was so that I’d be forced to come up with a recipe for homemade sour mix, and here you go! It’s great in a classic margarita, and it’s also fantastic with pineapple vodka and coconut rum. I imagine it would go well with just about anything. Confession: I lined up two shot glasses, one full of tequila and one full of homemade sour mix, and tossed them back. That was good, too. 🙂

Impulse Control Homemade Sweet and Sour Mix

(makes about 3 cups)

One cup sugar

One cup water

One cup lemon juice

1/2 cup lime juice

Juice from one tangerine or 1/2 and orange

1. Bring sugar and water to a boil. Turn off heat. Cool syrup. (Seriously. Cool the syrup. And don’t do what I did. I poured warm syrup into a pickled jar, and then poured very cold lemon juice in right after it. The entire bottom of the pickle jar cracked off because it wasn’t tempered glass. I know better…but I didn’t think the syrup was THAT warm.)

2. Add lemon juice, lime juice, and tangerine/orange juice. Stir.

3. Use immediately or refrigerate. Last about a week. (Except at my house.)

Now for the margarita! Another confession: I created a perfectly lovely margarita recipe, wrote it down, drank the margarita, and lost the piece of paper with the recipe on it. However, I rely on my instincts a lot while cooking/baking/mixology-making, and here’s what I would do*:

Find a friend.

Rim two margarita glasses with salt. (Run a cut lime around the edge, and then roll the edge in kosher salt. Or pink Himalayan salt. Or whatever salt you prefer.) Add ice.

Half-fill a shaker with more ice. Pour in 3 shots of tequila, one shot of triple sec or Curacao, and 3 shots of sour mix.

Shake.

Strain into margarita glasses. Retire to the porch with snacks. Susannah served black bean and roasted sweet potato nachos in IMPULSE CONTROL. Maybe I’ll have to make that next!

*I promise I’ll whip up a batch as soon as I get home just to test the recipe. 😉

** All set! And I created a NEW drink. The Lemon Balm-arita! Lemon balm is pretty, but it will spread all over the yard. You might want to keep it contained if you decide to grow some. It’s a lovely garnish for a summer beverage!