These are actual texts from my sister a few days ago:

Feb 5, 2011 7:13 pm Making sunshine fruit and honey bread

Feb 6, 2011 12:36 pm OMG OMG OMG. That bread is soooooo good I could prolly eat the whole thing!!!

Feb. [...]]]>

(A recipe from How to Bake a Perfect Life. )

These are actual texts from my sister a few days ago:

Feb 5, 2011 7:13 pm
Making sunshine fruit and honey bread

Feb 6, 2011 12:36 pm
OMG OMG OMG. That bread is soooooo good I could prolly eat the whole thing!!!

Feb. 7, 2011 12:26 pm
I can’t stop eating this bread ! I feel like the guy in the window in Chocolat. LOL

———

I can’t promise you will like it as much as she does, but it’s one of my favorites, too.  It would be an excellent offering at a book club.

RAMONA’S BOOK OF BREADS
Sunshine Fruit and Honey Bread

Sometimes a recipe is born from a moment, and this is the recipe that I came up with after my first night with Jonah. Filled with light and juice and tenderness, it is one of my favorite things. Try it with a cup of sweet chai.

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp kosher salt
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup raw sugar
½ cup dark honey
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp orange extract
2 tsp grated orange zest
2 eggs
1 cup raspberries, whole
1/3 cup slivered, toasted almonds

Juice of one orange, mixed with enough powdered sugar to make a thin glaze

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 9 x5 inch loaf pan

Whisk together dry ingredients. Cream butter, honey, and extracts and zest. Add eggs one at a time. Mix in the dry ingredients just until moist, then gently, gently fold in the raspberries and toasted almonds.

Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for 20 minutes, then tip bread out to a wire rack and cool thoroughly, then drizzle the top lightly with glaze.

Technically, I suppose, apple butter is smooth.  I originally made this recipe last winter and pureed it afterward. Since, however, my main use for this particular condiment is in my morning oatmeal, I have found I much prefer it to be left chunky.   Recipe is adapted from one I found at The Art [...]]]>

Technically, I suppose, apple butter is smooth.  I originally made this recipe last winter and pureed it afterward. Since, however, my main use for this particular condiment is in my morning oatmeal, I have found I much prefer it to be left chunky.   Recipe is adapted from one I found at The Art of Homemaking.

SLOW COOKED CHUNKY, SPICY APPLE BUTTER

Apples enough to fill a crock pot–about 10-12 good sized apples.
2 T cinnamon
5-6 whole cloves
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped and broken into pieces
6-8 oz hard apple cider

Wash, core, and peel the apples.  Slice them into good size slices and fill the crock pot. Add the spices, salt and cider, and cook on low for 18-24 hours.   Smell it like every good thing all night long, and stir sometimes to keep the spices moving.  When they’re very dark and soft, use a potato masher or two butter knives to break the apples into small chunks.  Ladle into jars and freeze, or if you eat it as fast as we do, just pile the jars in the back of the fridge.  Also very good on French toast or buckwheat pancakes. 

Do you have an easy winter recipe to share with us?

At thirty-seven, Tessa Harlow is still working her way [...]]]> PRE-ORDER NOW

Coming your way January 5, 2010:

At thirty-seven, Tessa Harlow is still working her way down her list of goals to “fall in love and have a family.” A self-described rolling stone, Tessa leads hiking tours for adventurous vacationers–it’s a job that’s taken her around the world but never a step closer to home. Then a freak injury during a trip already marred by tragedy forces her to begin her greatest adventure of all.

Located high in the New Mexico mountains, Las Ladronas has become a magnet for the very wealthy and very hip, but once upon a time it was the setting of a childhood trauma Tessa can only half remember. Now, as she rediscovers both her old hometown and her past, Tessa is drawn to search-and-rescue worker Vince Grasso. The handsome widower isn’t her type. No more inclined to settle down than Tessa, Vince is the father of three, including an eight-year-old girl as lost as Tessa herself. But Tessa and Vince are both drawn to the town’s most beloved eatery–100 Breakfasts–and to each other. For Tessa, the restaurant is not only the key to the mystery that has haunted her life but a chance to find the home and the family she’s never known.

Chicken breasts with Grilled Lemons and Sauteed Spinach Serves 4

Creative Commons photo by bookgrl

Headed into the last stretch of the MIP, which was called 100 Breakfasts and will be something else, though we don’t know what yet.   It will be out in January.  (Yay!) 

I’ve hit the stretch of the book when I’m not really doing [...]]]>

Creative Commons photo by bookgrl

Headed into the last stretch of the MIP, which was called 100 Breakfasts and will be something else, though we don’t know what yet.   It will be out in January.  (Yay!) 

I’ve hit the stretch of the book when I’m not really doing anything but writing. For most of my process of writing a novel, I keep regular hours, write a regular number of pages, jog along at a nice, steady pace, taking the weekends off to rest and recharge.

At a certain point, right near the end, that all goes out the window, and I’m writing all day, every day, often going back into tinker late at night.  The book world becomes my world and there’s really only enough of my brain to live in one world or the other, so the book wins.   I do try to eat very healthy foods and get walks and exercise in on most days, to be kind to my body housing the brain, and I get a regular massage about once a month, which really helps work out those neck kinks and shoulder freezes.

I’m having a blast with this story, the town, the backstory, everything.  I think you’re going to love it. 

Delicious recipes, though I need more.   Breakfast recipes, your favorites–if you send me something I can use, any kind of breakfast recipe, I’ll acknowledge you in the credits and send you a book of your choice.  Post to the comments, or email them to me directly.  (If you want credit, remember, I have to be able to contact you!)