The two things I love are books and food! I am therefore thrilled to be able to combine the two in an interview with fellow romance author and cook, K. E. Saxon. First of all, I can I ask what K. E. stands for?
Karen Elaine! (a.k.a. “pure light”--are you barfing now? LOL!)
That's not a bad name! However, before I digress off into awful names I've heard of, could you tell us instead about your new book, Love is the Drug?
Your first book was Diamonds and Toads and I absolutely love the book cover! Who designed it?
Dara England. I found the basic photo on iStock about a year or so ago and thought it fit the feel of the story, but needed diamonds and toads to somehow be incorporated in the photograph as well. I also needed a fairy in there--and Dara, bless her, was able to manipulate the picture of the butterfly, making it into a fairy instead, which I absolutely adore. I had her change the eye color to blue, and also asked her to split the hair color--one side black, the other red, to represent the sisters. I found the font, Romance Fatal Serif (isn’t the name great?) by the incredibly talented lettering artist Juan Casco and fell in love with it, so requested his permission to use it for my book.
I’m working on final edits on the second book in a family saga trilogy. They are medieval highland romances, and the second one is entitled HIGHLAND GRACE. The three book plots are so complicated and intertwined that I won’t release any of them until I have all three just right. The second book is about a half-breed (Chinese/Scot) whose mother was the slave of his father in the holy lands. His father sells his son into the flesh trade in Perth when he is ten years old. (This is his backstory) The story begins years later, when the hero is in his late twenties, and centers around his journey to overcome his PTSD in regard to his molestation as a child. Of course, it’s a romance, so the heroine plays a huge role in helping him learn/grow/change!
As a point of possible interest, I just uploaded the prologue to the first book, HIGHLAND VENGEANCE, on Wattpad, if any of your readers would like to take a look at it.
Yes! Here in Houston, there is a restaurant that serves the “Best Fish Taco Ever” (Zagats National Survey), BerryHill Baja Grill. I loved them so much—and fish is so good for you—that I decided to try to figure out their recipe. I don’t know how close I’ve come, but I will tell you, these are delicious. I’ve mixed ideas from several different recipes for fish tacos that I found on the web, plus got as close to the sauce Berryhill uses as I could. (Berryhill keeps their recipe close to the vest).
Ingredients
· 1 1/4 cups Lawry baja chipotle marinade, with lime juice ®
· 1 capful tequila per filet
· 1 1/2 lbs tilapia, catfish, or cod
· 12 soft taco-size corn tortillas, warmed
Condiments
· Mild giardiniera (you can find this on the international aisle in the grocery store—Italian section, or possibly also in the condiment section)
· Your favourite tomato salsa
· Your favourite black bean and corn salsa (or the recipe I use follows)
Directions
1. Place fish in a large baking dish or resealable plastic bag; pour 3/4 cup Lawry's Baja ® Chipotle Marinade with Lime Juice and capfuls of tequila over the fish.
2. Marinate in refrigerator about 30 minutes (or longer, if you wish) in covered dish or sealed plastic bag.
NOTE: To save even more time, I have marinated for 30 minutes then frozen these filets in a freezer bag for future use. (Keep in mind that you cannot defrost fish or meat and then refreeze it. This would only work if the fish was not frozen when you bought it.)
3. Remove fish from dish or bag.
4. Grill or broil fish and baste with the chipotle/tequila marinade you used for the fish. Turn fish once and cook until fish flakes easily with a fork.
5. While fish is cooking, combine mayonnaise, sour cream, Dijon mustard, and 2-4 tablespoons of Lawry marinade in a small bowl.
6. To serve, place fish in tortillas, using two tortillas for each taco, drizzle with sauce and top with shredded cabbage, mild giardiniera and salsas.
Ingredients for homemade Black Bean and Corn Salsa
· 1 12 to15-oz. can of whole kernel corn
· 1 15-oz. can of black beans
· 1 medium tomato, finely diced
· 1 small red onion, finely diced
· 1/4 cup lime juice
· 1 tsp cumin powder
Directions
1. Drain and rinse beans and corn.
2. Combine in medium bowl with diced tomato and onion
3. Mix and add lime juice and cumin
Refrigerate leftovers
Enjoy!
I can't imagine there would be much left over to refrigerate! Before I get too hungry, can I ask where can we buy your books?
Diamonds and Toads is available at:
Amazon.com
B&N.com
Smashwords.com
iTunes
Love Is The Drug is available at:
Amazon.com
B&N.com
Smashwords.com
Allromanceebooks.com
iTunes
Also you can connect with me at any or all of the following:
Facebook www.facebook.com/kesaxonauthorpage
Twitter @KESaxonAuthor
www.kesaxon.com
www.kesaxon.blogspot.com
Thank you so much Karen for taking the time to tell us about your beautiful books and for the great recipes. All I need to do now is to find somewhere in the Middle East that sells Lawry baja chipotle marinade!
Karen Elaine! (a.k.a. “pure light”--are you barfing now? LOL!)
That's not a bad name! However, before I digress off into awful names I've heard of, could you tell us instead about your new book, Love is the Drug?
It’s a sometimes humorous, sometimes touching, most times steamy contemporary romance (sorry, no fairy magic in this one!) about a man, Jason Jörgensen, who is dealing with the trauma of learning that the father who raised him is not the father who made him: he’s actually the product of a violent rape. Because he feels that his DNA is tainted, he never wants to have children. Unfortunately (but we know it’s really fortunately, he falls for a woman who does. Highlights are a match-maker father, a drugged-drink Vegas wedding, and malfunctioning condoms. A person who read it recently, told me that at different places in the book, it made her laugh, it made her angry and it made her cry. I took that as a compliment!
Your first book was Diamonds and Toads and I absolutely love the book cover! Who designed it?
Dara England. I found the basic photo on iStock about a year or so ago and thought it fit the feel of the story, but needed diamonds and toads to somehow be incorporated in the photograph as well. I also needed a fairy in there--and Dara, bless her, was able to manipulate the picture of the butterfly, making it into a fairy instead, which I absolutely adore. I had her change the eye color to blue, and also asked her to split the hair color--one side black, the other red, to represent the sisters. I found the font, Romance Fatal Serif (isn’t the name great?) by the incredibly talented lettering artist Juan Casco and fell in love with it, so requested his permission to use it for my book.What are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on final edits on the second book in a family saga trilogy. They are medieval highland romances, and the second one is entitled HIGHLAND GRACE. The three book plots are so complicated and intertwined that I won’t release any of them until I have all three just right. The second book is about a half-breed (Chinese/Scot) whose mother was the slave of his father in the holy lands. His father sells his son into the flesh trade in Perth when he is ten years old. (This is his backstory) The story begins years later, when the hero is in his late twenties, and centers around his journey to overcome his PTSD in regard to his molestation as a child. Of course, it’s a romance, so the heroine plays a huge role in helping him learn/grow/change!
As a point of possible interest, I just uploaded the prologue to the first book, HIGHLAND VENGEANCE, on Wattpad, if any of your readers would like to take a look at it.
When you are not writing, I believe you like gardening and cooking. Have you got any favourite recipes you could share with us?
Yes! Here in Houston, there is a restaurant that serves the “Best Fish Taco Ever” (Zagats National Survey), BerryHill Baja Grill. I loved them so much—and fish is so good for you—that I decided to try to figure out their recipe. I don’t know how close I’ve come, but I will tell you, these are delicious. I’ve mixed ideas from several different recipes for fish tacos that I found on the web, plus got as close to the sauce Berryhill uses as I could. (Berryhill keeps their recipe close to the vest).
FISH TACOS
Ingredients
· 1 1/4 cups Lawry baja chipotle marinade, with lime juice ®
· 1 capful tequila per filet
· 1 1/2 lbs tilapia, catfish, or cod
· 12 soft taco-size corn tortillas, warmed
Sauce
· 1/4 cup mayonnaise
· 1/4 cup sour cream
· 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard (or to taste)
· 2-4 Tbsp Lawry baja chipotle marinade (or to taste)
· 1/4 cup mayonnaise
· 1/4 cup sour cream
· 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard (or to taste)
· 2-4 Tbsp Lawry baja chipotle marinade (or to taste)
Condiments
· Mild giardiniera (you can find this on the international aisle in the grocery store—Italian section, or possibly also in the condiment section)
· Your favourite tomato salsa
· Your favourite black bean and corn salsa (or the recipe I use follows)
Directions
1. Place fish in a large baking dish or resealable plastic bag; pour 3/4 cup Lawry's Baja ® Chipotle Marinade with Lime Juice and capfuls of tequila over the fish.
2. Marinate in refrigerator about 30 minutes (or longer, if you wish) in covered dish or sealed plastic bag.
NOTE: To save even more time, I have marinated for 30 minutes then frozen these filets in a freezer bag for future use. (Keep in mind that you cannot defrost fish or meat and then refreeze it. This would only work if the fish was not frozen when you bought it.)
3. Remove fish from dish or bag.
4. Grill or broil fish and baste with the chipotle/tequila marinade you used for the fish. Turn fish once and cook until fish flakes easily with a fork.
5. While fish is cooking, combine mayonnaise, sour cream, Dijon mustard, and 2-4 tablespoons of Lawry marinade in a small bowl.
6. To serve, place fish in tortillas, using two tortillas for each taco, drizzle with sauce and top with shredded cabbage, mild giardiniera and salsas.
Ingredients for homemade Black Bean and Corn Salsa
· 1 12 to15-oz. can of whole kernel corn
· 1 15-oz. can of black beans
· 1 medium tomato, finely diced
· 1 small red onion, finely diced
· 1/4 cup lime juice
· 1 tsp cumin powder
Directions
1. Drain and rinse beans and corn.
2. Combine in medium bowl with diced tomato and onion
3. Mix and add lime juice and cumin
Refrigerate leftovers
Enjoy!
I can't imagine there would be much left over to refrigerate! Before I get too hungry, can I ask where can we buy your books?
Diamonds and Toads is available at:
Amazon.com
B&N.com
Smashwords.com
iTunes
Love Is The Drug is available at:
Amazon.com
B&N.com
Smashwords.com
Allromanceebooks.com
iTunes
Also you can connect with me at any or all of the following:
Facebook www.facebook.com/kesaxonauthorpage
Twitter @KESaxonAuthor
www.kesaxon.com
www.kesaxon.blogspot.com
Thank you so much Karen for taking the time to tell us about your beautiful books and for the great recipes. All I need to do now is to find somewhere in the Middle East that sells Lawry baja chipotle marinade!
Thanks so much for having me here today, Katheryn!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much for the great interview and delicious recipes (though I'm still looking for the Lawry baja chipotle marinade!)
ReplyDeleteHey Katheryn!
ReplyDeleteHere's a link to a "similar" marinade (they're calling it bbq sauce) to the Lawry's Baja Chipotle Marinade: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/smoky_barbecue_sauce/
However, it will take a little tweaking, which I have not done yet. Here's the list of ingredients on Lawry's label (other than water and additives) lime juice, h.f. corn syrup (the molasses or brown sugar from the above should be a great substitute) distilled vinegar (again, vinegar used in above), salt, cumin, oregano (above using sage instead), tomato paste (see above crushed toms), garlic powder (above using onions instead).
However, the link's bbq sauce might taste even BETTER!
I hope you can at least get canned chipotles in adobo sauce there!
Hope this helps,
K :-)
Thank you very much Karen! I'm not sure if I can get canned chipotles here, but I'll certainly try and search for them. You never know what you might find in the supermarkets in the Middle East!
ReplyDelete