Yorkshire Pudding from Guest Blogger Catherine Johnson

From blogging friend Catherine Johnson

Yorkshire puddings were a huge Sunday lunch tradition when I was growing up in Yorkshire. Gravy from the stock of the beef mixed with good old Bisto granules. Most of the time we had the Yorkshire puddings first like a starter and then the main, but the odd time we'd have one of two small ones mixed on the dinner plate. The point back after the wary was to fill you up on Yorkshire puddings first because there wasn't much of anything else after. They are cheap to make and absolutely delicious. I'd love to say easy to make but you have to make sure the old is SO hot when you pour the batter in the trays. I've seen/made bad Yorkshire puddings. (not nice.)  Anyway here's a website I found with the recipe and all about Yorkshire puds. From one pud to another.;)
Yorkshire Pudding

TAXES AND OTHER DRUTHERS

I love the holidays. Over Christmas we see our son who lives across the country more than at any other time during the year.  In those days between Christmas and New Year's Day, we also visit with family and entertain friends who we don't see often enough. But as soon as the holidays are a warm memory, the idea of tax preparation rears its head.  That memory isn't warm--it's tedious!  January is that month of the year when the previous year has to be studied, analyzed, and broken down into manageable bits. Each number has to make sense and match another in a checkbook, on a payment stub or on a charge statement.

I could dread tax preparation.  Let's skip over the obvious. We have to pay in money we don't want to pay.  (Though I do think of everything our taxes go to pay and try to keep an elevated opinion of those on better days.) During this January excavation into receipts, there are so many other things I'd rather be doing--writing, blogging, tweeting! However, over the years I've come to accept the fact that tax preparation is a chore like raking leaves, cutting the grass, preparing a meal, doing car maintenance.  I've found if I approach it with a positive attitude, I can learn from it. I can see patterns and trends in my expenses and spending.  If  I look hard enough and think the scope of the whole procedure through, I definitely see changes I need to make.  Most of all, I can let everything I've learned lead to me choose a course that will take me forward instead of backward.

If I haven't made financial new year's resolutions before gathering all the paperwork, I will after it's compiled.

So tell me.  How do you approach doing taxes? Do you consider the experience positive or negative?

Karen Rose Smith's website
Karen Rose Smith's Search For Love Series website
IN TOUCH With Karen Rose Smith e-zine

Writing About The West With Feeling

I remember when I wrote my first "cowboy" book. Immediately I became intrgued by the type of man who would own or work on a ranch--an independent, free-thinking man of integrity who valued the land and animals and his care of both. I've never lived on a ranch but I had memories to draw from.  All through my childhood, I had access to a relative's farm. My cousin and I would play on and around the hay bales, hold and chase newborn kittens, and stand in awe watching the horses run in the pasture. I recall a foal named Muley and a white bull with a ring in his nose. Watching a calf come into this world was exciting, scary, and memorable.

The west has always called to me. When I wrote that first ranch book, I also wrote to guest ranches in Montana and Wyoming, hoping to find a genuine source for research. One ranch owner corresponded with me and we had many phone conversationa about running cattle and the requirements for keeping a ranch operating smoothly. She invited me for a visit and a few years later Wyoming and Montana became my reserach destinations. I wll never forget my visit to that ranch. We road in her pick-up truck, driving through  pastures and over gullies, glimpsing antelope and jackrabbits, finding Teepee rings from so long ago. This was a family ranch and we learned the part everyone in the family played in making their life there a success. On that same trip, my husband and I drove through Wyoming and spent several days watching and photographing the wild horses in The Big Horns. Research took on an entirely new meaning as we caught the scent of sage, trekked through brush and spotted wild horses standing on a peak staring down at us. No words could describe it.

For me, ALWAYS HER COWBOY as well as CASSIDY'S COWBOY--both set in Wyoming--are the epitome of ranch books. I put everything I feel about the pioneer spirit of living in the West in both books, as well as everything I feel about the meaning of family. I hope that shines through to my readers. The West can be a universe of its own. A ranch can be a world of its own, a world where love can find a true home.

Buy ALWAYS HER COWBOY, Amazon

Buy CASSIDY'S COWBOY, Amazon

Applesauce Bread Recipe

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Applesauce Bread

3 cups flour
2 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups applesauce
1 cup golden raisins
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup sour cream

Grease and flour two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans or three 8  x 4inch loaf pans. (I used the 8 x 4)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Beat together eggs, sugar and oil.  Pour in applesauce and mix and then sour cream (recipe says you can also use buttermilk.  I used sour cream.)  Mix in flour, baking powder, soda and cinnamon.  Stir in raisins. Pour batter into prepared pans.
Bake 9 x 5 pans for 80 minutes.  I baked 8 x 4 pans for 75 minutes.  Test with toothpick.  Should come out clean.  Cool on rack for ten minutes then remove from pans for rest of cooling. 

ENJOY!!!!

This is a thank you blog to all my readers who have made my jumping into ebooks a terrific experience. Where would authors be without readers?  I've been in traditional publishing for 20 years. I still have the mailing list that I began in 1992 when my first book was released. Once a year I still update these readers with news and what's happening in my publishing life. Many of my readers aren't online and I receive snail mail from them. I love to receive those letters as well as email letters.
Over the past few years I've seen the changes in publishing. Years ago one of my titles Just The Husband She Chose was chosen for a trial program into ebook form. I was excited then but nothing much happened. E-readers were still out of the average person's range. Now however that has all changed. Last winter I decided to publish my back titles in ebook form. It took a while for readers to find me but now they are and I love this new format as well as print publishing. I believe there is still a place for both in this new publishing world. I like the ease and speed of downloading a book onto my kindle. But I also still like to hold that print book in my hand, to study that glossy cover, to turn down the corners on the pages. Old fashioned? Maybe. But I've been around long enough to realize not everything in life is black and white and we have choices. We don't have to choose one over the other because we can have both. At least for now.
So I'm pleased to say I've epubbed the first books I wrote and I've epubbed original new work, too. My epub series Search For Love is a combination of both. I hope my print readers and ebook readers will continue to look for my titles because I find myself speeding up instead of slowing down. And possibly in the future you will see novels from me that are other than romance! Right now my very first Special Edition is #13 on the Amazon Contemporary Romance Bestseller list and I want to thank my readers for that honor, too.


I just found this link for Kindle lovers. Go here to see some fabulous titles. 

KINDLE 3

Apple Dessert

A Facebook friend asked me for the recipe for this terrific apple dessert. Enjoy!

1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups peeled, finely chopped or sliced apples

1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans

Combine dry ingredients and set aside. In large mixing bowl, beat eggs until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla extract. Blend in dry ingredients. Stir is nuts and apples by hand. Transfer mixture to a prepared 9-inch pie plate. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes, or until apples are softened. Cool. Serve with vanilla ice cream or sweetened whipped cream.

Salmon with brown sugar and lemon

It seems I've been blogging everywhere but here! I hope to post a new blog later this week. For now, a Twitter friend asked for this salmon recipe. I like "easy" and this certainly is. We have a new trend in our house. Instead of going out to eat, we use about half of that amount to eat in and splurge on the ingredients. I serve this salmon dish with steamed asparagus and red-skinned potatoes. Healthy, easy and good!  Enjoy.

Salmon with lemon

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/4 cup packed brown sugar, plus 8 teaspoons

1 lb. salmon (original recipe says 4 salmon fillets. I keep it        in one piece.)

1 tablespoon butter, melted

4 thin slices lemon

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Pour lemon juice into ungreased rectangular baking dish, 11" x 7 1/2" x 2"; sprinkle with 1/4 cup brown sugar. Place salmon in dish and drizzle butter over salmon. Bake uncovered 15 minutes. Turn. Place sliced lemon on salmon. Sprinkle with 8 teaspoons brown sugar. (If using individual filets, put one slice of lemon on each and sprinkle each with 2 teaspoons.) Bake until fish flakes easily with fork, 15-20 minutes longer. Serve with juices from dish.