Guest Cafe Chef, Teresa Tysinger

Jan here, introducing a guest on this side of the Cafe counter! Teresa Tysinger is an author who has just released her debut novel, Someplace Familiar. Be sure to check out the description and links below.

Meanwhile, like the rest of us here at the Cafe, Teresa has another part to her life - she's a wife and mom, and loves to cook!

Please welcome Teresa!


Quick, Easy & Cheap Three Bean Salad

By Teresa Tysinger

As a mom, wife, author, and full-time communications director there are three words that are music to my ears when considering dinners for my family: quick, easy, cheap. Any recipe that can accomplish that triple threat is a winner in my book!

Thankfully, recipes that fit the quick-easy-cheap bill often are child-friendly, too. My daughter is eight years old. Sharing mama with a novel-writing schedule can be hard for a little one to understand, so finding ways to spend quality time together is a top priority. At this particular age, she is eager to be by my side and help whenever I’ll let her. So, the kitchen has become one of our favorite spots to hang out together.

One of our favorite dinners to make together lately is a Three Bean Salad. Chock full of high-protein beans, it’s a great meatless meal option—something that cuts down on the cost, too. I’d love to share the recipe with you!

THREE BEAN SALAD

1 can Dark Kidney Beans, drained/rinsed
1 can Light Kidney Beans, drained/rinsed
1 can Cannellini Beans, drained/rinsed
½ cup chopped bell peppers (sweet red, yellow, orange are my favorite!)
½ cup chopped celery
2-3 chopped scallions
¼ cup olive oil
¼ cup red wine vinegar
½ tsp. garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together and let set for at least half an hour so flavors marry. We prefer this at room temperature.

TIPS:

·         If you can find it in your grocery store, I often use 3 cans of a three-bean blend instead of individual cans of each bean. Black beans are also a good option! Use any you most enjoy.

·         Like other veggies, throw them in, too!

·         Apple cider vinegar works just as good as red wine vinegar.

·         You can bulk this up into a “meatier” meal by adding chopped grilled chicken or steak.

SOMEPLACE FAMILIAR

Someplace Familiar is my recently released debut novel. A contemporary southern romance, here’s a little bit about the book:

Artist Livy Johnson needs a fresh start. That's what a broken heart and forgotten dreams can do to a person. On little more than a whim, she reclaims her grandmother’s old home in quaint Laurel Cove, North Carolina and vows to restore its original charm. When she literally collides with childhood friend, Jack Bowdon, Livy wonders if she’s back for an entirely different reason.

Jack can’t believe his childhood crush is back. As the owner of Bowdon's Supplies, and once again the town's most eligible bachelor, he offers to help Livy with repairs. Together they embark on the project—and an undeniable whirlwind romance.

But it’s not all smooth sailing. Can they survive the destructive pain of their pasts to discover God’s grace waiting to renovate their hearts?

Available in print and eBook on Amazon (link: http://a.co/69rUUlb)

ABOUT TERESA

Teresa Tysinger is a wife and mother transplanted from North Carolina to North Texas. When not working as the Director of Communications for a large downtown church, she writes charming southern romances inspired by grace. A member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Religious Communicators’ Council, and the Association for Women in Communications, Teresa has spent over a decade committed to telling stories of faith through written word. She also offers graphic design and marketing services to other authors through her freelance business, Good Day Publishing. She loves coffee, caramel, and stories with happy endings.

Connect with Teresa:

Facebook - Teresa Tysinger, Author
Web - www.teresatysinger.com
Newsletter - Join the Community!
Pinterest - @TeresaTysinger
Twitter - @TMTysinger

Thank you, Teresa! And thanks for coming by the Cafe!

Comforting Carrot & Garlic Soup with Guest Chef Michelle Karl

 I am so happy to welcome back my friend and fellow Love Inspired Suspense author, Michelle Karl. You may remember Michelle from her previous fabulous recipe for Chia Pudding.

 This time, Michelle has a recipe for a delicious carrot and garlic soup. Just the thing for these lingering cold days.

I also want to tell you about Michelle's terrific new release - OUTSIDE THE LAW. I devoured it. My only regret about this post is that it is for something healthy like soup, and not the absolutely delicious baked goods that her heroine,Yasmine, creates in her bakery!

At the risk of being corny, a baker, a rookie FBI agent, some romance and some really scary bad guys, together whip up an awesome read!

 Welcome, Michelle.

 Comforting Carrot & Garlic Soup

Everyone is busy. You’re busy, I’m busy, we’re all running around flailing and wondering when things will stop getting so busy, but sometimes it’s hard to see an end in sight. And I don’t know about you, but when I hit a busy season, one of the first things to get shoved aside is meal prep and healthy eating.

Making healthy food takes so much time, not to mention needing to go out and shop for ingredients, too. Maybe you’re better at preparation than I am, but I don’t tend to keep a lot in my fridge because I hate food waste, so I try to only buy what I need to prepare meals. But if I’m not preparing meals, I have nothing in the fridge, and… well, it becomes a vicious cycle.

Enter: the soup I’m sharing today.

It’s fast, it’s incredibly cheap, it’s ridiculously flavorful, it takes only a few ingredients, and—this is my favorite part—the main ingredients are the kinds of items that we all tend to have in our fridge and pantry, even when there’s “nothing” there, because they last so very, very long.

Do you have a bag of carrots? A bulb of garlic? Then you’re all set! I’ve made this recipe with fresh carrots and with carrots that have been sitting in my fridge for 6 months and were trying to take root inside the bag (uh, it’s possible I may also have a “cleaning out my fridge” problem…). It tasted great both ways!

Notably, it’s not my recipe, but comes from a blog called A Teaspoon of Turmeric (https://www.arvindas.com/arvindas-blog/2013/9/29/soups-on-carrot-garlic-curried-soup ), which is run by a mother and daughter team who own the company Arvinda’s, which sells spice blends. That said, the version of this recipe up on their blog right now is a little different from their original one (which I use), so I feel comfortable replicating it here!

Carrot & Garlic Soup

It’s also worth noting that, depending on how much time you have, you could make this soup in two stages. If you’re short on time in the morning, or have extra time in the evening to prep and cook the carrots, do that. It will make for a quick “fresh” meal when you’re ready to eat.

And if you’re making this for more than a few people—double it! Or triple it! It will also depend on the size of your carrots.

Ingredients:

4-5 large carrots, peeled, washed and cut into small pieces (size needed will depend on your blender strength & how much cooking time you have!)

4 cups water

1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. olive oil

3 garlic cloves, peeled and coarsely chopped (or more)

1.5 tsp turmeric

salt to taste

1 tbsp. parsley flakes (or fresh parsley)

Instructions:

1. Place carrots, salt, and water in a large pot. Cook until carrots are fork-tender. Allow to cool slightly (this is for your own safety before step 2!).
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Using either a hand blender or a high-speed blender, blend up the carrots. I prefer mine with texture, so I only pulse it a few times in the blender.
   
   
   
   
   
3. In another pot (or the same one, if you’ve blended the carrots up in a blender), gently heat your olive oil. Add chopped garlic and saute until fragrant.
4. Add turmeric to garlic and stir frequently, allowing spice to cook for about a minute.
5. 
   Add carrot mixture to garlic and turmeric. Simmer for 10-15 minutes.
6. Stir in parsley flakes and serve hot! (Or ladle into bowls & garnish with fresh parsley.)

I love that this recipe is so simple that it can be easily done in stages, and that it’s not difficult to double, triple, or—yes, I’ve done this for a church potluck—quadruple! And for such a sparse ingredient list, the amount of flavor here is incredible. I’ve had folks ask what’s in it, and watched their eyes nearly bug out when I answered, “really, it’s just carrots and garlic, and a bit of turmeric!”

Also, if you’ve not worked with turmeric before, this is an excellent way to ease into it. Unlike many herbs and spices, the health benefits of turmeric have been widely studied for decades and peer reviewed by scientists and health professionals. And in this recipe, it’s so subtle that you won’t even taste it. I promise! (Well, unless you’re a supertaster (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster) , in which case I can’t promise anything…)

Thanks for having me here today! And I hope you get a moment to, well, slow down and enjoy this dish.

Bio 

Michelle Karl is an unabashed bibliophile and romantic suspense author. She lives in Canada with her husband and several critters, including a co-dependent cat and an opinionated parrot. When she’s not reading and consuming copious amounts of coffee, she writes the stories she’d like to find in her ‘to be read’ pile. She also loves animals, world music and eating the last piece of cheesecake. Visit her at www.michellekarl.com and on Twitter @_michellekarl_.

Book

OUTSIDE THE LAW

When her apartment is besieged by masked gunmen, Yasmine Browder's convinced it's tied to her investigation into her brother's "accidental" death three weeks ago. Narrowly escaping, she flags down the car of a passerby she thought she'd never see again—her childhood crush. Unlike the local police, newly minted FBI agent Noel Black doesn't believe the attack is a coincidence, especially when the attempts on her life don't stop. Yasmine's onto the truth about her brother, and someone powerful wants her dead. With nobody to trust and just days out of training, Noel must find a way to keep her alive…because now that he's found Yasmine, he refuses to lose her again.