Hi peeps, we have Meg Harding popping in today with her upcoming release Dinner for One, we have a fantastic guest post from Meg, a wonderful exclusive excerpt and a fabulous giveaway! So check out the post and click that giveaway link <3 ~Pixie~
Dinner for One
Meg Harding
Bastien isn’t used to bad reviews. His French restaurant is the toast of the town, and when a well-known critic insults it, he’s left off-kilter. Luckily for him he’s found a distraction. He’s just met an attractive writer at his niece’s school bake sale. He’s into food, into Bastien and the touch of kink they share, and there’s a chemistry between them that might make the perfect recipe.
James isn’t expecting to meet a good-looking French chef at a bake sale, but he’s not going to let the chance slide. It comes as a surprise when the chef turns out to be the owner of a place he knows—and has reviewed—and it puts James in a sticky situation. So he might have to omit some pertinent information to make it work… at least for now.
Meg Harding!
Thanks for having me today MM Good Book Reviews! Dinner for One is a very food based book, with Bastien being a French chef and James a food critic. A lot of the key moments feature certain dishes, most of them French, but there are some others as well. I should say, I’m not a chef. I’m one of those Pinterest people who looks up meals and tries to make them (often times failing to do so correctly). The recipes used in Dinner for One are gotten from Pinterest and Buzzfeed, and I thought it would be neat to share a recipe for a dish James made for Bastien, along with an exclusive excerpt from that particular scene.
Poulet Basquaise is a French chicken stew with tomatoes and peppers. It originates from the French Basque country. This particular recipe comes from Marie at her blog, Not Enough Cinnamon.
Ingredients
- 2 tsp olive oil
- 2 chicken legs
- 1 chopped onion
- 2 minced garlic cloves
- 1/4 cup white wine
- 2 peeled and cubed red bell peppers
- 2lbs of fresh cubed tomatoes
- 1/4 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp thyme
- Salt and pepper
Directions:
- In a saucepan, heat olive oil on medium heat. Brown chicken for about 8 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside. Drain excess fat if needed.
- Add onion and garlic and cook for 1 minute.
- Deglaze with wine and scrub the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon or spatula.
- Add bell pepper, tomato, paprika, thyme, salt and pepper. Mix and return chicken to the pan.
- Turn heat to low, cover with lid and let simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 30 minutes.
Exclusive Excerpt!
The first recipe that really jumps out at him is for Poulet Basquaise. The name is familiar, and when he looks at the picture and subsequent ingredients, he recognizes the dish Bastien had first served him. And that… well, it’s perfect.
He pulls out the pots and pans he needs and goes to his fridge only to realize he’s been gone for a week, and all of his fruits and vegetables are looking a little on the dejected side. Right, he thinks. So grocery shopping first. His stomach gives a low grumble of agreement. He opens the fridge door again to take full stock of what he does and does not have. The answer is he doesn’t have anything really, and a look in his freezer reveals similar.
Using the notepad on his phone, he types up a lengthy list of all the things he needs. He tries to anticipate what might be required in future dishes he chooses as well. Going to the grocery store every day isn’t something he particularly wants to do. Normally he shops on Sunday, because that’s the day the nearest supermarket restocks. He’s expecting a Monday afternoon to be much calmer.
Surprisingly it’s not. If anything it might be busier. Aren’t these people supposed to be at work?
He dodges children who have just come from school and are being towed along behind their parents, filled with energy and rearranging everything on the shelves when the adults look away. He makes a mental note to never come shopping at this time again.
About Meg
Meg Harding is a graduate of UCF, and is completing a masters program for Publishing in the UK. For as long as she can remember, writing has always been her passion, but she had an inability to ever actually finish anything. She’s immensely happy that her inability has fled and looks forward to where her mind will take her next. She’s a sucker for happy endings, the beach, and superheroes. In her dream life she owns a wildlife conservation and is surrounded by puppies. She’s a film buff, voracious reader, and a massive geek.
Giveaway!
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