Guest Blog J. J. Cook - How to make biscuit bowls! - and Giveaway - February 11, 2015

Please welcome Zoe Chase from Fry Another Day with her biscuit bowl recipe. Fry Another Day, A Biscuit Bowl Food Truck Mystery 2, by J. J. Cook was published on February 3rd by Berkley.

How to make biscuit bowls!

By Zoe Chase

From Fry Another Day

The Biscuit Bowl Food Truck Mysteries

By J.J. Cook

I know some of you were out during the Sweet Magnolia Food Truck Race and ate one of my biscuit bowls. Some of you live in my hometown of Mobile, Alabama and eat one whenever you feel like it. I appreciate your patronage!

But for those of you who haven’t tried one of my deep-fried biscuit bowls, but saw me on TV during the food truck race and thought they looked good – here’s the recipe for you. It won’t taste exactly like the ones I make, but you can come close. They are so good. I wouldn’t want to deny anyone the chance to try them!

Ingredients:

2 cups white flour

¼ teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

6 tablespoons butter or vegetable shortening

1 cup buttermilk


How to make it:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Combine the dry ingredients. Cut the butter into the flour mixture until it forms coarse balls. Add the buttermilk until the mixture is slightly wet. Turn the dough out on a floured board. Gently roll or pat dough until it is about ½ inch thick. Fold the dough three more times then carefully press down to about 1 inch thick.

Here’s where the normal biscuit recipe changes for biscuit bowls.

Spray vegetable shortening into a muffin tin. Use a cutter to cut circles of dough. Place these circles into the openings in the tin, pressing down the center gently. Bake for about 10 minutes until brown. The biscuit dough will rise around the circle, leaving a well in the middle for the filling.

The biscuits don’t have to be deep fried right away, but don’t wait more than a few hours. The freshest biscuits will make the best biscuit bowls. If you can’t use them right away, freeze them for later.

To deep fry, simply drop the biscuits into a deep fry set on high for 2 minutes. You want them to be crisp but not greasy. Be sure to use good quality vegetable oil in your deep fry.

Fill with whatever you like but make sure there isn’t too much liquid. I cut the water in my fillers so they are nice and think!

Enjoy!

Fry Another Day
A Biscuit Bowl Food Truck Mystery 2
Berkley, February 3, 2015
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 304 pages

From the national bestselling author of the Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade Mysteries comes the second in a new series featuring Zoe Chase, a Southern food truck chef who serves justice on the side.

With a few loyal friends in tow—including her handsome attorney, Miguel, and her cat, Crème Brûlée—Zoe drives the Biscuit Bowl to Charlotte, North Carolina, to enter a nationally televised food truck race. The contest features challenges across the Southeast, and with a fifty-thousand-dollar grand prize, competition isn’t just fierce—it’s killer.

As everyone gears up for the first challenge, another food trucker from Zoe’s hometown is found dead. The race rolls on, but when the body count rises, police begin to suspect Miguel. Now Zoe must race to catch the killer before her attorney needs an attorney.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound

Previously

Death on Eat Street
A Biscuit Bowl Food Truck Mystery 1
Berkley, April 1, 2014
Mass Market Paperback and eBook, 304 pages

Zoe Chase always wanted to own her own restaurant—but first, she’ll have to serve up a heaping helping of meals on wheels, with a side of mystery…

When she’s once again passed over for a promotion at work, Zoe decides to take the big leap and go for her dream. She quits, gives up her fancy digs, and buys a fixer-upper diner in a shady part of town. To keep above water during the renovation, she buys a used food truck to serve the downtown and waterfront of Mobile, Alabama.

Zoe starts to dish out classic Southern food—but her specialty is her deep-fried biscuit bowls that blow traditional bread bowls away.

After a promising start, things start to go downhill faster than a food truck without brakes. First, someone tries to rob the cash register. Next, Zoe is threatened by the owner of a competing food truck for taking their spot. And when the owner ends up dead inside Zoe’s rolling restaurant, Zoe and her sole employee, Ollie, find themselves hopping out of the frying pan into the fryer. They need to find the real killer, before both of them get burned.

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Book Depository : Books-A-Million : IndieBound

Gator Bowl
A Biscuit Bowl Food Truck Novella
Berkley, January 6, 2015
eNovella, 90 pages

From the national bestselling author of the Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade Mysteries comes a tasty prequel novella to J.J. Cook’s new series featuring Zoe Chase, a Southern food truck chef who serves justice on the side.

After quitting her job, the first thing Zoe Chase has to do is to drive out to the swamp to see her Uncle Saul. He still has the old Airstream trailer he once used for his own restaurant many years before, and Zoe is sure she can convince him to let her make a food truck out of it.

After making the perilous journey from Mobile, Alabama into the backcountry, Zoe finds her uncle embroiled in a cook-off with his neighbor—with the life of Saul’s albino alligator, Alabaster, in the balance. Once again, the gator has eaten chickens that didn’t belong to her. So Saul and his neighbor will each prepare a meal for a church social, and if Saul wins, the gator lives.

Now it’s up to Zoe to prove herself in the kitchen and come up with something no one has seen before—the biscuit bowl!

Amazon : Barnes and Noble : Books-A-Million : Google Play : iTunes : Kobo

About the Authors

Joyce and Jim Lavene write award-winning, bestselling mystery fiction as themselves, J.J. Cook, and Ellie Grant. They have written and published more than 70 novels for Harlequin, Penguin, Amazon, and Simon and Schuster along with hundreds of non-fiction articles for national and regional publications. They live in rural North Carolina with their family. Visit them at www.joyceandjimlavene.com.

The Giveaway

What:  One entrant will win a Mass Market Paperback copy of License to Dill by Mary Ellen Hughes from the publisher. US ONLY

How:  Log into and follow the directions in the Rafflecopter below.

Who and When:  The contest is open to all humans on the planet earth with a US mailing address. Contest ends at 11:59 PM US Eastern Time on February 20, 2015. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary. You must be 18 years old or older to enter.

*Giveaway rules and duration are subject to change.*

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