Cold Outside? Let's Have Soup! by Joan Reeves

Baby, it's cold outside!

Here on the Texas Gulf Coast, we've had temperatures in the 40's for nearly 2 weeks.

To those of you who live in cold climates, 40's probably sounds like beach weather.

But I've lived in hot climates most of my life so this is put on hat, gloves, and coat weather.

Winter is soup weather so it's time to serve one of our favorite soups for dinner tonight—Cream of Poblano Soup.

I hope you'll enjoy hot, delicious soup. Oh, first a note about poblano peppers. They're a rather mild pepper about 4 to 6 inches long and slender, not skinny like chile peppers and not fat like bell pappers. They're available in most supermarkets today.

If you want exceptional flavor, roast or char the peppers over a flame or under a broiler. Wrap the charred peppers in a dish towel for about 10 minutes.

Then rub the nearly transparent "skin" from the peppers. If you don't want to do that, no worries. The soup will still be good.

CREAM OF POBLANO SOUP

Ingredients

2 tablespoons butter
3 poblano peppers, roasted, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 small onion, diced
1/4 cup diced carrots
2 tablespoons AP flour
4 cups water
2 cups chicken stock
3/4 cup half and half
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon salt

Toppings

Shredded cheese of your choice (Monterey Jack, Colby, and Cheddar are terrific)

Diced red onion

Fresh cilantro leaves

Tortilla chips

Tortillas lightly grilled in butter and cut in strips

Instructions

Saute the poblano, onion, and carrots in the butter until soft, usually about 5 minutes.

Add the flour, stir, and cook another 3-5 minutes to remove that "raw" flavor of uncooked flour.

Add the water and chicken stock. Whisk together to blend well.

Simmer over low heat for about 30 minutes.

Using an immersion blender, puree until smooth and creamy. If you don't have one of these stick blenders, simply pour the mixture into a blender. Use caution. Place dish towel over blender lid to prevent hot soup from exploding out.

Add the half and half, chopped cilantro, and salt. Heat through. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. 

Serve with the toppings you like best.

OTHER COLD WEATHER DELIGHT

Cold weather means you're often stuck inside. What a perfect time to snuggle on the couch beneath a warm, fluffy throw and read.

I invite you to try my "cold weather" romance EVERY LITTLE LIE for an emotional journey with a happy ending.

Reader Review: "Joan Reeves is an intelligent writer with a style that pulls you in immediately, just because her words flow so beautifully. Add to that a little mystery and suspense and you've got yourself one page-turner."

I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving full of joy with family and friends.

(Joan Reeves participates in Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program which means she may earn a small commission if you click one of the links in a post.)

Quotes You Can't Live Without by @JoanReeves #SmartGirlsReadRomance

I may have been presumptuous when I entitled this post Quotes YOU Can't Live Without.

I probably should have called it Quotes I Can't Live Without because these offer inspiration for different areas of my life.

Some I read when I need a booster shot of inspiration for tackling difficult projects.

Others I read when I need a chuckle.

Still others I read when things don't go my way.

Then there are those that inspire my writing. Perhaps a quotation perfectly fits something with which my heroine is struggling. Or maybe a quotation clarifies why my villain is a villain.

Sometimes, I read something funny someone said, and I'll have a character speak that in conversation. Since I write romance, I thought I'd share some profoundly emotional quotes that define Romance because I describe the kind of romance I write as "profoundly emotional."

Love and Romance

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. —Khalil Gibran

Vulnerability is the essence of romance. It's the art of being uncalculated, the willingness to look foolish, the courage to say, "This is me, and I'm interested in you enough to show you my flaws with the hope that you may embrace me for all that I am but, more important, all that I am not." —Ashton Kutcher

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope. —Maya Angelou

Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze. —Carolyn Gold Heilbrun

What is love? It is the morning and the evening star. —Sinclair Lewis

True love stories never have endings. —Richard Bach

I'm into all that sappy stuff - a surprise picnic, nice dinner, or traveling. I'm kind of an old romantic. —Will Estes

Love is friendship set on fire. —Jeremy Taylor

Love Is Friendship Set On Fire

That quote from Jeremy Taylor was the basis of the romance in my latest release The Key To Kristina.

When Kristina Rivera meets Wyatt Morgan, it is NOT love at first sight. In fact, she thinks he's everything she detests. She doesn't trust him. 

Kristina is broke—financially and emotionally. Yet, she finds herself undertaking a Quest with Wyatt that turns into the adventure of a lifetime.

More than a treasure is at stake. Danger stalks Kristina her every mile of their journey as she tries to discover the meaning of The Key To Kristina.

The Key To Kristina is a women's action-adventure romance with a mystery that keeps the pages turning. At least that's what reviewers are saying, along with "awesome" and "brilliant."

You be the judge. You can "read free" if you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber or buy it and keep it forever!

Follow Joan Online

Thanks for reading! 

I wish you an easy winter, filled with sunny days, blue skies, and wonderland days—and good books to read when the weather is not so beautiful.

A Few #Southern Books

By Sandra Nachlinger

I seem to read a lot of books that take place in the South. Though I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, and lived near Houston for a while (and people tell me I have kept my Southern accent), it's been a long time since my home was below the Mason-Dixon line. But there must be a lingering influence from my childhood that makes these stories call to me. Here are a few I've enjoyed:

Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman takes twelve-year-old CeeCee from Ohio to Georgia in this coming-of-age story. When CeeCee’s bi-polar mother (the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen) dies, the girl is sent to Savannah to be cared for by her great aunt. The aunt’s circle of eccentric friends adds humor to a touching story. I've been to the charming city of Savannah and can easily imagine all kinds of gothic, convoluted stories taking place among the moss-draped oaks and stately mansions. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil couldn't have taken place anywhere else!

Miss Julia Rocks the Cradle is one of about a dozen books in the series by Ann B. Ross. I've read eight of these books and enjoyed the antics of this spry senior citizen of small-town Abbotsville. Miss Julia is a fine, Presbyterian woman who knows what's right and what's wrong and doesn't mind taking action to fix whatever's askew. The series starts when her church-going banker husband dies, and she discovers he led a secret life—complete with young mistress and son! Miss Julia does the right thing and takes the woman and child into her home, and her orderly life is never the same.

The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg takes place in small-town Point Clear, Alabama. At age 59, Sookie Poole learns that she was adopted and everything she believes to be true about her ancestry is a lie. This book is about how Sookie deals with that shocking information. Should she track down her birth mother? Should she confess her knowledge to the demanding woman who raised her? What does she tell her children? With her trademark humor and insight, Fannie Flagg weaves Sookie's story with that of her birth mother, an aviatrix who served in the WASPs in World War II.

Dorothea Benton Frank's The Hurricane Sisters takes place in the Low Country of South Carolina. This story focuses not only on the relationship between three generations of women but also deals with abuse of women and date rape. 

Do you tend to buy books that are set in a certain region or during a certain era? If so, what appeals to you?

Map source:

By User:Gator87 [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Where Did You Get That Idea?

By Sandy Nachlinger

Like most authors, I’ve been asked where I come up with ideas for short stories and books. Here’s how I.O.U. SEX came to be.

IN THE BEGINNING . . .

Sandra Allen and I met at age 13 (back when the earth was still cooling) in Mr. Herman's homeroom class at L. V. Stockard Junior High, then continued together through Justin F. Kimball High School in Dallas, Texas. I’m Sandy; she’s Sandra. Over the years, we went to college, married, had careers, raised children, moved around the country, and retired. But we have always stayed in touch – always remained the best of friends. Through snail-mail letters and in-person visits, then through email, we’ve been an important part of each other’s daily lives for decades. Now one of us lives in Texas; the other, in Washington State.

CALL 911

A few years ago we got together in Texas on New Year's Eve. To escape the chaos of a daughter’s slumber party, we decided to go out to dinner and spend the night in a nearby hotel. The evening's entertainment? Reading my diary from our high school years. We laughed our way through the pages, reading the entries aloud to each other. Each memory made us laugh even harder.

Sandra said, “Call 911. I’m gonna die laughing.”

I said, “I’m about to pee my pants.”

WE OWE THEM SEX

Cruising the Dairy Queen, football games, pep rallies, and dates at drive-in movies – each diary entry brought back more memories of people and places. We were both good Southern girls from the Baby Boomer era – makeout sessions with our boyfriends went only so far before we called a halt. Terms like “making out” and “necking” described the limits of our exploits. While reading the diary, Sandra and I talked about our former steadies, speculated about what they’re doing these days, and joked about the sexual disappointment we surely caused them back then. We wondered how their lives turned out.

THE PLOT THICKENS

Both avid readers, we threw around the idea that a search for old boyfriends would make a good plot for a novel. The next day we continued our discussion, giving names to our characters, discussing plot, just teasing about actually writing a book together. The idea grew. Could we actually do it? I’d taken writing classes for years and had short stories published here and there, and Sandra was an English major and teacher, but the thought of writing a novel was daunting. Finally we decided - why not try? After my visit was over, I returned to the Pacific Northwest and started writing, and I roped Sandra into joining in.

Over the next few days, months, weeks, and years, we fleshed out our characters (Baby Boomers June, Peggy, and Kiki), added settings (North Dallas, Oak Cliff, a mythical Oklahoma town), and plot – with Sandra in Texas and me in Washington state. We communicated via email, sending chapters back and forth, and spent a lot of late nights on the phone, discussing ideas, changes, concerns about our growing creation. We laughed a lot and learned a lot along the way! And eventually we combined the stories of three women and created an actual book.

So you never know where an idea will come from. We both had a great time writing I.O.U. SEX and hope our readers have as much fun reading it as we did writing it. By the way, we never did track down our old boyfriends though we'll both admit to doing a little bit of sleuthing on the Internet.

FYI: I have since written a second book, Bluebonnets for Elly, set in North Texas. Unfortunately, my publisher went out of business, and I am in the process of re-releasing Bluebonnets for Elly. I’ll make a big announcement when it’s available.