Into the Fire (Hot Nights Series #1)
by Amanda Usen
Release Date: 06/10/13
Entangled Indulgence
Summary from Goodreads:
Jackson Calabrese has a lot of
nerve. He beat Lila Grant in the Culinary Academy competition using her
recipes. Now, he’s opening a restaurant and wants her help? Fine, she'll fix
his menu, but it's going to cost him.
Heir to the
Calabrese restaurant empire, Jackson can buy anything he wants, except
creativity, so he buys Lila's instead. He can craft perfect paella, but to take
New York by storm he needs her innovative spark.
Skillets
aren't the only things hot in the kitchen, and an uneasy truce ignites into
passion. They’re great in bed, but Jackson doesn't trust her, and Lila is
contemplating revenge. The restaurant opening approaches, the menu is
completed, and the tables are set for one final act of betrayal. How can love
bloom in the midst of such a hot mess?
or:
Fabulous Fall Soup
My Hot Nights
series is set in the kitchen because I’ve spent a lot of time in kitchens over
the last twenty years, first cooking professionally and then in culinary
school, where I met my husband. After graduating, I spent a decade working as a
pastry chef before I began teaching pastry arts classes at a local community
college and writing romance novels about chefs…while sitting at my kitchen
table. Full disclosure: sometimes I write at my desk in my bedroom, but during
the summer it’s a lot easier to oversee the chaos of my three kids from the
kitchen table—or at least pretend to see!
Speaking of
kids, we all went back to school on the same day this year, and while I was
school shopping, I fantasized about fall soups. School supply shopping can get
rough, and I needed a happy place. My mouth watered as I pondered my favorite
fall soup, a rich chicken broth with sausage, fennel, Swiss chard, white beans,
and tortellini, kicked up with just enough red pepper flakes to make things
interesting. This soup literally brought me back to life after my first child
was born, and it figuratively brought the heroine of LUSCIOUS, my second book,
back to life. It’s filling, friendly, and easy to throw together on a school
night, especially if you have some leftover cooked sausage on hand. And don’t
forget the crusty bread!
Tortellini and
Sausage Soup
with Beans and
Greens*
Serves 6
2 Tablespoons
olive oil
12 ounces cooked
sausage
2 medium onions,
small diced
5 carrots, small
diced
1 four-inch
fennel bulb, thinly sliced then chopped
4 cloves of
garlic, minced
½ teaspoon
crushed red pepper flakes
10 cups
reduced-sodium chicken broth
4 cups chopped
fresh kale, escarole, Swiss chard or other green
1 15 ounce can
white beans, drained and rinsed
1 9 ounce
package frozen cheese tortellini
Parmesan or
Asiago cheese for garnish
- Heat
oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, carrot, and fennel. Cook until limp.
- Add
garlic. Saute one minute, until it smells heavenly.
- Add
broth and red pepper flakes. Bring to a simmer. Cook until vegetables are
tender.
- Meanwhile,
cook tortellini separately, so they don’t suck all the broth out of your
soup.
- When
pasta is drained and the vegetables are tender, stir in white beans,
sausage, and greens. Simmer until greens wilt.
- Put
6-8 tortellini in each soup bowl then add soup. Serve with grated cheese.
*
If you want to make this soup a day ahead, do not add the tortellini until you
plan to serve it.
Excerpt from
INTO THE FIRE by Amanda Usen
“Have
you lost weight?” He tensed, wondering if that were a safe question to ask a
woman holding a sharp object, no matter how small.
She
snorted. “Only twenty pounds.”
“Why?
You weren’t overweight.”
“Hunger
will do that to a girl. It also helps that I never make that truffled mac and
cheese I couldn’t resist back in school.” Her eyes were blue and sharp as she
raked him from head to toe. “You don’t look like you’ve spent much time being
hungry, but I imagine the prince of the Calabrese restaurant empire doesn’t
suffer from plebeian problems like where his next meal is coming from. You have
more important things to worry about—like where to buy the biggest, fattest
goose livers.”
He
had more to worry about than that, but he wasn’t looking for her sympathy. He
picked up another hors d’oeuvre and stuffed it into his mouth. “Yup, got no
problem keeping my weight up.”
She
snorted again and bent to cut even strips from a roasted red pepper. She set
the knife aside and coiled a strip on top of each shortbread. After the red
pepper came a lump of creamy goat cheese. He could imagine how good they would
taste now. Woodsy rosemary. Earthy mushrooms and olives. Sharp pepper and tangy
goat cheese. He reached for one more, but she batted his hand away from the
tray.
All
the way through culinary school, they’d battled for top ranking, his speed and
technical brilliance competing with her ability to take a classic flavor
profile and turn it into something new and exciting. He looked at the tray of
exquisite hors d’oeuvres, and tension shot up the back of his neck. If he had her
gift for flavors, he wouldn’t be working twelve-hour days and his new menu
would be ready to roll.
He
took a deep breath and slowly released it, dispelling the headache before it
could get its claws into him. He imagined her offering the tray of hors d’oeuvres
to him with a seductive smile instead of smacking his hand. He replaced her
French maid’s uniform with something even sexier—a silky, black negligee that
displayed her magnificent breasts and made her red-gold hair glow. He added a
glass of champagne to her imaginary tray. Then he added another one.
“Take
a picture, it will last longer.” Her voice shattered the inviting image in his
head. He blinked and found her glaring at him. “Have you seen enough yet? Or
have you run so low on inspiration you want to see the rest of my hors d’oeuvre
menu? Here,” she thrust a paper into his hand, “let me spare you the time and
trouble. You can have my notes, with all the components neatly labeled. I’ll
come up with some new ones.”
He
feigned nonchalance as he glanced at the list, but every item made him hungry.
“If it were that easy for you, you would have beaten me.”
The
cold fury in her blue eyes warned him to step back from the table. Instead, he
leaned closer. There was one more thing he wanted to know. Maybe it would help
him put this whole thing behind him. She was too good a chef to go down in
flames without a damn good reason. “Why did you choke during the competition?”
The
anger in her eyes went from ice to blue fire. “That’s low, even for you,
Calabrese,” she hissed. “I don’t know why you came back here, but you aren’t
going to get an apology from me, and I’ll be damned if I’ll offer
congratulations. How about this? You’re welcome. Now get the hell out of my
kitchen.”
“Make
me.” He snagged an hors d’oeuvre from the center of her tray and popped it in
his mouth. It was every bit as good as he had imagined. His alluring mental
picture of Lila returned, but this time, she was in his bed. “Come on—I dare
you to throw me out of your kitchen. I bet we’ll both enjoy it.”
He
didn’t think she’d actually do it, and her rough shove caught him by surprise.
He stumbled as she bulldozed him across the room, fortunately catching his
balance before they reached the door. He swerved to the right, spinning so that
his back hit the wall instead. Expecting to push him out into the hall, she
kept going and slammed into him. He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Now
this is what I’m talking about.”
He
expected her to protest, to yell, or maybe even slap him, but instead she gasped
and froze. Her eyes were shut and when she opened them, he saw the same stark
desire that had consumed him for months. He couldn’t have stopped, even if he’d
wanted to. He bent his head and kissed her.
About the Author
Amanda
Usen knows two things for certain: chocolate cheesecake is good for breakfast,
and a hot chef can steal your heart. Her husband
stole hers the first day of class at the Culinary Institute of America. She married him after graduation in a lovely
French Quarter restaurant in New Orleans, and they spent a few years enjoying
the food and the fun in the Big Easy. Now they live in Western New York with
their three children, one hamster, two guinea pigs, a tortoise, and a
new-to-them beagle. Amanda spends her days teaching pastry arts classes and her
nights writing romance. If she isn’t baking or writing, she can usually be
found chasing the kids around the yard with her very own hot chef husband.
Visit Amanda at http://www.amandausen.com, where you can find recipes for many of
the yummy dishes in her books. She can also be found on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/amandausen) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/AmandaUsen) if you want to chat about romance,
writing, or recipes.
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