Clammed Up: A Maine Clambake Mystery Part 24

Filling 2 pounds pork shoulder in 12 inch chunks

1 large onion chopped

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 cups homemade chicken stock, or low-sodium canned stock

34 cups diced potatoes

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

In a food processor, using the metal blade, pulse pork to a rough chop (1020 pulses).

Combine the pork, onion, salt, and stock in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then simmer gently, stirring often, for 4 hours until all the liquid evaporates.

Put the potatoes in a saucepan and cover with water. Bring to a boil and cook 35 minutes until just tender.

Put the cooked potatoes and pork in the food processor. Add spices, and pulse 45 times to combine.

Roll out one crust between two pieces of wax or parchment paper and place it in a 9-inch pie plate, then spoon in the filling.

Roll out a second crust and top the filling with it.

Brush the second crust with milk, and make holes with a fork.

Bake for thirty minutes.

Livvie's Strawberry Rhubarb Sour Cream Coffee Cake Strawberry rhubarb jam day is a big day in the Snowden house and part of the tradition is Livvie making her Strawberry Rhubarb Sour Cream Coffee Cake for the family to enjoy later that day.

Cake 2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

pound unsalted b.u.t.ter, room temperature

2 eggs

pint sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 to 3 cups strawberries, halved, then sliced

2 to 3 cups fresh rhubarb, cut into inch pieces

Topping cup sugar

cup flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

stick unsalted b.u.t.ter, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 9x13 baking dish with b.u.t.ter. Measure flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a bowl and stir together.

In a separate bowl, stir sour cream and vanilla together.

In a mixing bowl, beat the sugar and b.u.t.ter together for three minutes at medium speed.

Add the eggs, one at a time. Beat well after each addition.

Alternate adding the flour and sour cream mixtures to the sugar, beating after each addition, until smooth.

Gently fold the fruit into the batter, distributing it evenly. Pour the batter into the baking dish.

Beat the topping ingredients until they come together in large crumbs. Spoon the topping over batter.

Bake 4550 minutes. Test doneness by inserting toothpick in the center until it emerges clean. Cool completely before cutting into squares.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I would like to thank Boothbay Harbor Police Chief Robert Hasch and Attorney Richard Hayes for the generosity of their time and advice about procedure and charges. All mistakes, inadvertent and intentional, are mine.

Thank you to Marilyn Mick and Carolyn Vandam for their insights into tourism, clambakes, and herding a crowd. Thanks to Olga Carito for being the reason I ended up with a Victorian house with the best view in the world in Boothbay Harbor, Maine-and for so many other things.

Thanks to my agent, John Talbot, for lighting the match, Sheila Connolly for supplying the fuse, and to my fellow Maine Crime Writer, Lea Wait, for handing me the explosives.

Thanks as always to my first readers, my fantastic writers group of seventeen years, Mark Ammons, Katherine Fast, Cheryl Marceau, and Leslie Wheeler. And with deepest grat.i.tude to my second readers, Bill Carito, Kate Carito, and Sherry Harris, who all went above and beyond.

Thanks also to Bill Carito, the real foodie in our family, for all his help with the recipes and the food scenes.

Also to the Maine Crime Writers, Sisters in Crime New England, and the New England Crime Bake.

Finally, if this book leaves you with an urge for lobster and clams, there is a company that will take you on a boat ride to a private island and provide you with a real New England Clambake experience. The island, the family, and the business vary wildly from the fictional ones in this book, and even the menu is slightly different, but you'll have a fantastic time and I guarantee you won't be murdered. For more information on the Cabbage Island Clambakes see www.cabbageislandclambakes.com.

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