A warm welcome to author Rhys Ford stopping by Love Bytes today on her blog tour for new release “Fish Stick Fridays”.
She shares a recipe and you have a change to enter the giveaway!
Welcome Rhys 🙂

Skip to the recipe if you’ve already seen this part. *grins*

When I first thought about writing Fish Stick Fridays, it was a lot darker than it turned out. I know. I’ll let you have a moment to be shocked and amazed. But then I wrote it and its innards changed, softening a bit. A lot of that change had to do with building a relationship between Deacon and his niece, Zig and then adding Lang into the mix.

I went round and round on the title. Nothing was working. They were decent titles. Hell, Mary Calmes even stole one of them for her own book but nothing was fitting the story. Then I said… why the hell aren’t I calling it what it is? Fish Stick Fridays.

That might seem a random, odd title and kind of off. But see, it’s not so much about the actual fish sticks or Fridays. It’s about what Fish Stick Fridays represents. For Zig and Deacon, it’s about being together, in a home. An actual home. Where Fridays means no vegetables but cups of hot cocoa and maybe eating in front of the television. It means a place to come to and find a family—their family.

Of course, this doesn’t mean Deacon knows how to cook gourmet meals but he can cook. So for this blog tour, it’s all about cooking out of the pantry—cheap, relatively easy and cobbling together meals from fresh, canned, and jarred food. So much of Deacon’s cooking on the fly really is about how to maximize time and using what’s in the pantry. We don’t have a lot of time in our lives. That’s a fact. But we can make do. Making do is so very much a kitchen life hack.

So for this tour, I am sharing some comfort food recipes even Deacon can make and it took him a bit to get the fish sticks and blue box macaroni & cheese right. Follow all of the blog tour stops and get a new comfort food recipe every day. Recipes include:

• Fried Chicken
• Beef Stew
• Portuguese Watercress Soup
• Nutty Mushroom Pasta
• Fried Rice
• Lasagna
• Kalua Pig
• Mac Salad / Loco Moco
• Pad Thai
• Shoyu Chicken

What’s the Giveaway? Because there is ALWAYS a giveaway… Leave a comment or enter the Rafflecopter if the blog uses one and hopefully win the right to tell me where to send a set of childrens’ books to a library or charity of your choice. Book sets will randomly chosen from a list and cost between $20 and $50 USD and donated in your name.

Also, if you want a gluten free way to thicken soups and stews… and soupy potato salad, use instant mashed potato flakes. You’ll see me say that time and time again through the blog tour. It also adds a layer of flavour. I sometimes grab the garlic and herb instant potato packets and just keep them for when I need to thicken a stew.

And now, for what’s next in Deacon’s recipe book.

 

Kalua pig is pretty much the foundation of all Hawaiian food. This is a crock pot version of a luau standard. Since digging a hole in the ground and roasting a whole pig is usually not something one can do for a simple dinner, this is a nice compromise. Don’t confuse kalua with kahlúa. In Hawaiian, ka is a singular the and lua means hole or pit. Kahlúa means “House of the Acolhua people” in the Veracruz Nahuatl language.

Kalua pig can be frozen for future dinners so if you make too much, throw it in the freezer. You can also use this meat for pulled pork BBQ or carnitas.

Kalua Pig (Cheaters style)

3-4 lbs pork shoulder or butt (You want something with a bit of fat on it)

5 T Kitchen bouquet (Found in the gravy or condiment aisle)

2 T Liquid smoke, hickory or mesquite (usually found next to kitchen bouquet)

Rock or kosher salt

4 T minced garlic (I will deny telling you to add this because traditionally you don’t but…)

Water

Cut the pork butt into pieces. It doesn’t have to be pretty. Just manageable. About the size of a pork chop. Rub with salt and put in crock pot. Cover with water. Add garlic, Kitchen Bouquet, and liquid smoke. Stir with a wooden spoon.

Put lid on. Set to high and let it cook for 5-6 hours until pork falls apart.

Remove pork from liquid. Drain and pull apart. Taste to see if it needs salt. Add if it does. Put in baking pan and bake in 350º oven until top is crisp. This will also render any leftover fat.

Serve with rice or sautéed cabbage.

Add BBQ sauce and serve on buns for sandwiches or serve as tacos with guac, pico de gallo and salsa on flour tortillas.

Fish Stick Fridays

Deacon Reid was born bad to the bone with no intention of changing. A lifetime of law-bending and living on the edge suited him just fine—until his baby sister died and he found himself raising her little girl.

Staring down a family history of bad decisions and reaped consequences, Deacon cashes in everything he owns, purchases an auto shop in Half Moon Bay, and takes his niece, Zig, far away from the drug dens and murderous streets they grew up on. Zig deserves a better life than what he had, and Deacon is determined to give it to her.

Lang Harris is stunned when Zig, a little girl in combat boots and a purple tutu blows into his bookstore, and then he’s left speechless when her uncle, Deacon Reid walks in, hot on her heels. Lang always played it safe but Deacon tempts him to step over the line… just a little bit.

More than a little bit. And Lang is willing to be tempted.

Unfortunately, Zig isn’t the only bit of chaos dropped into Half Moon Bay. Violence and death strikes leaving Deacon scrambling to fight off a killer before he loses not only Zig but Lang too.

Purchase Fish Stick Fridays at:

Dreamspinner Press

Amazon

And other book selling sites like ARe and Barnes & Noble

Follow the Tour

Nov 25 • It’s About the Book: http://itsaboutthebook.com/
Nov 26 • Joyfully Jay http://joyfullyjay.com/
Nov 27 • Sinfully Sexy: http://sinfullysexybooks.blogspot.com/
Nov 29 • Gay Guy Reading: http://ggr-review.com/
Nov 30 • Boys In Our Books: http://boysinourbooks.com/
Dec 1 • The Blogger Girls: http://thebloggergirls.com/
Dec 2 • Love Bytes: https://lovebytesreviews.com/
Dec 3 • Prism Alliance: http://www.prismbookalliance.com/
Dec 4 • Boy Meets Boy: www.boymeetsboyreviews.com
Dec 5 • The Novel Approach: http://thenovelapproachreviews.com/

About Rhys Ford

Rhys Ford was born and raised in Hawai’i then wandered off to see the world. After chewing through a pile of books, a lot of odd food, and a stray boyfriend or two, Rhys eventually landed in San Diego, which is a very nice place but seriously needs more rain.

Rhys  admits to sharing the house with three cats of varying degrees of black fur, and a ginger cairn terrorist. Rhys is also enslaved to the upkeep a 1979 Pontiac Firebird, a Toshiba laptop, and a red Hamilton Beach coffee maker.

My Blog: www.rhysford.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rhys.ford.author

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Rhys_Ford

If you’ve actually read this, yay! I need coffee. We should have coffee.