Laura Trentham
Find me on
  • Home
  • About
    • Privacy Policy
  • Historical Books
    • Spies and Lovers Series >
      • An Indecent Invitation
      • A Brazen Bargain
      • A Reckless Redemption
      • A Sinful Surrender
      • A Daring Deception
      • A Scandalous Secret
      • A Wicked Wedding
    • The Laws of Attraction >
      • The Courtship Calculation
      • The Marriage Experiment
      • The Passion Project
  • Contemporary Books
    • Sweet Home Alabama >
      • Slow and Steady Rush
      • Caught Up in the Touch
      • Melting Into You
    • Cottonbloom Novels >
      • Kiss Me That Way
      • Then He Kissed Me
      • Till I Kissed You
      • Leave the Night On
      • When the Stars Come Out
      • Set the Night On Fire
      • Cottonbloom Novellas
    • Heart of a Hero >
      • The Military Wife
      • An Everyday Hero
    • Highland, Georgia Series >
      • A Highlander Walks Into a Bar
      • A Highlander in a Pickup
      • A Highlander is Coming to Town
  • Blog
  • Recipes
  • Contact

Logan's Bacon-Basil Mac and Cheese

4/10/2015

3 Comments

 
My Falcon Football series has been described as FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS meets SWEET HOME ALABAMA. And, I have to agree! Football plays a part, but even more it's about life and love (and food!) in a small Southern town. As Alec, my hero in Book 3, MELTING INTO YOU, thinks "Old lessons from his mother surfaced. In the south, births, deaths, thank yous, and apologies all involved food."

For the past weeks I've featured recipes from the FALCON FOOTBALL series, Ada's Banana Pudding, Darcy's Chicken and Dumplings and Logan's Skillet Blackberry Cobbler. This week is everyone's favorite comfort food with a twist... Logan's Bacon-Basil Mac and Cheese. I think we can all agree bacon makes everything better. Along with the recipe, stay to enjoy a snippet from CAUGHT UP IN THE TOUCH.
Picture
AVAILABLE NOW!
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
PRE-ORDER NOW!
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
SLOW AND STEADY RUSH is a RT Book Reviews TOP PICK!!
"....marvelously funny, engaging, and memorable in a place where everyone knows your name."

"Laura Trentham writes an intricately woven story that throbs with rich emotion. I laughed, I cried, I loved Slow and Steady Rush!"
Bestselling Author of the Sweet, Texas Series
Candis Terry

"The instant chemistry and dynamic give-and-take...Trentham pulls the various elements together in time to deliver a sweet, satisfying story."
Publisher's Weekly
Picture
Logan’s Basil-Bacon Macaroni and Cheese
Note: Logan sometimes goes crazy and uses cavatelli pasta.

8 oz. (½ pound or about 1 ¾ cups) macaroni
3 tbsp butter
¼ cup all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp dry mustard
¼  tsp pepper
2 ½ cup milk
3 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
3-4 slices bacon
2 tbsp fresh basil, chopped

Directions:
  1. Preheat the oven to 375.
  2. Boil the pasta until al dente.
  3. Cook bacon, crumble.
  4. In  a pan over medium heat, melt the butter.
  5. Add flour, salt, dry mustard, and pepper. Whisk constantly for three minutes forming a roux.
  6. Add the milk in a thin stream, stirring constantly with a whisk. Continue to stir until the sauce thickens, about 10 minutes.
  7. Remove from heat and add 2 cups of the cheese, stirring until melted. Pour the cheese sauce over the cooked pasta. Add crumbled bacon and toss.
  8. Add half the pasta to a two-quart casserole dish Sprinkle on half of remaining cheese. Add the rest of the pasta. Sprinkle on basil and the rest of the cheese.
  9. Bake for 25 minutes, until the mac and cheese starts getting a brown on top.

Snippet from CAUGHT UP IN THE TOUCH...Come meet Logan aka "Mountain Man"

“Sorry, ma’am. Didn’t mean to startle you. Are you having problems?” Mountain Man rested his forearms over the top of her door. His wrists were thick, his hands huge. The black under his fingernails was a workingman’s polish, and fresh red scratches zagged over the back of his hands. As he repositioned the frayed blue and white baseball cap shadowing his eyes, the muscles along his forearm jumped. Dark brown hair flipped into almost curls around the edges.

The sunlight emphasized the thinness of his cotton shirt, one shoulder seam pulling apart across the broad expanse of his torso. His masculinity wove around her, at once disconcerting, yet easing her illogical, escalating panic.

“My car won’t start.” God, she hated the little-girl, tinny sound of her voice. She cleared her throat and tried again, forcing a practiced steel into her words. “It’s been acting funny since I hit Birmingham.”

Mountain Man assessed the parking space she’d pulled out of and pushed the brim of his hat up a couple of inches with his forefinger. He squatted, and she slid out of the car to watch. He swiped his fingers through a puddle on the blacktop and rubbed. Then he smelled his fingers. He turned toward her, still in a squat. “Looks like a coolant leak. Your AC been working?”

“Not well. And, my temperature gauge flashed red just before the engine died.”

“Pop the hood, and let me take a gander.”

She pulled the lever on the dashboard and joined him at the front of the car “Are you a mechanic?”

“I’m a handyman, remember?” Again, he graced her with a panty-melting grin before leaning over the engine compartment to jiggle hoses.

His scent filtered through the humidity to her. Not the stench of unwashed male she expected. Underlying the clean sweat and grease was a mystery that hooked her closer, until she was leaning over the hood too, close to his shoulder. The one with the ripping seam. She swallowed, her throat stiff as if a noose had tightened. Usually, panic accompanied the feeling, but not this time. This time a covey of birds beat their wings in her stomach.

He turned toward her, one hand on the edge of her raised hood. His eyes were brown, but not a plain brown or even a deep, intensive one, but an electric brown with sparks of gold. They danced over her face. His voice came out gruff, almost a whisper. “I understand your problem.”

She massaged the taut cords of her neck. For a heartbeat, she wondered if he referred to her or her car. Hope lilted her question. “You do?”

“Yep. One of your hoses is cracked. Probably due to the heat.”

She swayed on her heels and dropped her face, pretending to study the hulk of metal and plastic under her hood. No matter her degrees and successes, sometimes she was a complete and total idiot. Like now. This redneck mountain man could never understand her. Her hair swished forward, strands sticking to her cheeks, hiding her face. “Can you fix it?”

He left her standing over the puzzle of her engine. He hadn’t even offered to call a tow truck. She felt oddly abandoned.

He stopped at an old blue and white Ford pickup parked in the shadow of a huge oak tree. Instead of climbing in and driving off with a grin and a wave, he flipped open a white, metal utility box in the truck bed. Clanging metal accompanied his search. He made a satisfied exclamation before trotting back toward her. “Duct tape. I always keep a roll handy. You mind hanging on to my hat?”

Without giving her a chance to answer, he pushed the ball cap into her hands, dropped to lay on the ground, and scooched under her car. With his knees bent, his legs stuck out from under the bumper.

An embroidered flying falcon on the side of his cap had lost half of its thread, and she picked at the fraying brim. She shuffled her feet apart and flapped her blouse to catch the slight breeze ruffling her hair. The occasional rip of tape punctuated the unidentifiable song he hummed.

His shimmy reversed itself, and he emerged with new brown stains on the front of his shirt and a glossy smear along his cheekbone. He rubbed his fingers along the edge of his shirt dirtying it further, and ran the back of his wrist over his forehead, wiping away a rivulet of sweat.

“You’ve got some grease on your cheek.” She pointed like a three-year-old.

He brought the edge of his T-shirt to his face and scrubbed it clean. At least she assumed that’s what he was doing, because she couldn’t tear her gaze away from his torso.

Michael, the boyfriend she’d broken up with six months earlier, had kept his chest waxed to show off the contours he worked hard for in the gym. Mountain Man did not wax. Curly brownish hair trailed from his partially revealed pecs straight into the waistband of the gray boxer briefs peeking out of his jeans. And, for all the time her ex-boyfriend had put in at the gym, he had never built the solid, thick muscles of the man standing close enough to touch.

Mountain Man didn’t lift weights for an hour then push papers around a desk for the rest of the day. Maybe he chopped wood or moved bales of hay or broke horses. She’d watched a documentary on real-life working cowboys one sleepless night and had unusually erotic-laced dreams when she’d finally drifted off.

3 Comments
Strengthareas.com link
3/22/2016 06:18:35 pm

is this recipe good for hard workout?

Reply
best essay writing help link
9/25/2017 12:20:25 am

I was wondering who Logan was until I got to the excerpt part of the blog. I like how you’d given life to your characters by providing the recipes they use in the book. That’s a nifty writing technique and I’ll be sure to take note of that the next time I come up with a new character for a book I’ll be writing about. The recipe for Mac and cheese, however, it’s pretty simple to follow and the ingredients can be easily bought, it’s better than cooking instant Mac and cheese for dinner. Besides, while I wait for it cook, I can read your excerpt.

Reply
Stephanie Sally
11/2/2024 09:40:06 pm

Hello everyone, I am from Wembley, Britain. I want to write this testimony to tell others and thank Dr. Odunga for what he has done for me. The first 12 years of my marriage I had 5 miscarriages and I was called all sorts of names by my mother-in-law and this made my marriage life very hectic and a burden of sorrow. I contacted Dr. Odunga for help and I will say that he is a very strong and honest man and he indeed helped me solve my problem. I saw his email in a testimony and I contacted him, little did I know it would be the end of all my problems. After 2 days of contact, I received a fertility herb and he told me to use it. The herb worked and my husband even loved me more and bought me expensive things. One afternoon, I went to a nearby hospital and came back home with the positive result of my pregnancy and after 9 months I gave birth to a baby boy. Ever since I contacted Dr. Odunga, my story has been different. I have 3 children at present and I am very happy in my marriage. Please, contact him at [email protected] OR Whats App him +2348167159012 to help you too

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Laura Trentham

    Author of Historical and Contemporary Romance


    Archives

    September 2020
    October 2019
    June 2019
    July 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    November 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    Newsletter

    Want to know when I have a NEW RELEASE, SALE, or other news? Sign up for my newsletter!

    Thank you!

    You have successfully joined our subscriber list.

    Categories

    All
    Abbott Brothers
    An Indecent Invitation
    Author Interview
    BadGirlzWrite
    Caught Up In The Touch
    Contests
    Cottonbloom
    Cover Reveal
    Craft
    Excerpt
    Golden Heart
    Historical
    Leave The Night On
    Military
    New Adult
    Paranormal
    Recipes
    Release Day
    RWA14
    Slow And Steady Rush
    Teaser Tuesday
    Whatcha Working On?
    What We're Reading Wednesday
    Writing Process
    Young Adult

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly