Picadillo #Cuban #Recipe

We’re expecting a big snowstorm tomorrow, so it’s time to think about hunkering down and having something hearty and tasty, but also easy-to-make. After all, you’ve spent time shoveling so you don’t want to slave over the stove to fill your belly.

This dish was always a staple in my house and it still is because it’s easy to make and delicious. Think of it as Cuban-Style Sloppy Joe’s.

My favorite way to serve picadillo is over white rice and topped with a fried egg. Yummy!!

Cuban-style Picadillo

1 cup chopped onions
1 cup green peppers (although I prefer red peppers)
3 cloves chopped garlic
1/2 cup chopped green olives with pimentos (These are your regular olives in a jar!)
1 pound chopped meat
1 small can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tsps cumin
salt and pepper to taste

The above recipe serves 2, so you can double accordingly.

Heat olive oil and then add peppers. Cook until starting to get soft. Then add the onions and saute until starting to get soft. Add the olives, garlic and chopped meat. Cook until chopped meat is starting to get brown. Add cumin, salt, pepper and tomato sauce.

Simmer for about half an hour.

Serve over white rice (or brown if you’re trying to be healthier).

Again, I like to top mine with a fried egg. In TORI GOT LUCKY, two of the friends own a restaurant and I have not doubt they’d have some snazzy version of picadillo on the menu. Maybe they’d add some raisins or capers as some people do. Or possibly serve it over a saffron-flavored rice or ripe plantain nests! This dish is so versatile, it allows you to really experiment with things to add.

October 15, 2013

Taking Care of Your Hands

We’ve been having recipes on Tuesdays, but I thought I’d change it up a bit today and offer up some tips for caring for your hands. Funny considering I’m not normally the pampering and beauty type, but these few things are easy to do and will help keep your hands looking lovely.

1. Moisturize. Especially in colder or dry weather, it’s important to moisturize your skin with both lotion and proper hydration from inside. Drinking the right amount of water is important for keeping your skin from being dry. Another quick hint: Use whatever cream you use on your face on the backs of your hands.

2. Scrub. It’s good to exfoliate to remove dead skin cells. If you don’t want to buy an expensive scrub, use a mix of one teaspoon olive oil and one teaspoon sugar once a week to scrub away dead skin cells.

3. Base coat. If you polish your nails, make sure to use a base coat. It’ll keep the polish from staining your nails and will also help the polish last longer.

4. Wash Carefully. But make sure you use lukewarm water on your hands. Too hot or too cold could damage your skin.

5. Protect. I’m notoriously bad about this! If you’re gardening or painting or doing anything else that will rough up your hands, protect them with gloves to avoid damage to your skin and nails.

January 3, 2012

Tips for Spending Less

If you’re like me, one of those things on the list of New Year’s resolutions was to spend less. Actually, I had already put that plan into place toward the end of last year with some nice results so the goal is really to continue that savings plan.

How did I manage to cut my spending last year? Well, here’s just a list of some of those things!

1. Brown bag lunch to work. An average lunch in Manhattan is about $6 so at 5 times a week times 48 weeks, that’s a savings of over $1400.

2. Skip the Starbucks and other fancy coffee in the a.m. Hubby now makes me my morning cup for the train and I rely on the office coffee pot for my other morning fix. With a typical latte at around $4 in NYC, that’s a savings of another nearly $1000.

3. Charge everything I spend. I know that sounds awful, but here’s why I do it:

4. Coupons. I always hold onto those Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons and only go when I have several of them handy. I also only go when I absolutely need something, which means my trips are generally geared around holidays, birthdays, etc. I also use online coupon sites such as coupons.com and pgeverydaysolutions.com for weekly specials and since I shop at A&P for my every day items, they have a clipless coupon system connected to my shopping loyalty card. That’s wonderful because if you are like me, you often will forget those coupons at home. Another big thing: Only buy what you would normally use and buy it in reasonable quantities. I read an article the other day that Americans throw out 40% of the food they buy. 40%!!! That’s a huge number.

5. I shop at Costco for the paper goods and other bulk items. I also buy their Kirkland name brand for things like toilet paper and dishwasher detergent. Just as good and generally cheaper.

6. I’ve cut back on dining out and when I do, I try to use restaurant.com certificates or those I’ve purchased at a discount from groupon.com. I also try to frequent local places and they often have online coupons available for discounts on dining.

This year I also plan on brown bagging breakfast to the office. I’ve got a stash of oatmeal and will find a way to make my eggs. Breakfast is important for helping with another New Year’s resolution: Losing weight and eating healthier.

Have you found some other ways to spend less? What will you do with the savings?

September 13, 2011May 10, 2017

A Tough Time in the Publishing Industry

Please stop piracy! Everywhere I turn lately there is bad news in the publishing industry.

The NY Times reports that mass market sales have fallen 14% from 2008.

The AAP reported that while e-book trade sales rose, overall sales were down 11% with trade print sales down a whopping 36.5%.

The closing of Borders is surely impacting the market overall. With the loss of 399 locations and layoffs of 11,000 employees, there is certainly the affect on the publishing industry, but also the greater toll on those who may lose their jobs. My heart goes out to all my bookseller friends at Borders who were always so wonderful to me.

Add to all of the above the piracy situation. On a daily basis I get alerts pointing me to sites where my books are being stolen. In the past my practice has been to send the links to the publishers, but with more and more pirated materials, I am sure they are overwhelmed.

I finally took the step to send out my first take down notice to Blogger over a site that not only offered links to my book, but to dozens of other books. Google was quick to respond and the post with my content was taken down, but not the entire blog. Really? One look would have shown that this blogger had link after link after link to pirated materials and yet the blog is still up.

What’s sadder is that after reviewing the policies of many providers, which are compliant with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA ), it’s clear that authors need an easier way to locate offending materials and have them removed from these sites.

The Curtis Agency and E-reads recently announced a program to help combat piracy and it may be worth it to check it out.

Now there are some who say that pirating books actually boost sales. I’m not sure about that. If someone was unwilling to buy a book in the first place, what makes them suddenly decided to pay for a book? The proverbial tiger changing its stripes?

On that note, is all of the above enough to keep me from writing? Nah. I love it too much. But it certainly makes me consider that it’s time to try new things and new ways to share my stories with you.

How do you feel about what’s happening with print/e-books/piracy? I’d love to hear from you!

Photo Credit: Thanks to Intense Whispers Blogspot for the piracy graphic.

August 30, 2011

To Blog or Not to Blog…

That is the question. Sometimes it’s damn hard to find something to write about or in which you might be interested. It’s not a problem uncommon to bloggers who regularly write.

I even found an interesting article about IBM’s Blog Muse which helps bloggers get past blogger’s block.

Unfortunately, I understand the system is not readily available to all bloggers. 🙁

That means the rest of us will still have to decide whether to blog and what to blog about. Which leads to this question:

What would you like to see me blog about?!

I know you love those luscious men on Wednesdays and the excerpts from myself and friends on Wednesdays, but what about the rest of the time? What things would you like to see?

August 9, 2011May 14, 2017

To Self-Publish or Not to Self-Publish, That is the Question.

It’s a brave new world out there in publishing and one of the hottest questions going around is whether writers should skip the traditional channels and self-publish and the question is not just limited to writers who have not been published before. Many traditionally published authors are taking advantage of new technologies in order to either release previously unpublished works or some of their back list titles.

The levels of success run the gamut, from some authors who are selling in the thousands to others who have had mixed results.

As a published author with some back list titles whose rights should revert shortly as well with some new materials I want to explore, there are a variety of options in order to self-publish. I can hire an editor and cover artist and upload the work myself. Or I can choose to pay a flat rate to someone to do that or there are even some agents who are getting into the gig and offering those services for a percentage of sales.

My initial response to the various ways: Maximize the income that’s to come to you by eliminating the middle man. It may be a hit up front for you to pay for editing and/or cover design, but why have someone get a cut of your pie if it’s not absolutely essential?

What if you haven’t been published before? Why would you want to self-publish rather than trying to sell via traditional means?

Today I have with me Dianne Venetta who I had the pleasure to meet as a result of the wonderful Brenda Novak Auction. I’ve asked Dianne here today to discuss her choice to self-publish and I’d love to hear from all of you as to what you think about this brave new world in publishing.

Hi Caridad and thanks for having me as your guest today, discussing the topic of self-publishing! As you and I discussed, this May I decided to brave this wonderful new world of digital books and launched my debut novel, Jennifer’s Garden. It’s a story about a female cardiologist and her quest for the perfect husband (does such a creature exist?) and the lessons she learned along the way to finding him. Easy as the breeze when there’s a sexy man involved, right?

But with no experience, no established audience, no Twitter friends or Facebook fans, one might ask why would I do such a thing?

For the simple reason that I could. Granted this doesn’t tell the whole story, but it does represent the single largest truth regarding self-publishing: without the introduction and subsequent explosion of e-readers, authors like me would never be able to self-publish. Sure I could have hired a company to format, design and print my books, but for a “nobody” like me that would have proved cost prohibitive. Besides, it’s never a good idea to spend boatloads of money without some idea where your customers will come from!

So I did it myself. (I am a do-it-yourselfer type!) I took advantage of the information available on the World Wide Web and went to work deciphering how to format my book correctly, what specs my cover needed to meet not to mention a host of other details. Next I had to expand my network of social contacts and begin the task of marketing and promotion, all while trying to actually sell the book, prepare the release of my second novel and organize my outline for writing the third in this series.

Whew! Anyone else tired? It’s a lot of work sliding down the front side of the learning curve. The good news? At least this bump on my back side is free. Imagine if I had to pay someone? I’d be broke and bruised!

But I’m not. Instead, I’m an indie author who is both willful and hopeful. Now mind you I would never have tried self-publishing if I hadn’t been told I had talentâ€”and by people other than my mother. Editors from large traditionally run houses said my writing was good, I had a great voice, nice storyâ€”they just weren’t buying.

And why weren’t they buying? Obviously there were many reasonsâ€”not wowed, wooed or moved enough I imagine, but perhaps there was something more. Something I didn’t realize until I attended a workshop a while back. It seems for the last ten years I was trying to sell women’s fiction to romance publishers. Huh? My stories were romantic, they had HEAâ€¦who knew there were nuances between genres? Call me a slow learner, but rejection letters don’t come with a set of instructions! They simply state “no thank you” in the politest of terms.

Which is understandable. Agents and editors don’t have a lot of time but I doâ€”gobs of it! And I have energy and drive to boot, two things I’m going to need in excess on this journey because whether you’re self-pubbed or not, a good chunk of the promotional work must come from the author.

Really? You mean I don’t just sign on the dotted line and stroll to the top of the New York Time’s Bestsellers List? Hmph. So much for my overnight smashing success story. But so be it I thought, and slipped on my positive attitude cap and went to work.

“Hello peeps! Calling all FB fansâ€”I want YOU.” (Okay, I need you.) “Care to be a Bloomin’ Warrior? Prefer to be called a Bloomin’ Beauty instead? Great. Have I got the T-shirt for you and all you have to do is spread the word about my books!”

See. Now how difficult was that? 🙂

Tons actually, but that’s the reality behind self-publishing. From social networking to marketing and promotion, book signing and selling hard copies, the job of building an audience rests with you; you and your readers. Then, provided you’re a success and everything is working according to plan, you still have to write that next book! Readers have voracious appetites you know, especially romance readers and they’ll expect your next novel, tout de suite.

Ahâ€¦our load is heavy but our hearts are light. Exhausted, but light and bright as we shout, “Hold on, it’s coming, it’s coming!”

You see, as an indie author I need my readers more than ever because without them, I do not exist. My books are not sitting on the book shelves of the local bookstore calling out to passersby, “Pick me! Pick me!” They’re not stored away in some online bookstore, pining for that click of a mouse… And they never see the inside of a library (unless carried in by a loyal fan). In truth, without readers my books simply become non-existent. Irrelevant, if you will.

So snap to it and help me get this dream off the ground! Because in the end, after the last page is written, the cover painstakingly chosen and the formatting perfected, this is my most important reason for beginning a career as a self-published author. I’m following a dream, pursuing my passion. If no one else reads my books other than my daughter, I’ll be satisfied. Okay, that’s a lie. I’ll still write them, but I’d rather share them with everyone!

Also, don’t forget the DISCOVER THE LOST release party and contest is still going strong. Leave a comment on this or any of the blogs on my blog tour for a chance to win the grand prize and check out the contest page for additional opportunities to win!

Finally, don’t forget that on August 11 at 9 pm I will be hosting a live video event with Rachel Kramer Bussel. Drop by to discuss OBSESSED, Rachel’s latest erotic romance release and for a chance to win some goodies. We’ll be live and chatting, but also answering any and all questions you may have!

June 7, 2011July 14, 2023

Guest Blogging on Fitness and Writing

As my regulars know, I’ve had an up and down battle with my weight for some time. I recently lost 30 pounds and am trying to continue on that trend by working out and eating right. It’s more than just about losing weight, however. It’s about being healthier.

My friend, Karen Katchur, is not only a writer, but has a M. Ed. in Health and Physical Education as well as twelve years of experience as a group fitness instructor. I’m blogging with Karen today about fitness and writing, so take a moment to drop by and leave your comments on what you do to try and stay fit. You can click here to visit with us!

Also, please come join the fun on June 9th as Lisa Renee Jones and I dish about what we love in our paranormal heroes, how to make the perfect man and our latest releases. We’ll also have a mess of goodies for you like gift cards, autographed books, t-shirts and more!