BBQ, Potato Salad and Coleslaw Recipes from the book Ghost Daughter

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Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Ghost Daughter (The Alice MacDonald Greer Mysteries) by Helen Currie Foster. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more! Get BBQ rub, Potato Salad and Coleslaw Recipes from the book Ghost Daughter.

Ghost Daughter (The Alice MacDonald Greer Mysteries)

by Helen Currie Foster

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Ghost Daughter (The Alice MacDonald Greer Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
7th in Series
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Stuart’s Creek Press, LLC (June 15, 2021)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 342 pages

Coffee Creek lawyer Alice MacDonald Greer knows a dangerous client secret when she hears one—especially when it disappoints impatient heirs.

Wealthy widow Ellie Windom asks Alice to help change her will, revealing she’s found her long-lost daughter, and hinting at valuable hidden art in Santa Fe. But there’s trouble with Ellie’s warring sons.

When Ellie is found dead at her ranch, her skull cracked—and a horse in the house—police can’t find a murder weapon and the obvious suspects all have alibis.

Determined to carry out Ellie’s final wishes, Alice races to find the hidden art, eluding intruders and carjackers. But who are the thieves trying to beat her to the hidden art? Is the art a treasure or a clever forgery? Is Ellie’s death connected to the murderous attacks on a lover from long ago?

The search sends Alice and her companions road-racing up Santa Fe mountains, fending off attackers in Austin, and escaping across the Texas Hill Country…rewarded occasionally with some delicious barbecue.

Conroy’s Recipes

Hot off the press––no, hot off the grill––I’m sharing recipes from the scene in Ghost Daughter where protagonist Alice and her intern Isabel have raced from Santa Fe to Coffee Creek, Texas, dodging two sets of bad guys who want to steal the valuable art Alice is transporting. When they arrive at Alice’s office, “A vast black iron barbecue smoker sat at her curb, attached to a tan pickup that now blocked her driveway.”

The smoker belongs to two former pro football players, Conroy Robinson and Alice’s client Eddie LaFarge, who’ve responded to a call for help from Silla, Alice’s red-headed barrel-racing secretary. Conroy and Eddie have now tackled two invading thieves who sit despondently in Alice’s front yard, roped and tied to lawn chairs. Then:

“Hey, folks, hate to interrupt,” Conroy said. “But these ribs have reached the state of perfection. They are ribs of nirvana. Alice, they will soothe your troubled soul.”

“Should we let the prisoners have a rib?” Silla asked.

Eddie untied the workmanlike knots on the right arm of each man…Then he put a paper plate on each man’s lap, with ribs, potato salad, slaw.

The rest gathered at the picnic table. Alice realized that she and Isabel had barely eaten all day. The two looked at each other and laughed, each with an orange chin from Conroy’s secret rub, each with a small pile of bare bones on her plate. And potato salad. “My grandmother’s recipe,” Conroy said. “Only thing I’ll say is, add a little pickle juice.” And coleslaw. “I put fresh mint in it,” Conroy said.

Conroy’s Ribs of Nirvana (for two sides of baby-back ribs) BBQ rub:

When not cooking for a mob on his giant traveling smoker, Conroy prefers an old-fashioned Weber kettle grill. Keep it simple, he says.

First, for the Secret Rub, mix in a bowl:

¼ cup ground black pepper
¼ cup sweet paprika (Conroy uses Szegedy Hungarian sweet paprika)
¼ cup turbinado sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. dry mustard
1 scant tsp. hot paprika (Conroy uses Szegedy Hungarian HOT paprika)
2 tsp. chili powder (Conroy uses 1 tsp. pasilla chile powder and 1 tsp. ancho chile powder, or use your favorite)

Rub the mixture into both sides of your baby-back ribs. Let them sit awhile (coming to room temperature).

At your grill:

Build a “parsimonious little fire” on one side of your grill. You’ll put your ribs on the OTHER side, not over the heat. You want indirect heat. For a charcoal burning Weber, use about 20 briquets and let the coals just start to ash, keeping them heaped against one side of the grill. You do NOT want too big a fire.
Place your ribs on the other side of the grill from your coals/heat and put the lid on the grill.
Every 20 minutes, exchange the two sides of ribs so that the one furthest from the fire is now closer. At the same time, flip the sides of ribs from front to back, and from left to right, so they cook evenly. Again, at the same time, add a couple of briquets if your fire is getting too small.
Depending on your grill temperature, you will cook the ribs four to five hours or until, when you pick the rack of ribs up by one end, the rack bends double and is a lovely brown. Slice one rib off and try it, to check doneness.
If you want, after the first two hours, you can dab the ribs with a “mop” whenever you turn them: 1/4 c Worcestershire sauce, 1/3 c apple cider vinegar, 1/3 c water, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp chile powder.

Conroy’s view, as you might expect, is that his Ribs of Nirvana need no sauce. Up to you. Mmm, mmm.

Conroy’s Grandmother’s Potato Salad:

Boil 4-5 russet potatoes. When tender but not mushy, take off the heat and cool somewhat in cold water. Drain, dry and peel the potatoes. Chop into dice (1/2 inch or so). Put in a large bowl. BEFORE you add any other ingredient, mix together the DRESSING and pour it over your potatoes and mix in gently (Conroy says this lets the potatoes absorb more flavor).

For the DRESSING, mix together:

3-4 T mayonnaise
2 tsp. Dijon mustard
½ to 1 tsp. dry mustard
Some fresh-ground black pepper
½ tsp. salt (you can add more later, but Conroy says don’t add too much at first)
Add about 1/3 c. dill pickle juice from quality dill pickles.

After you mix your potatoes and dressing, add the following:

One peeled onion, preferably sweet. First slice the onion and soak the slices briefly in cold water, then dry and dice into ½” dice.
2 quality dill pickles, diced. Conroy uses Claussen or Vlasic.
1/3 cup chopped Italian flat parsley
Taste and correct seasoning.

This recipe is easily expanded.

Conroy’s Cole Slaw:

For 6 people, use about half of a large cabbage. Slice it thin, then chop into smaller-than-bite-sized pieces. Place cabbage in large bowl.

Add and mix with cabbage about 1/3 cup fresh mint leaves, chopped.

For the DRESSING, mix until smooth:

4 T. mayonnaise
¼ cup sugar
½ cup champagne vinegar
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. freshly ground pepper.
Taste and adjust salt and pepper. But don’t oversalt––Conroy says, let the mint lead the way.

This recipe is easily expanded.

Barbecue occupies a large position in the cuisine of Coffee Creek (as does Tex-Mex cuisine). Alice likes Conroy’s ribs, and his Texas hickory-smoked brisket. She also admires the Czech sausage and brisket from Shade Tree (see Ghost Daughter). But secretly, Alice is very, very proud of her own brisket and believes hers is actually better than Conroy’s or Shade Tree’s. Maybe she can be persuaded to share that recipe at some point.

To be continued…

About Helen Currie Foster

Helen Currie Foster lives and writes north of Dripping Springs, Texas, in Texas Hill Country, supervised by three burros. She’s deeply curious, more every day, about human history and prehistory and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing the party. In each of her Ghost mystery novels, small town lawyer Alice Macdonald Greer must unravel a murder with its roots in the past…long ago.

Foster earned her BA from Wellesley College, MA from the University of Texas, and JD from the University of Michigan where she grew fascinated with dirt and water law. After practicing environmental law and regulatory litigation for thirty years, she found the character Alice had suddenly appeared in her life. She’s active with Austin Shakespeare and Heart of Texas Sisters in Crime.

Author Links:

Website www.helencurriefoster.com

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Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Helen-Currie-Foster/

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