INGREDIENTS:
1 teaspoon butter, margarine, olive oil or coconut oil
1/2 cup uncooked quinoa
8 eggs
1 1/4 cup milk or soy, almond or coconut milk (the coconut milk is good with curry spice, instead of the other spices, for an “Indian” Egg Bake)
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
1 teaspoon chopped thyme (optional)
1 teaspoon sage (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper (or more if you love pepper)
2 cups packed baby spinach, roughly chopped (or you can use frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry, as well)
— OR —
2 cups of the vegetables of your choice, green beans, corn, peas, cooked carrots, or a combo all work well. Note: this is a forgiving recipe, but the texture will be a little too chewy if you leave out the vegetables.
1 cup finely shredded Romano or Parmesan cheese or any hard cheese of your choice (may be omitted, but casserole will be a little bland, more like an omelet). Fake cheese, such as soy cheese, doesn’t work well as it tends to not melt and burn.
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch x 8-inch glass or metal baking dish with butter; set aside.
Put quinoa into a fine mesh strainer and rinse until cold running water until water runs clear, then drain well. (Note: If you don’t rinse the quinoa well, it may be a touch bitter. It also sometimes contains fine grit. Run your fingers through the seeds as you rinse.)
In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, the spices you’ve chosen, and quinoa. Stir in spinach or other vegetables then pour mixture into prepared dish. Cover tightly with foil then jiggle dish gently from side to side so that quinoa settles on the bottom in an even layer. Bake until just set, about 45 minutes. Remove foil and sprinkle top evenly with cheese. Return to oven and bake, uncovered, until golden brown and crisp, 10 to 15 minutes more. Set aside to let cool briefly, then slice and serve.
VARIATIONS:
Try different combos of spices and see what you like the best. Me, I always splash in a little hot sauce because I love hot sauce!
I also add a couple of tablespoons of nutritious yeast for an even cheesier taste.
Also, this makes a good “corn casserole” side dish if you just use corn as the vegetable.
Conda’s note:
Just for fun, here’s a cautionary flash story to end my anthology Mild West Mysteries: 13 Idaho Tales of Murder and Mayhem. You might recognize a request within.
Ending: Reader’s Choice
Dora pointed at the dead woman’s body slumped forward at her desk, her forehead resting on the keyboard. “I bet I know what she died of,” Dora said, annoyingly answering my unspoken question.
I sighed and worked hard to tell myself that I loved being the sheriff of Starke, Idaho. Sometimes. Not right now. I rested my hand on my holster, the leather already a bit sweaty from my touch. “What are you doing here?” I asked Dora.
“Nothing. I just, um, dropped by to welcome her to Starke and found …” Dora’s chin dropped to her chest. “Oh Buddha, I hate how I keep finding dead people.”
“Yup, you’ve got a real talent,” I said and snapped my mouth shut. Where’d that yup come from? I’d better watch it or I’d be a clichéd western sheriff, chewing tobacco, wearing cowboy boots and drawling, yuck. Time to be a regular cop.
“What do you mean you know what she died from?” I asked the one other living person in the room, Dora. Narrowing my eyes, I studied the body. No signs of violence, unless a spilled mug of coffee, the mug emblazoned with “Writers Do It with Words, counted.
“Did you kill her?” It seemed reasonable that’s why Dora would know why the writer died. Although she didn’t have a single motive to murder her new neighbor that I knew of—yet.
“Me?” Dora pressed a hand to her heavy cotton, wax spattered apron. “No—I mean—well—maybe—I should have, um …”
I reached for my handcuffs at the back of my belt. Taking Dora to the station might clear her speech.
Dora must have spotted my reach, for she blurted out, “The author died from a lack of reviews of her books.”
“What?”
She pointed at the computer screen, where the author’s Amazon title page endlessly refreshed itself. “See? No reviews.”
Ah. Now that I thought about it, I’d heard of the “review lack death phenomenon.” An author’s life blood is the reviews they receive for their books. Without reviews, an author can wither, collapse and die.
“I read her book and was going to leave a review, but I forgot,” Dora said. “So I’m partly to blame for her death.” She hung her head.
Reaching out, I gently patted my friend on her shoulder. “I’m guilty too. I read her book and never got around to reviewing it.”
Dora lifted her chin. “From now on, I swear to review the books I read.”
I nodded, vowing to go home and review the book I’d just read. After, of course, I called the coroner, supervised the crime scene specialists, filled out the paperwork, got dinner, walked the dog and …
(And this living author thanks you for your honest review.)
Read on for the first chapter of Starke Naked Dead the first in my Starke Dead cozy mystery series. Next up: Starke Raving Dead, to be followed by Starke Howling Dead. Can you tell I’m having fun with titles? Here’s a brief blurb:
The gossiping women of the Widows Brigade in the new ski resort of Starke, Idaho love a good scandal—this time it’s a murder mystery, and a stark naked corpse!
Jeweler Dora Starke believes creating her own jewelry line with no money and no time is her biggest problem. She’s mistaken. When her recluse dad shows up and thrusts a stolen, cursed jewelry piece worth millions at her and demands she sell it or he’s dead, she knows this must be her biggest problem. She’s wrong. When she pursues her father to his Idaho mountain cabin and instead of dear old dad, discovers a stark naked corpse, she’s certain she’s found her biggest problem—whodunit. Nope. Dora’s problems are just beginning…follow Dora as she becomes an amateur sleuth to solve the mysteries of cursed jewelry and murder, in this, the first of the Starke Dead humorous cozy mystery series.
Starke Naked Dead, the first chapter
The bell rang. My father, Wild Rupert the mountain recluse, shuffled inside, his shoulders hunched for a blow. I jumped up from my stool behind the checkout counter.
“Dora, I’m in trouble,” Rupert whispered low and hoarse. His wet lower lip wagged and displayed the rotten stumps of his bottom teeth. A sweet stench of decay wafted my way.
First time in months I’d seen my father. He never ventured into Mad Maddie’s Marvels, my aunt’s store. He never dared.
Yet he stood in front of me. Backlit by the late afternoon sun streaming through the front door of Mad Maddie’s Marvels, his long grey beard trailed around his shoulders.
He crept a few steps inside. “You have to help me.”
A deep warmth spread in my chest. First time my father ever asked me for anything. “I’ll help you, Father. Anything. I’ll do anything.”
Rupert slid his hand into a pocket of his ragged leather duster. Strips from the lining of the old coat hung to the floor. It gave off a faint aroma of old tanned hide, nasty, vile, but familiar and thus, comforting.
He dragged out a jeweler’s velvet bag, the largest made. Covered in soot, the filthy bag once had been a deep burgundy, the color of old blood. My father loosened the drawstring and withdrew a grimy blue flannel rag.
I clutched my favorite Ohm pin, a backward three with a couple of dashed accents, which rested on my jeweler’s apron. I watched, transfixed.
He opened the first corner of the rag. Silver flashed in a stray sunbeam.
“Oh, what have you got?” I breathed.
He unwrapped the rest and held out the rag on his open palm, a sacrificial offering. There, on his calloused and acid-scarred hand lay a necklace.
I gasped, grasping my ohm pin
so tight it cut into my palm.
Twelve two-inch heart-shaped cabochon blood rubies, each nestled in a platinum heart setting, created the heavy collar of the necklace. A pendant of a naked woman carved in onyx and set in platinum depended from the twelve links. Worth millions.
“Sell it.” Rupert thrust the rag with its valuable burden toward me.
Unbidden, my hand reached toward the necklace. The enormous piece glistened with platinum and rubies and black onyx. Oh, my.
The necklace flowed balanced over his hand, resplendent on the dark blue flannel rag. The voluptuous woman pendant hung from his fingertips. Perfect. No, not perfect. Torn solder dangled from one tiny foot, obscene.
I wanted to pin the necklace to the glass counter and grasp all that glory. I jammed my hands into the encyclopedia-sized pockets of my jeweler’s apron.
“Take it, quick,” my father said. His voice quavered, his beard trembled. “Before Maddie gets back.”
I started. We both glanced around the store. If my Aunt Maddie returned and found her despised brother-in-law here we faced a storm of mad Maddie trouble.
“Who’s the designer?” I demanded.
I wanted, no, needed to know. The elements of the necklace screamed Art Nouveau. The design glowed unique, the work of a master jeweler. But I couldn’t place the necklace in an oeuvre. “Vever?”
“Sell it,” Rupert said.
“Lalique?” I knew as I said it, the necklace couldn’t be a Lalique. In everything, including his jewelry, he always used glass. Onyx, a dyed semi-precious stone, didn’t count.
“Sell it.”
“A Verdura?” I asked, before my father’s words at last sunk in. My head jerked up. I stared at Rupert. “What do you mean, sell it?”
He gave the rag bundle a shake. “Now. Today.”
My mouth hung open. “B-but, where, where did you get it?”
Even at the height of his popularity and fame, when he was renowned all over the West for his “Starke” designs, Rupert never enjoyed the resources to create such a piece. I doubted any designer did today. Platinum went for well over a thousand a troy ounce.
My father shook his head. His fringe of long grey hair flew. “If you love me you won’t ask any questions.”
“No questions? You’ve got to be kid—if I love you?”
First time he spoke of my love for him. And he used it like a club.
He looked far worse than when I’d seen him last. His clothes, always old and worn, but always clean, were grey with grime. His spirit, blue.
I gulped back bile. Good thing I’d not eaten in hours. It was tough being a vegan in Starke, Idaho.
“I’ve run out of time,” Rupert said. He spoke to the floor. “Sell it today.”
“Today?” I glanced around at Aunt Maddie’s shop, at decades of dust and disorder. I couldn’t sell the Crown Jewels in this mess. I imagined the shelf with the potato salt-and-pepper shakers, priced at three dollars a pair, and next to them the necklace. Worth millions.
“Get cash, no checks.” Rupert’s hands shook as he clutched the bag and the necklace with its soiled flannel.
“Cash?” I rubbed my face in disbelief. “Cash?” Nobody had that kind of cash, not even the wealthy who would flood into Starke as soon as its ski resort opened in two weeks. Buddha willing and the snow should fly.
Rupert stuffed the necklace back into the dirty velvet bag. “Take it.” He held out the bag, his hand shaking.
I took a step back and bumped into the display case of spud-based souvenirs. The case rocked. A little Spuddy Buddy fell off onto the floor and produced a poof of stale dust. “What? Where did you get it? Where did you find it?”
Where could my father have found such a treasure?
“I need—at least a—a hundred thousand.”
“A hundred thousand?” My voice squeaked. “Dollars?”
“It’s worth millions. Even a bit damaged—even with a bit missing.” He fingered the bag in his hand, a talisman. “And it’s worthless.” His chin dropped to his chest. “To me,” he whispered.
“But who would have a hundred thousand?” Even as I spoke I realized I knew one person with tons of money. She might know who created the necklace as well. She knew everything. Or so she always insisted.
“Your boss,” Rupert said. He knew too.
“Nance is not my boss. Not any more. Not ever again,” I said. “Now I’m my own boss.” I refrained from another chaos check of the room.
“She’s rich.”
“Yes, but I’ll bet she doesn’t have a hundred thousand stashed in that battered steamer trunk she carries around as a purse.” Although, I believed the cash might fit into Nance’s voluminous satchel.
Rupert gulped. “Dora, please, I’ve never asked you for anything.”
And you’ve never given me anything either, I wanted to blurt out. Ohm, I breathed. As a practicing Buddhist, and boy did I need a lot of practice, I knew that a brutal accusation would so be not Right Speech.
“What are you going to do with a hundred thousand dollars?” I couldn’t imagine why Rupert needed all that money. He never needed money before. He lived in a tiny cabin in the woods. He sold a few of his “junk” jewelry pins every fall to buy food for the winter. His clothing he got from the Widows Brigade during their annual “Charity Party.”
“No questions. I have to have the money. Now. Today.”
The slanting afternoon light through the dirty front window grew dimmer. “Today is gone. I can’t—”
“You have to,” Rupert insisted.
“No, we have to tell Mallard,” I said.
Lester the Arrester, Starke’s Sheriff for thirty years, would know what to do. He always knew what to do. Or had known, before.
“No, no, no.” Rupert placed the bag next to his heart. “Promise you won’t tell.” He looked over his shoulder at the front door as if checking an escape route and then back at me. He shook his head. His never-shorn beard waved from side to side. “If you tell anyone,” he shook harder, “or if you don’t get the money now, I-I’m—dead.”
“Dead?” I threw my hand out to steady myself. The display case toppled over.
Rupert and I jumped as potato-shaped salt-and-pepper shakers, butter dishes and flower vases all with “Souvenir from Idaho” scrawled across them in flaking gold paint crashed and broke.
“Maddie will be mad,” Rupert said, his voice high, threaded with fear. He glanced behind him at the front door, as if he feared she would appear at the speaking of her name.
“Wait. No problem and good riddance.” I didn’t want him to run before I had some answers.
Rupert stared at me. “But your aunt…”
I flapped my hand at the broken junk, dismissing it. “I’ll take the blame. I don’t want the tacky things in Maddie’s new improved store.” Aunt Maddie’s renovated store would showcase my original jewelry designs.
The corroded bell above the door clanged. Another thing I’d replace. A blast of frigid air followed the bell. Too cold to snow, darn it.
A woman’s voice sang out “Hello?”
The necklace flashed as Rupert stuffed it back in the velvet bag. “Get me the money. Or I’m dead,” he hissed. With a desperate nod he tossed the bag to me.
I caught it on the fly and thrust the bag into my apron pocket. Even in my oversized jeweler’s apron, the bag bulged the pocket. Ugh.
I couldn’t see the woman behind my tall father. I peeked around him to where she stood in the doorway. I stared at an even-shorter-than-short-me plump figure. Unfamiliar. The woman’s long thick golden hair cascaded past her waist and obscured her features.
“Pardon me, please, if you don’t mind,” the woman said in a high, childlike voice.
Rupert flung his hands up and froze, a terrified statue.
“It’s not Maddie,” I reassured him.
I wondered how many years it’d been since he and Aunt Maddie spoke. Although my father should know that my aunt would never begin a sen
tence with “pardon me.” She might not even say “please.” And she never cared if anybody minded.
Rupert looked over his shoulder. He gasped.
The woman looked up at him. “Is it—could it be?” She flung aside her curtain of hair. Her large blue eyes widened. “Bertie?”
End of Chapter One
Conda V. Douglas
Award winning author Conda grew up in the ski resort of Sun Valley, Idaho. Her childhood was filled with authors and artists and other creative types. She grew up with goats in the kitchen, buffalo bones in the living room and rocks in the bathtub. Now her life is filled with her cat and dog and permanent boyfriend and writing.
She’s traveled the world from Singapore to Russia (in winter!) and her own tiny office, writing all the while. She delights in writing her cozy Starke Dead creative woman mystery series with amateur detective jeweler Dora Starke. The more Dora discovers cursed jewelry, her aunt digging graves, and a rampant poisoner, the more fun Conda has—although sometimes Dora complains about her plight! The first in the series, Starke Naked Dead, won Third Place in Mystery in the Idaho Author Awards 2014. Next up, Starke Raving Dead, in which Dora’s mad Aunt Maddie proves the aptness of her name.
When she’s not writing Dora into her quirky and quixotic mysteries, Conda writes the popular tween fantasy Mall Fairies series. The fairy inspiration for her Mall Fairies came from the sparrows that live in the Boise Towne Square Mall in Boise, Idaho. When not rescuing fairies from humans, cats and themselves, Conda works on the last title in the Mall Fairy trilogy, The Mall Fairies: Destiny.
Learn more about Conda here:
Blog: http://condascreativecenter.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Conda_V
Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/author/condadouglas
Mild West Mysteries: 13 Idaho Tales of Murder and Mayhem Page 12