Sample Sunday Cookoff - Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese Pate

This is a recipe for a dip that our friends Sharon and Andrew served up as a starter at dinner a couple of weeks ago. It was so fab even my husband, who hates fish, liked it so much he made it himself the next day.

Have some of this with some tortilla chips while you lounge around and read This Last Summer or Sweet Seduction on your kindle- scroll down for the links in US and UK.

Ingredients:
-One pack (120-200g) of smoked salmon. (If in the UK buy Sainsbury's Basics Smoked Salmon Trimmings - it's going in the food processor so it doesn't need to be pretty, just tasty.)
-1 medium tub of cream cheese with chives - you can use low fat version
-Juice of half a lemon
-Salt and black pepper to taste

The method is easy peasy - bung it all in the food processor and whizz around. I prefer it not too smooth but with chunks of salmon still visible so don't get overexcited with the blender.

Serve  on blinis or in a dish with chunks of bread or tortilla chips or bread sticks. I'm feeling hungry just typing this it's so good.
Read Excerpts of This Last Summer and Sweet Seduction at http://www.tirraoro.com/preview.html
Buy This Last Summer ($2.99/£1.71) and Sweet Seduction (99c/70p):
or buy this book in other formats from  Smashwords

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Another supper recipe for a spring evening

When I'm not writing, I work in PR and at Hampshire Farmers' Market we've been working with local environmental group, Greening Petersfield on developing great recipes made with farmers' market produce. This month's recipe is another spring/summer supper special is Goat's Cheese and Swiss Chard Tart. Visit the site for lots more recipes, market dates and great offers as well as for a PDF download of this recipe.
Goat's Cheese and Swiss Chard Tart 
Shortcrust pastry
150 gm plain flour
75gm butter
Filling
350 gm shallots
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp cooking oil
500 gm swiss chard
1 roll soft goats cheese (can use your favourite) from Nutknowle
Salt and Pepper
Method:
1. Light oven gas Mk 4,180 C
2. Make pastry. Rub together flour and fat until resemble breadcrumbs. Add a little water and gathe into a ball.
Roll out thinly (1/2 cm) on floured sur-face. Line a 10 inch flan tin. Put aside.
3. Chop shallots & garlic,. Pull chard leaves from stalks, chop stalks into 1cm lengths.
4. Fry onions until they go golden.
Add shallots, chard stalks & garlic. finish frying on gentle heat. Season with salt and pepper.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.
5. Add chard leaves and place in pastry case. Cut the goat’s cheese into chunks and place these on top of the vegetables, pushing them in slightly.
6. Cook for 30mins until golden
 Visit the HFM recipe page for a full colour pdf download with photo of this recipe.
Read Excerpts of This Last Summer and Sweet Seduction at http://www.tirraoro.com/preview.html

or buy this book in other formats from  Smashwords

Or buy in other formats from Smashwords

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Romantic Recipe for a spring evening...

We're coming up to Asparagus and Watercress season in the next couple of months so, while you're peckish after reading This Last Summer or Sweet Seduction, why not gather together some yummy ingredients and cook up a storm? It's the perfect dish for a romantic summer evening.
See links for my books below. The recipe is courtesy of Hampshire Farmers' Markets, the home of great local food and the holder of the UK Urban Farmers' Market of the Year award. Check out the link for more great recipes and, if you're in the area, market dates.
Asparagus, Watercress and Pan Roasted Cherry Tomato Risotto

Serves 4 -

Ingredients:

4 tbsp olive oil or Pratt’s Rapeseed oil

4 shallots finely chopped

2 garlic cloves sliced

2 bundles of asparagus trimmed and cut into 3cm lengths

100g red and yellow cherry tomatoes cut in half

200g  risotto rice

1 small glass of white wine

1 ltr hot chicken or vegetable stock,

2 bunches of watercress roughly chopped

50g lightly salted butter, cut into cubes

50g grated Parmesan

Salt and cracked black pepper

Method:

1. In a large saucepan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil and then add the shallots and garlic. Sweat for 10 minutes until the shallots and garlic turn translucent without any colour.
2. While the shallots and garlic are cooking, heat a medium sized frying pan, add the rest of the oil. When the oil stars to smoke add the asparagus and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper, cook for a 30 seconds or until the tomatoes start to wilt slightly, then remove from the heat and set aside.
3. By now the onions should be ready, stir in the rice and keep cooking and stirring until the rice has also turned translucent, then add the wine and simmer until it has reduced by half.
4. Now start to add the hot stock, stirring the rice every now and then. Keep adding the stock a little at a time until the rice is cooked with a slight bite to it. About 20 minutes.
5. When the rice is cooked, stir in the watercress, asparagus and tomatoes. Remove from the heat and add the butter and half of the Parmesan, season with salt and pepper.

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Publishing Workshop - and my sales pass 300!

I'm feeling inspired. Just attended a publishing workshop run by Legend Press. The energetic young chap in charge of Legend, Tom Chalmers, brought together a panel of experts including Literary Agent, Darin Jewell of The Inspira Group and marketing guru Gareth Howard of Authoright
Cramped in a cave-like room on bum-solidifying chairs beneath the Phoenix Theatre, 75 aspiring writers gathered to hear how best to approach an agent, how to market your literary wares for best effect and why getting your work published will be a bloody hard slog.
My writer friend, Mel Comley, had come all the way from France to join me at the seminar and we both thought it was an informative session. There were two Commissioning Editors from major publishing houses on the panel as well so it was interesting to hear from both sides of the industry.
I've been a bit of a writing slacker lately but the workshop got me back in gear for the final edit of a romance novel I've been working on and I'm heartened to have passed 300 sales - 200 this month alone - of This Last Summer on Kindle. According to some figures, this makes the book a success. I can't quite think of myself as an author - it's easier just to be a jobbing PR/ general Mumsbody (like a dogsbody but not quite as high in the pecking order). However, if sales keep going like this, I may have to reassess!

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Buy This Last Summer in Paperback!

You can now buy the paperback of This Last Summer for just £8.99 plus £1.50 UK postage. I have a limited amount of copies to sell direct and hopefully it should be available soon to buy from Amazon and Waterstones as well.
Just click on the paypal buy now button and it should take you through to the payment option.
For more information about the book, visit my website www.tirraoro.com

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So who is Madeleine Chambers?

Madeleine Rebecca Chambers is a twenty-something television journalist whose dream was always to be a reporter.

She worked hard at college, did a post graduate in broadcast journalism and ended up at a local radio station where she learned how to make even the dullest items news-worthy.

Fast forward a couple of years and Maddie is hired by NewsNet South, a local TV news programme, as their most junior reporter. She’s been there, finding her feet ever since, despite having a producer who wants to see her fail and trying to resist the advances of a handsome colleague.

Maddie lives in a flat in Guildford and regularly visits her father, brother and Grandma, usually for free meals. Her brother, Ben, has Asperger Syndrome but is ferociously clever and is constantly battling against people’s misconceptions of what a young man with AS is actually like.

But where is Maddie’s mother in all this? She walked out on the family long ago but as you will find out, that’s not the last they’re to see of her...

View sample of This Last Summer in PDF

Download From Amazon.co.uk

Download from Amazon.com

Download in all formats from Smashwords

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Local author publishes ebook on Amazon

FARNHAM, SURREY Nov 8th 2010: Farnham-based author, Tania Tirraoro, has published her first novel, entitled “This Last Summer” as an ebook, available on Amazon Kindle and the multi-format ebook seller, Smashwords.
The women’s fiction book is mainly set in Surrey and Hampshire, featuring a young local TV reporter, Maddie Chambers, who is struggling to make her way in a newsroom full of the treacherous and the lecherous.
While out covering a story one day, she makes a discovery that sends shockwaves through her family – the reappearance of her long lost mother. Her father, grandmother and autistic brother all have a different reaction as they struggle to come to terms with the news. Maddie’s life is made more complicated by a secret office romance and the realisation that all is far from well with her mother.
Tania Tirraoro previously worked for Meridian Television as a journalist and the updated research for the novel was done at Meridian’s south coast headquarters.
She now works as a press officer for Hampshire Farmers’ Markets and several health charities, as well as raising her two sons who have Asperger Syndrome.
Tania Tirraoro said, “The new world of digital publishing is fantastic news for authors who can now bring their work to market much more easily. I think with Amazon’s Kindle and other e-readers, ebooks are really starting to take off and I expect they’ll be on many people’s Christmas wish list”
She is currently completing her second novel, a romance, which she hopes will be out in 2011.
Tania has a website at www.tirraoro.com, a blog at http://notasadvertised.blogspot.com and a site helping parents with SEN at www.specialneedsjungle.co.uk.
For those who haven’t gone digital, a paperback version of This Last Summer will be be available early next year.
Editor’s Notes:
1. Find This Last Summer on Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004774N6E
and Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/27911

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Cheap Ebooks - look no further

If you're looking for cheap ebooks, check out http://bargainebooks.blogspot.com. The site features ebooks that are priced under $5.00 and a new books posts every 24 hours.
Authors are welcome to submit books to be included, and readers are welcome to recommend cheap finds. It doesn't matter if a book is traditionally or independently published.
The site is the brainchild of Holly A. Hook, herself an author of young adult fantasy books.
Her first Kindle book, Tempest, is available now on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and is the first book in the Destroyers series.
You can find lots of great reads on the site so pop over and take a look.

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This Last Summer Available on Amazon Kindle

My Novel, This Last Summer, is now available on Amazon for Kindle. It's women's contemporary fiction, featuring a young TV reporter, Madeleine Chambers. Keeping an office romance secret in a newsroom full of the treacherous and the lecherous isn't easy and local TV reporter Maddie Chamber's life is about to get even more complicated. While out filming she stumbles across a family bombshell - her long lost mother, whose reappearance is set to wreak havoc on her father and autistic brother. Then an even more shocking discovery - her mother doesn't have long to live.
Set in the south-east of England and the sunflower fields of France, This Last Summer has been described by readers as, "An extremely sensitive piece of writing. A joy to read." and "An intelligent, fascinating story. You skillfully captured my attention, and then my heart. Relatable characters. Artful writing"
If you'd like to find out for yourself and can spare 71p/99c (after the first two weeks this will rise to $2.99 and the converted UK price) then you can:
Find it here on Amazon.co.uk 
or for those not in the UK, you can find it here on Amazon.com. There's a sample to download to whet you appetite. Do let me know what you think.
If you don't own a kindle, you can download Kindle apps for free for PC, ipad, iphone and android.

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This Last Summer - I wrote a novel

I haven't mentioned this before but I don't just write blogs. I have also completed two full length novels, the first one about 15 years ago which I did nothing with and the second one, This Last Summer, which I finished last year. The book is contenporary women's fiction and the blurb is thus:
"Life is finally going well for young TV reporter Madeleine Chambers. Despite a disrupted childhood she’s looking forward to a bright future. Then one day out on a story, she stumbles upon a discovery that throws her family’s lives into disarray.
Her mother, who abandoned her young family and was thought to be long dead, resurfaces at the scene of a fire Maddie is sent to cover. Maddie tries to make sense of her discovery, while trying to maintain her focus on work, making her way in a newsroom filled with the treacherous and the lecherous.
But it isn’t long before her family learn about Maddie’s discovery and now they must all work out if they want their mother back – a decision made even more difficult by the devastating news that she doesn’t have long to live."
The book was uploaded last week to Authonomy.com, a site run by Harper Collins for aspiring authors to showcase their work. You can read it here:  http://www.authonomy.com/ViewBook.aspx?bookid=13370.
The story came to me when I was studying for an Open University Social Sciences certificate. I was trying to make notes, but this idea kept nagging at me so I turned to the back of my notebook and wrote down fifteen hundred words of what would be the original prologue for the book.
That prologue has now been discarded but it got me started on the next 92,000 words, written over the following ten months. It is set in the summer of 2007, such as it was, and draws directly from my former experiences as a regional television reporter with Meridian Television, from having two children with Asperger Syndrome and from the emotions of having a parent dying from a nasty and almost always incurable form of cancer.
I don't know whether it will ever be published but so far it had garnered lots of nice comments from the Authonomy community and as we speak it is Number 3 on the weekly Chick Lit chart and Number 17 on the weekly chart for all books. Of course this will have changed for better or worse by tomorrow as it's just a current snapshot.
Still, putting it 'out there' has given me more confidence that I haven't wasted my time in writing it and that I should try harder to send it out to publishers/agents, which scares the life out of me!
If you ever have time, I'd be delighted if you would take a look at it. You can comment as well if you like but you have to be a member of the community to do so. If you are a writing something yourself, take a look at the Authonomy site for inspiration!

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