Author Archives: Chelsea M-C

Ring Fit – Milk Pudding Smoothie

So as part of my personal pandemic self-care, I decided to try and ride the wave of New Year resolution fitness and diet tweaking. So far, so good. I even splurged on a Ring Fit for the Nintendo Switch, because I normally loathe exercise, and need to be tricked into thinking it’s fun. Also, PANDEMIC, amiright? Splurges are what’s getting us through at this point…

So there I am, jogging in place and pretending I look cool, when the game starts throwing these smoothie references at me. Spinach smoothie? I’m good, thanks. Banana sesame smoothie? Intriguing. Milk pudding smoothie?

WAIT JUST A SECOND.

So, admittedly my mind registered this as a rice pudding smoothie, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for days. Which could be worse, of course: It’s taken me about two weeks to stop craving frozen chocolate chip cookie dough every single day. It’s been a tough year.

World 4 - Requests - Ring Fit Adventure Wiki Guide - IGN

I wasn’t expecting to be hit with food inspiration in a workout game, though. But this food blog thing is a blessing and a curse in some ways, because I can find catharsis from these fixations by making up a winning recipe.

I started with the rice pudding concept, but rice is pretty high in calories (isn’t everything delicious, though?), so that gave me pause. Then I thought about the pearls, and BOOM! Tapioca!

This recipe comes out to under 200 calories, which is pretty good since it leaves some calories for other stuff (I’m a grazer, so I prefer more than one item for a meal). It’s creamy, a little on the thicker side from the tapioca, and lightly sweetened from the fruit. I had my husband taste it for me, and he promptly ran off with the glass, so I figure that’s a definite upvote.

I’m still busy leveling up in the game, but from the sneak peek I took online, I think it’s safe to predict that there’ll be plenty more smoothie recipes that catch my eye going forward, so stay tuned! :)

 

Ring Fit Milk Pudding Smoothie Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 2 Tbs. small tapioca pearls
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 1/4 cup raisins or dates
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
  • dash vanilla extract
  • dash almond extract (optional, but yum!)
  • 1 cup almond milk

Cook the tapioca in the 1/2 cup water, or according to the package instructions. Once the tapioca is completely cooked, remove from heat and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Combine the tapioca with all the other ingredients in blender; blend until smooth. Strain for a smoother consistency (the remaining fruity bits are great in oatmeal!). Chill until ready to drink, the pour into serving cups and add a dash of cinnamon. Enjoy!

 

2020 Gift Ideas

So we’re approaching the holiday season and the long-awaited end of 2020, which has been unlike any other year in recent memory as far as challenges go. The festivities will look a lot different than usual this year, so I thought it would be nice to put up some suggestions of a few recipes that can be made and shared with those you love.

For these lists, I’ve focused on items that can be adapted and shipped. In a different sort of a holiday year, the lists might include things like breads, which could be dropped off locally to friends and coworkers. But, given everything, it seems like shipping might be the way to go.

I also wrote down some thoughts for Titan Books about how we can still use food (specifically the fictional kind) to connect with one another in these weird and trying times. You can read about that here. I think it’s worth a read, but the TL:DR is that we use fictional food to connect with our favorite worlds and characters, so why not with one another as well? Try some virtual potlucks, cocktail hours, and swap recipes with folks. Keeping in touch is more important than ever before, so don’t be strangers!

From the Blog

Fictional:

Historical and Other:

From the Cookbooks

The various fictional spice mixes are especially good for this, as buying in bulk can save you a nice chunk of change, and many of the desserts and drinks can also be adapted by bagging up the dry ingredients and writing out a nice list of instructions for preparation.

Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge

  • The spices! Nerfsteak Seasoning & Saka Salt
  • Kat’s Kettle Corn (how about a bag of popping corn and the Saka Salt together?)
  • Sweet-sand Cookies
  • Tepasi Taffy
  • Bantha Chai mix

Elder Scrolls

  • The spice mixes! Nord Spice, Stormcloak Seasoning, Imperial Seasoning
  • Mead kits – honey and/or flavorings, brewing airlock, and include directions
  • Mulled Wine/Spiced Cider/Spiced Wine kits – bag up the spices and include directions
  • Skooma & Snowberry Cordial (don’t forget the lead time!)
  • Sweetrolls in a bag – mix up the dry ingredients and include a list of the wet ingredients to add
  • Birch Cookies
  • Long Taffy Treats

Overwatch

  • Roadhog’s Popcorn Snack Mix (So good!)
  • Lucio’s Brigadieros (who doesn’t love chocolate?!)
  • Bastion’s Wild Bird Treats (for birds)
  • Mercy’s Basler Brunsli cookies
  • Mei’s Five-Spice cocoa mix
  • Hammond’s Hamster Food (for people)

Firefly: Big Damn Cookbook

  • Spiced Fruit Leather
  • Fruity Oaty Bars
  • Molasses Taffy Twists
  • Hodgeberry Thumbprint cookies
  • Five-spice Caramels (I eat all of these, and am not allowed to make them)
  • Almond Cookies

Hearthstone

  • flavored simple syrups for cocktails (I especially like the cucumber one for the Jade Brew recipe)

Warcraft

  • The spices! Ancient Pandaren Spices, Autumnal Herbs, Holiday Spices, Northern Spices (my fave!)
  • Goblin Shortbread
  • Chocolate Cookies

Feast of Ice and Fire

  • The spices! Poudre Forte, Poudre Douce
  • mulled wine spices and fruits (sub 1 Tbs. dried orange peel for southron version)
  • Oatcakes
  • (modern) Honey Biscuits
  • Lemon Cakes
  • (Elizabethan) Wintercakes (my fave!)

The Mandalorian – Blue Macarons

There’s a LOT to love about The Mandalorian. The authentic feel of Star Wars that hearkens back to the original trilogy, the callbacks to other SW stories and characters, not to mention the amazing technology that totally immerses the actors and fans in each setting.

But one thing I love (granted, I am totally biased) is their constant inclusion of food and drink. Whether it’s the bone broth in season one or the blue spotchka that keeps appearing in taverns and cantinas, it’s a recurring detail of the Mandalorian, which is pretty unusual for a serial show.

So, of course, when those crumbly, delicious looking blue macarons popped onto screen in chapter 10, I shrieked with delight. Macarons are one of my very favorite sweet treats (along with dark chocolate sea salt caramels… YUM) and I couldn’t wait to take a crack at these.

And so, with my newfound confidence in my ability to make macarons (thanks to this book), those delectable treats leapt to the top of my list of new recipes. I asked on Twitter for suggestions for flavors, and got a lot of great suggestions. Buuuuuut they were all great ideas for modern sweet macaron flavor pairings, and that didn’t strike me as unusual enough for a recipe set in the Star Wars ‘verse. In the same way that you can’t just add blue dye to milk, and call it Bantha Milk, you know?

Then I got to thinking, what if it’s actually a savory macaron? Like, the mother of that selfish little kid packed him a lunch, and he just tucked into it early. After all, the blue of spotchka comes from those blue krill, so why not this? I have seen a lot of savory macaron variations online, like some with smoked salmon, goat cheese, and even chicken mole. None seemed doable in a way that would still allow for that smooth blue color.

I recently watched a video about macarons made with cricket flour, and you know what? That really clicked for me. After all, a lot of experts consider insects to be the next big food trend, not to mention a much more sustainable source of protein than meat or highly demanding nut trees. It seems to fit perfectly with a future-past space town.

It wasn’t until I was pulling the screen shots for comparison that I realized a couple of things… First off, it’s only half a macaron! There’s no filling, and no sandwich, so right off, this recipe isn’t quite right. Second is the color- I think, given the planet and what we’ve seen of blue food thus far in The Mandalorian, the color probably comes from those blue krill shrimp. Normally, for blue Star Wars food, I use blue butterfly pea flowers (which you might have on hand if you’ve been working through the Galaxy’s Edge cookbook), but there’s no easy way to get that color into the macaron mix. So I finally splurged on some vibrant new food colorings, and that was just the ticket to properly color match the screen food.

In the meantime, I got all excited about making macarons, so I couldn’t just abandon my efforts while I waited for the next delivery. For a variety of reasons (mostly time and current inability to shop for more than the basics) I played it mostly safe with the recipe this time. I did swap the traditional almond flour for some cashew flour that I had in the cupboard, which helped defamiliarize it a little. But I’ve got some cricket on order, and hope to edit this post accordingly soon.

PHEW. That was altogether too much talking on my part, and not enough eating on yours. So consider this a placeholder post, someday to be updated, just as soon as my cricket flour comes in the mail. ;)

Mandalorian Macarons, version 1

Prep: 20 minutes      Resting: 40 minutes       Baking: ~15 minutes

Makes: about 20+ macarons

Base Macarons:

  • 70 grams egg whites* (about 2 eggs), room temperature
  • 3 Tbs. granulated sugar
  • Pinch salt
  • Pinch cream of tartar
  • 3/4 cup almond or cashew flour
  • 3/4 cup powdered sugar
  • Blue food coloring

Begin by beating the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar for about a minute, until the mixture is frothy. While continuing to beat, add in the granulated sugar in a slow stream. Beat on medium speed for about 5 minutes or so, or until the meringue has formed stiff peaks. Beat in the food coloring until just mixed.

Sift together the nut flour and the powdered sugar into the bowl with the meringue, then use a spoon to beat everything together until smooth and glossy. Transfer the mixture to a piping bag fitted with a medium round tip. Pipe onto silicone pads or parchment paper over your baking sheets (there are great videos online of this) into little discs about 1” across. Once all the macarons are piped, pick up the baking sheet and repeatedly tap it firmly against your counter several times to work any rogue air bubbles out of the meringue. Set the baking sheets aside and let them dry for around 40 minutes, or until the tops of the macarons are not sticky to the touch. Preheat the oven to 250F.

Once the oven is up to temperature, bake the macarons for around 15-18 minutes. Every oven is different, so you may need to tweak the times a little. Once cool, the macarons should peel easily off the baking sheets. Fill every other half with a dollop of buttercream frosting (lemoncurd is also wonderful!) and sandwich together with an unfilled half.

*For better results, separate your egg whites into a small bowl and set overnight in the fridge to help a little of the extra moisture evaporate from them.

Bakeland – A Terrific Cookbook Recommendation

(This post contains an affiliate link, which means I might get a small kickback if you decide you need this cookbook too, but in all honestly, I’m only promoting it because I think it’s the best thing since sliced bread.)

I have a kitchen confession: I’ve never been able to make French macarons.

Which is really just terrible, since they are one of my absolute favorite sweet treats. If that witch’s cottage in the woods had been made of macaron cobbles, I’d have been on the dinner menu in no time. But I’ve never been able to make them! I’ve long considered it part of some unknown (and, arguably, undeserved) baking curse that encompasses macarons, chocolate chip cookies (I KNOW), and sometimes apple pie.

But recently, I realized that I don’t want to accept that reality. I decided I can beat this thing.

Enter my new favorite baking cookbook: Bakeland.

I came across this fabulous cookbook while researching online for some new recipes of my own, and knew right away I needed to add it to my collection. Now understand, I almost never buy cookbooks, and when I do it’s often a historical recipe collection that goes in the library, not the kitchen. But I seriously jump anyone who comes to the house (let’s be honest, it’s not that many folks these days) and make them flip through it. They’ve dutifully oohed and aahed over the photos, but by the end, they’ve purchased a copy for themselves.

The author, Marit Hovland, has an incredible knack for taking inspiration from nature and turning it into exquisitely beautiful and devastatingly delicious baked goods. The book is full of innovative designs that I’ve never even dreamed of- seasonal chocolate nut “bark” that actually has a wood grain! Easy yet detailed flowers on top of cookies and cakes! The most realistic birch cookies I’ve ever seen! THOSE CLOUD COOKIES!

It was hard to know where to start, but in the end I opted to be brave and try her recipe for cinnamon macarons with apple filling. The recipe was easy to understand, the meringue whipped up beautifully, and in short order I had my first ever successful attempt at making my favorite dessert.

I cannot recommend this book more. She makes me want to be better at what I do, and reminds me why I love bringing foods to life. I can’t think of higher praise. And she broke my macaron curse! I want to be best friends.

In the meantime, I’ll be in the kitchen making some more macarons, because apparently now I can!

You can follow the author, Marit Hovland, on Instagram or through her blog.

Dune – Melange Spice

This is something I’ve been playing with now for years and years, and haven’t gotten quite right to my satisfaction until now.

Frank Herbert is a little bit coy with his descriptions of melange, but overall the sense is that of cinnamon, sometimes specifically “bitter cinnamon”. In Dune, Dr. Yueh waxes poetical, saying that the flavor is “never twice the same… It’s like life—it presents a different face each time you take it. Some hold that the spice produces a learned-flavor reaction. The body, learning a thing is good for it, interprets the flavor as pleasurable—slightly euphoric. And, like life, never to be truly synthesized.”

There are accounts in Herbert’s later novels of the spice giving off a blue glow, or of the sand where a spice eruption had taken place being a deep purple color. I really like the idea of that, visually, but as it’s complicated enough to get the flavor right, let’s just focus on that for the time being.

The flavor of this mix is pretty good, I think. The cinnamon is at the forefront, but the cumin, especially in the smell, lends it a bit of unfamiliarity. It’s a warm blend, and I have the impression that it’s somehow… sandy? This is especially true with the texture of the sugar mixed in. The other spices are there as well, but more subtle and they take turns after the big cinnamon punch on the front. The sugar, added because our bodies crave sweet things, softens what is otherwise a pretty bitter mix, but that too is in keeping with some of the original descriptions. I opted for turmeric for its health benefits, and the little pinches of extra unusual spices for depth and variety. Also because I love them. More on that later…

So there you have it! I can’t promise that this blend will give you visions or turn your eyes blue, but I’m pretty jazzed to try it in all kinds of dishes, not least of all as a rub on meat, where I think it really might be awesome. My first test in normal coffee was pretty tasty, but I’m inclined to think that coffee on Arrakis would be made Turkish style, in little pots over open flame, so that’s on the list for the (near) future, as well.

 

Melange Spice Blend, from Arrakis

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp. turmeric
  • 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
  • 1/8 tsp. ground cumin
  • 1/8 tsp. ground cloves
  • pinch of ground grains of paradise
  • pinch of ground mahlep (optional, see note)
  • 1 Tbs. finely grated jaggery
  • pinch of edible luster powder (optional, but SO cool)

Combine all the ingredients and store in a small airtight jar.

A note on spices:

(I don’t usually link to specific products, but many people have had trouble finding these items locally, so here are a few affiliate links to point you in the right direction! I might get a sliver of profit if you buy one of these, so it helps everyone out!)

To really amp up the flavor of this, go to your pantry and throw away that ancient bottle of McCormick ground cinnamon. Then replace it with some really good stuff, and you’ll be wowed by the difference. I recommend either King Arthur’s Vietnamese Cinnamon or some Ceylon Cinnamon. I’m usually all for the savings when buying in bulk, but spices are one of those things that are best fresh, so consider getting smaller containers for better flavor. After all, when did you last buy one of those containers of old dusty cinnamon that are kicking around the pantry?

And my other super awesome recommendation, although it’s optional, is Mahlep. I’ve got some of this on order to try out, but I’ve had other brands in the past and let me tell you, it’s a secret weapon in my spice cabinet. It’s made from the pits of a particular Mediterranean cherry, and the raw flavor is subtle and hard to define, but is something adjacent to cardamom with a hint of almonds. But where it really shines is in baked goods. Add some of this to any stone fruit and it deepens and enriches the flavors.

I don’t have a specific recommendation for Jaggery, but you can find it it many specialty/international food shops. It’s a cool flavorful old-school sugar, where the molasses hasn’t been spun out. It usually comes in blocks or cones.

And lastly, Grains of Paradise. This is probably your best bet for cost, but if don’t have an easy way to grind up spices at home, this one comes in a jar with a built-in grinder. If you’ve got a couple of my cookbooks, you may have noticed that I really love this itty bitty pepper. I first discovered it while researching and cooking up medieval recipes, and it’s been a staple of my spice cabinet ever since. In fact, I have this loaded into my pepper grinder (along with cubeb and long pepper, two other old peppers). The flavor is rich and complex, with hints of citrus and something exotic and woody, while the actual feel of the pepper on the tongue can be a sort of cool burn that lingers. It’s really cool. :)

Lembas

In recent weeks, I have received several independent requests for a Lembas recipe, and I have to thank those of you who reached out and gave me the nudges I needed to finally get this recipe up on the blog.

You might think to yourself, “Huh, it’s super weird that there aren’t more LotR recipes on this super awesome fictional food blog!” Well, there’s actually a reason for that. Years and years ago, after Feast of Ice and Fire was newly published, I actually made a lot of LotR foods, mostly as proof of concept for a LotR cookbook pitch. Unfortunately, that attempt didn’t go anywhere, so I decided to self-publish what I had in the form of the Shire Cookbook. It was well received by the few folks who found it online, but I’ve since taken it down as part of an effort to try for an official cookbook again. It’s such a great fit for what I do, and how I do it, and the fanbase would LOVE to have it. Cross your fingers!

 

In the meantime, I’ll be uploading a few of my favorite recipes from that collection to the blog. And what could be a more perfect start to that than Lembas? For this recipe, I considered a number of things when building the ingredients list. First off, the practicality of this needing to be a pretty durable high calorie travel food. Thus the inclusion of some tasty fat in the form of butter, healthy sweetener from honey, and awesome flours. We don’t know what spiffy magic things the elves include in their lembas, so I decided to have a little fun with mine, including some elderflower as a play on “eldar” and some thyme because elves are so long-lived. The result, I hope, is something comforting and familiar, with just enough otherness to keep it interesting.

And that is PLENTY enough words on my end. :) I just hate when you have to scroll through half a novel just to get to the good part, The Recipe:

Lembas Bread Recipe

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1-2 tsp. freshly minced thyme
  • 2 tsp. dried elderflower
  • 1 cup oat flour
  • 1/2 cup nut flour (chestnut, hazelnut, acorn, or almond)
  • 1/4 cup hot water
  • large leaves for wrapping
  • twine

Preheat the oven to 300F and set out a sheet of parchment paper.

Beat the butter and honey together in a medium bowl until light and fluffy. Add in the thyme and elderflower, then gradually work in all the flour, adding just a little water at a time if necessary. You should end up with a fairly stiff dough that can nonetheless be rolled out. Roll out the dough on top of the sheet of parchment paper to somewhere around 1/2-inch thick. Move the dough and paper over to a baking sheet and bake for about 20 minutes, until the lembas is just starting to turn golden. Remove from the oven and cut into small squares while still warm.

To prepare your lembas for travel, wrap each square in a leave and tie off with twine. Many types of leaves work well for this task, but if you are lucky enough to live somewhere with Sassafras trees, I found that their leaves are the best substitute in shape and size for those of the mallorn.

The Dragon Prince – Jelly Tarts

Have you seen The Dragon Prince? If not, what are you even doing right now? Get off this blog and go immediately to Netflix. Seriously. It’s one of the best shows like it that I’ve seen, the writing is fabulous, and it’s just been renewed for 4 more seasons!

WHEN you watch it, I hope you’ll be as delighted as I was by the recurring appearances of Jelly Tarts. They’re portrayed as delicious and utterly scarfable as Sansa’s lemoncakes, so I knew I had to add them to my list. The show even specifies that they’re a Persimmon flavor at one point, although we also see a red version, so I think it’s fair to use your favorite jelly. Also, I looked online and couldn’t find persimmon jelly, so that pretty well rules that out, doesn’t it? ;)

One of the show’s creator’s stated that the tarts are based on Hamentaschen, so that’s what I’ve taken my cue from as well. I started with the dough recipe for rugelah, and embellished from there. For a jam, I had a mixed berry and also a spiced holiday version, and both were just great!

My version is a bit smaller than those that Ezran and Bait gobble down, but they’re no less snackable. In roughly the 2-bite range of size, each one I ate left me wanting just a little bit more. So I’d eat another, then another, and before I knew it, they were gone. As far as I can tell, that means they totally pass the test!

SO! Make up a batch of these, and hunker down with a delightful binge of The Dragon Prince. Let me know what you think of both!

Recipe for Dragon Prince Jelly Tarts

Ingredients:

  • 1 stick butter, softened
  • 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1 egg, divided
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 cup jelly or jam

Cream together the butter and cream cheese along with the sugar. Mix in the egg, then gradually add in the flour. You should end up with a nice soft dough that isn’t sticky- keep adding flour until it doesn’t stick to your hands. Divide into two pieces and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. On a lightly floured surface, roll out one half of the dough to about 1/8″ thickness. Cut into 4″ rounds, saving the scraps to reuse. Lightly brush the outside edges of each circle with a little water. Drop a heaped teaspoon of jelly into the middle of each circle of dough, then gently fold and press three sides of the dough into the triangular shape pictured above.

Bake for about 12-15 minutes, until the tarts are just turning golden brown. Let cool for a few minutes, and enjoy!

 

Redwall – Apple Cream Pudding

I have to preface this post with a little info. Although the Redwall series was written by BrianJacques, a Brit, I’ve gone with an American style pudding for this recipe.

Don’t get me wrong. I think a British style boiled pud, with stewed, spiced apples, doused with a rich creamy custard sauce would be just the thing. Heck, I’d eat half of it myself. But I’ve fallen prey to that devious, creeping monster that can take anyone by surprise…

Nostalgia.

You see, as a child, I was a picky eater. And I mean SUPER picky. PB sandwiches and Mac and Cheese were pretty much my entire food pyramid (I’ll be honest, they’re still the base of the pyramid…). But I was in love with the Redwall series, and the descriptions of food in those books made even my mouth water. A cluster of friends and I decided, somehow, to throw a Redwall feast. We dressed up, made quite a few dishes from the books, and even made a replica of Redwall Abbey in gingerbread (GingerbRedwall Abbey- it was epic). It was my very first foray into fictional foods. 

There was a pudding in that feast that I’ve never gotten over. I suspect it was just some instant vanilla pudding with some applesauce or some such stirred in, but to my untried palate, it was phenomenal. 20 odd years later, I’m still thinking about it. And that’s why I’ve leaned more toward the pudding of my childhood than what the author probably had in mind. Perhaps one of these days I’ll sort out the other version, as well.

To my nostalgic mind, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to recreating that childhood pudding, but it’s still not quite there. I blame the elusiveness of memory. My husband, however, who never tasted that bygone dessert, and isn’t even much of a pudding fan, loved this recipe. Without knowing it was inspired by Redwall, he suggested serving it with a hazelnut biscuit and fresh berries, and that’s such a completely Redwall pairing that I consider it a success. ;)

Apple Cream Pudding Recipe

Cooking: 20 minutes      Chilling: 1 hour or more

Makes: about 4 good sized servings

Dietary: GF

Pairs well with: hazelnut biscuits and fresh berries

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 cup apple cider
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 3 Tbs. arrowroot or cornstarch
  • 2 egg yolks
  • pinch salt

 

Pour the milk, and apple cider into a medium pot over medium heat and bring to just under a boil. Add the vanilla and honey and stir for a few minutes to allow the honey to dissolve.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the heavy cream, cornstarch, egg yolks, and salt. While still whisking, pour a little of the hot milk into the bowl to temper the mixture, then pour everything back into the pot. Cook for around 5 minutes more, stirring all the while, until the mixture has thickened noticeably. Remove from heat, strain into a clean bowl, and cover with plastic. Chill for at least an hour to help the pudding set.

Looking forward…

It’s been nearly 10 years since this blog came into existence, and in the intervening years you all have traveled with me into outer space, back in time to the Roman Empire, and into more fictional realms than I can count. We have discovered unusual flavor combinations, quirky historical recipes, and some fabulous spices that are only now coming back into fashion. We’ve learned to brew mead and make flour from acorns, We’ve learned to bake bread for our families, rediscovered old favorites and made a few new ones. We’ve learned the value of blending fictional settings with delicious real food.

If you’ve been along for the ride for the past several years, you probably noticed that the posts have become more sparse, with considerably more time in between each post, and I wanted to apologize for that.

I had a kid! That’s a doozy. There’s a pandemic on (What the actual fork, amiright?!). I often rely on conventions and signings to reinvigorate me to knuckle down and get some awesome work done, but… well… this year’s been a weird one, and we’re only halfway through it. We’ve been pretty fortunate that so far, at least, the supply chain has held up here (apart from yeast anyway).

I’ve been enormously lucky in so many other ways- I’ve gotten to work on projects that were only on my dream list, and are now a reality. I had four cookbooks come out just last year, and while I am proud of the work I did on each of them, after that juggernaut I burned out HARD, in every sense. I came out of that process with a case of carpal tunnel so bad I couldn’t even lift dishes out of the sink- that’s been an up and down recovery, which is currently on a down slope.

But despite all of that, I still feel bad. I feel guilty for not posting more often. So many of you have been so kind and supportive throughout the years. The emails I receive and the photos I see online of dishes you’ve made buoy me more than you know. In fact, I’d say the personal feedback does more for me on an emotional level by far than good sales or reviews of my books. It’s amazing to feel like I’ve made a positive impact on people on a day to day level.

But there’s still SO MUCH I want to do!

I have over 200 draft posts started behind the scenes. Some of those are just some sparse notes about a historical recipe I came across at some point, some are for dishes I made and photographed, but never wrote down the recipe. Creativity often gets messy. Like, WOAH messy. Just like my kitchen, which I hope to take a sledgehammer to one of these days and turn it into the kitchen you all probably imagine I work in, not the frankenroom from the 70s it actually is.

I have a dream project for an amazing cookbook that I’d love to write. It’s unique and immersive and delicious, and so far only in my head. But GUYS it’s so COOL.

I have what basically amounts to a lecture on medieval beekeeping, and how awesome it was. I even made my own woven skep beehives. Bees are the best.

So all of that is just to check in and say how awesome you all are for still being here. Please know that I’m still here, too, and I’m still doing my best. Like for everyone, some days the best is better than others. So hang in there, have patience, both with me and with yourselves in these super weird times. I promise we’ll go adventuring again soon!

-Chelsea

 

Stardew Valley – Cheese Cauli

So, I have to confess that I ordinarily don’t much care for cauliflower. Or, well, most vegetables, if I’m perfectly honest. Don’t judge – It’s a genetic thing. But I am VERY pro cheese, so a recipe that masks veggies with a creamy cheese sauce, it turns out, was sorely needed in our household lineup. I even went back in for seconds. It’s so good, in fact, that it’s taken me three tries to get a photo of it before it’s been gobbled down.

In Stardew Valley, this recipe is a pretty early one received in the mail from Pam. It’s almost universally liked by everyone in town, excepting Krobus and Willy. I won’t hold that against them, though. Try it yourself and see what you think!

Recipe for Cheese Cauli

Prep: 5 minutes       Cooking: 20 minutes       Makes: ~4 side servings

Ingredients:

  • 1 cauliflower, divided into bite-sized pieces
  • 1 Tbs. olive oil
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1/2 tsp. pepper
  • 4 oz. cream cheese
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
  • paprika and chives to garnish

Start by preheating the oven to 400F. Toss the cauliflower florets with olive oil, salt, and pepper, then spread out evenly on a baking sheet. Cook in the heated oven for around 20 minutes, flipping about halfway through, until soft.

While the cauliflower bakes, make up the cheese sauce: Combine the cream cheese and heavy cream in a saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until it’s a smooth consistency. Stir in the shredded cheddar until it has melted, then remove from heat.

When the cauliflower is done roasting, move it to a medium bowl and toss with the cheese sauce. Top with some paprika and chives, and enjoy!