Stardew Valley #64: Bruschetta

Ingredients: Bread, Oil, Tomato

Item Description: Roasted tomatoes on a crisp white bread.

We've got a baguette, not homemade this time fortunately, that I've already had a bit of for lunch... We've got some vine tomatoes, oil, balsamic vinegar, garlic, basil, chives and hard cheese.

First we cut the bread into diagonal sloices and put them on a baking tray... its kind of a thin bread i hope we can keep the toppings on ok

Next for the oil, olive oil is probably the norm but I got this fancy lavender infused cooking oil which is very french, it might add a slight bitter floral taste but i think thatll go alright.  And I've mixed that up with some crushed garlic

Now we spread the oil/garlic mix on the bread, BOTH SIDES

Now most recipes are saying you make a kind of diced tomato/etc salsa and have it raw on bruschetta... but the description clearly says "roasted tomatoes on crisp white bread"so i'm slicing the tomatoes up and roasting them in the oven on the bread! Sounds fine to me. I'm also drizzling a tiny bit of balsamic vinegar on each one.

After about 10-15mins its looking crisp and brown! I push them closer together and season with fresh chives, salt and pepper. But there's still more raw toppings to add after that!

Each slice also gets a piece of basil and some flaked hard cheese. (Like parmesan or whatever, i used grana padano again cause im cheap) This is looking really rather good!

*****

It's a nice warm sunny day, perfect for something fresh, simple and... antipasto-y. Tastes like a gourmet garlic bread.

Stardew Valley #63: Cranberry Candy

Ingredients: Cranberries, Apple, Sugar

Item Description: It's sweet enough to mask the bitter fruit.

Cranberries, Apple, Sugar. It really is just that! And I'm going to attempt to use my juicer attachment for my multi blender thing. I've never used it before. I've never even made a juice before. This will be educational.

Stop me if im wrong, or dont actually because this is probably still a good idea, but I believe you should always cook cranberries if you plan to eat them? I dunno why though, but it should make them tender and easier to juice anyway so lets.

Oops that was fast! In my mind cranberries are hard and I expect them to take ages, like beans... but they do not take long. It also looks like they really spilled their guts into the water, so we should probably keep all that liquid for our juice.

Hey, while its all hot, maybe this is a good time to add the sugar? I'm just going to eyeball it, i kinda want to add less sugar than they typically do in commercial beverages, but its called "cranberry candy" not "cranberry torture" so probably a generous amount.

After leaving it to cool for a few hours, its ready to go into the juicer! It looks like im using this correctly, and we're already seeing some nice filtration results before we've even done anything.

Now we can add the other ingredient, a couple raw apples! Im cutting them into thin slices so that they can reach the blade at the bottom and get blended into the drink.

Look at that! It's really quite thick, I guess we could have added more water... but... ive already filled this jug. Smoothie it is.

And theres a few chunks left that wouldn't filter through. I guess its all technically edible. It looks like tomato sauce. This would make a wretched pasta dish. I guess I should just eat it later (not with pasta).

****

Wow I think I did well! The apple really rounds out the flavour and it's sweet and bitter, but not overwhelmingly so. There's not a lot I can do with cranberries that makes them especially desirable to me, but you know what? This is probably the best thing I can think of. I think I like this better than store bought cranberry juice. Also it feels like I've gotten 6 of my 5-a-day now.

Stardew Valley #62: Blackberry Cobbler

Ingredients: Blackberry, Sugar, Wheat Flour

Item Description: There's nothing quite like it.

What's the difference between a pie and a cobbler? Nothing actually, I looked it up. Most people think a cobbler has like a batter drop topping, but thats not definitively a cobbler apparantly. Anyway the sprite for this has a kind of weird stripey half-lattice, and I have a bunch of leftover pastry, so you see where this is going.

Bought another pastry base. It's just so much better than what I can do. Look at that machine precision.

Gotta weed out the mouldy berries unfortunately. Guess i should have done this earlier in the week.

Now its probably good to turn this into a bit more of a pie filling... recipes seem to recommend adding milk for some reason... sugar for extra sweetness, flour to stop it being too wet, and I'm adding some orange essence to add a little secondary flavour.

I tried to learn my lesson from that blueberry pie, but perhaps we've gone a bit far in the opposite direction? Should we have done more milk and flour? Ah well, I don't really want to.

Right here's our leftover pastry. Its probably still good.

Alright this is what the sprite looks like, you think im just too lazy to make a proper lattice? Don't judge me. Anyway time to bake it.

****

OK judge me a little bit I let this pie look so bare. But you know what?

Bit of ice cream, and it's perfect. Perfect!! I love the tart blackberries with the orange essence coming through and the sweet crust. I had a scoop of sesame and honey flavoured ice cream btw. Granted anything fruity tastes good on a hot day like today. Great combination, would use more filling next time.

Stardew Valley #61: Fruit Salad

Ingredients: Blueberry, Melon, Apricot

Item Description: A delicious combination of summer fruits.

It's mid-spring, but we've managed to procure this unusual trio of fruits in some form or another. I think it will be... adequate.

First we chop the melon and scoop out the seeds. I will probably only need.. like a quarter or something to balance with the other fruits. I'll dice up a whole half though and snack on the rest some other time.

Here's a staged action shot of my melon slicing technique!

Now to inspect the apricots. I'm not sure I could even find these fresh locally in the height of summer, but these are super convenient, they'll be perfectly ripe AND they come with a free juice that we can use as the "dressing" for our fruit salad.

I'm gonna chop these up a bit smaller. Maybe I just like chopping things..?

Then we can just shove all the fruit together! And add the juice from the can. You can also use lemon juice, orange juice, rum, sugar syrup, whatever... but I think the canned juice will probably be wet and acidic enough. There's plenty of fruit so I'm making 1 for now and 1 for later.

Hmm, blueberries and melon are quite subtle and a lot of general recipes recommend adding an extra sweetness, so i'm going to drizzle just a little bit of syrup as well and mix it all up!

****

Tasty! This is not a combination of fruit I would have though of myself, so I appreciate the inspiration to try it out. This is what I get for buying summer fruit in spring i suppose, but the melon was quite bland, possibly under-ripe, (and fresh blueberries typically are bland in my experience). So having the unique strong flavour of the apricots and the extra kick of sweetness really matched well. Plus everything was crisp and refreshing.

Stardew Valley #60: Radish Salad

Ingredients: Oil, Vinegar, Radish

Item Description: The radishes are so crisp!

Quick and simple one I guess? We've got radishes, oil, vinegar. The good stuff no less.

Chopped up the radishes.

But wait, there's more! I will add some herbs. I have a tiny bit of dill and mint from my freezer.

In go the herbs, olive oil and cider vinegar.

Now heheh I put it in a dish with a lid so I can mix the vinaigrette it by shaking! Don't try this with strawberries and razorblades, kids.

**

It's crisp. It's simple. It's boring...

Stardew Valley #59: Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients: Pumpkin, Wheat Flour, Milk, Sugar

Item Description: Silky pumpkin cream in a flakey crust.

I've made pumpkin pie before, and I know a really easy simple recipe for it as well! Even if pumpkin wasn't out of season, I highly recommend finding a tin of "american style" pureed pumpkin, its the perfect consistency and concentration for pie filling. For the wheat flour I just bought pre-made pastry again (it was 24p!) and for the milk & sugar i've streamlined it into a can of sweetened condensed milk. Then we've got eggs, and classic pumpkin spices.

Oh noo! I accidentally broke my big pyrex when I was getting out a baking dish. :( RIP to a real one. This is the dark side of cooking blog.

Here's the pre-rolled pastry shaped into a dish. It's kinda moist from being hastily defrosted. Reminds me of sliced cheese.

Fortunately we have some other big bowls to mix in. Im not even going to use my mixer because its literally so easy to mix. Just 3 different kinds of sludge: The tinned pumpkin, the condensed milk, and 2 eggs.

And then the spices go in. its like a teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/2 tsp of ginger and nutmeg, and a pinch of salt.

Mix it up until you have THE SLUDGE. Until you have Clayface from batman.

And then its ready to go in the oven for like 40mins. ITS REALLY THAT SIMPLE

*****

This was kind of a foregone conclusion because I already knew how to cook this AND pumpkin pie is probably my favourite pie of all time. And look how easy it is! Are you going to try making pumpkin pie now? Are you??