Delicious in Dungeon: The Monster Meshi - COMPLETE

We've cooked our way through every floor of the dungeon, now we're LORD OF THE DUNGEON! What? that's not how it works? Cmon. 

Things I learned:

- The unique flavours of a whole lot of different meats.

- Grilling and frying might be the same thing in japanese.

- The fairies are better cooks than me

- Demon actually doesn't pair well with apple at all

- I like making a medieval style banquet

- You can either bake a pumpkin whole, or use it as a serving bowl, you can't have it both ways.

- I got slightly better at making rolled omelettes.

Total Ratings:

*            x 4

**          x 9

***        x 13

****      x 26

*****    x 18

Average score: 3.64

Favourite Recipe: 

#8: Freshly Stolen Vegetables and Chicken Stewed with Cabbage Accompanied by Plundered Bread

This was a lot of work, making bread from scratch while stewing cabbage and grilling chicken. But it paid off, this just tasted great, wonderful hot crunchy chewy textures. A homely feast to eat with your hands. I feel sorta bad picking a recipe with non-monster ingredients, but... well, it was still an interesting and unique recipe I think.

Least Favourite Recipe:

#2: Man-Eating Plant Tart

uhh yeahh, i beansed this one so hard. Turns out citrus peel makes everything unbearably bitter. And it didn't hold together at all. Should have made a quiche. I did however manage to scoop out most of the vegetables and dilute the fruity sludge with a curry sauce and end up making a really nice curry out of the leftovers.

Special thanks:

Special thanks to the following resources:

Delicious in Dungeon fandom wiki

Shibuya Dungeon Meshi restaurant collab

DiD cafe Ikebukuro

Tobi - my spreadsheet legend, morale booster and master of the necromantic arts.

Stardew Valley: Food Festival! - COMPLETE

Grandpa's ghost appeared to me in a dream... in his weird little diagonal bed... he told me I'm a Gourmet Chef now! 

Things I learned:

- So many ways to make a fish and seafood stew.

- DON'T use expired yeast!!

- Brown sugar is the secret to great fruit pies.

- Snails. They're edible I guess.

- Root vegetables, especially parsnips, are so versatile and underrated.

- Stardew Valley recipes lean very North American, and I wanna say... northern states?

- I still don't care for rice pudding.

Total Ratings:

*            x 3

**          x 11

***        x 18

****      x 23

*****    x 26

Average score: 3.72

Favourite Recipe: 

#20: Fish Taco, #46: Farmer's Lunch and #79: Tropical Curry

It's a three-way tie! I'm in charge so I'm allowed to do this. It was such a long challenge with so many good recipes, there were 3 distinctive chunks in the process where I was like "this is it, this is my favourite one of the challenge."

The fish taco was my first ever fish taco, my first time cooking with tuna steak and chimichurri as well. I wanna use them all for cooking more!! and have soft shell tacos again! That's a whole lot of horizons expanded.

Farmer's lunch was very representative of the wonderful simplicity of stardew's food: fresh vegetables, and a powerful combination of flavours. This reminds me of a pear & blue cheese omelet i had in a restaurant once, but using simple cheddar and sweet glazed parsnips makes it a cheap and easy dish to make at home!

I was anticipating Tropical Curry for the whole challenge... How easy would it be to make a pineapple bowl? Would it be sweet and sour and flavourful like I hoped? Finally when it came around it absolutely lived up to my hype!

Least Favourite Recipe:

#10: Strange Bun

Ugh, what was I thinking!? Every step in this process was frustrating. From the nasty smelling filling, to the unshapeable dough cones to the runny garnish, nothing was working how I hoped. I was convinced this would still be edible...

Guess what it made me sick. I actually thought it was the cockles, and tbh I still never want to eat those again, but after getting ill in a later recipe, I realised it might have been the expired yeast after all!!

This recipe really made me take a step back and reassess my approach, as I'm probably too brave and stubborn for my own good.

Special thanks:

Special thanks to the following resources:

stardewvalleywiki.com

Mo - the best at baking!

Twee - a star chef and plays stardew with me on weekends.
Tobi - my spreadsheet legend, morale booster and stardew witch wife.

Splatoon 2&3: Complete!

  At a mere 12 recipes across 2 games, this was a super speedy cooking challenge! A nice break from the mushroom-heavy mario menu, Splatoon 2&3 was a grease trap full of deep fried seafood and futuristic vaguely-pacific-inspired cuisine. I think the worldbuilding really comes across in the dishes, much like the game its decadent dressing floats above a dystopian and chaotic world. Damn that's deep. ...fried.

Things I learned:

- You could do a lot worse than tempura prawns with chocolate sauce.

- You can get soft shell crabs, and you can eat them whole!

- Tempura prawns are not a suitable replacement for hot dog buns.

- Sean uses too much sauce, Marigold doesn't use enough.

Total Ratings:

*            x 0

**          x 2

***        x 4

****      x 5

*****    x 1

Average score: 3.42

Favourite Recipe: 

Splatoon 3: Crab-N-Go #1: Crab Trap Sandwich

The less overstuffed version of the Crab Trap sandwich was a wonderful fusion of crispy and goopy, tangy and salty, greasy fried goodness. If I were to make it again there's definitely a few tweaks to be made... I might use a corn tortilla or something, or just forgo bread entirely and have yakisoba with egg and tempura and lemon juice.

Least Favourite Recipe:

Splatoon 3: Crab-N-Go #5: Mega Mountain a la Marigold

I don't regret the combination of ingredients I went for in the end so much...I feel this was just kind of inevitably going to be a bit of a bust for me. I'm not really a big fan of wet chips in gravy as it is, and I had this mountain of pretty decent but ultimately very beige and stodgy food, the type of food that doesnt really get better as leftovers, to get through. Also this wasn't mentioned in the write-up but as I was eating a portion of leftovers for lunch I accidentally dropped the plate and then cut my hand on the plate shards and had to spend my lunch break cleaning blood and potato salad off my kitchen floor (very metal i know) so I guess I also have bad memories of this now. Say goodbye to the weird red plate an old housemate left with me as you'll never see it again.

Special thanks:

Special thanks to the following resources:

splatoonwiki.org

My lovely family even though they avoided being roped into this one.
Tobi who has volunteered to compute the scores in spreadsheet forever.

Super Paper Mario: Saffron & Dyllis Super Show: Complete!

 At 95 recipes, our second and even bigger challenge is complete! Unlike the cooking mama challenge, we got to cook our own way. But instead, designing recipes according to our best approximation of the somewhat whimsical in-game ingredients.

Things I learned:

- There's a solution for everything! Electricity? Poison? Stars? We can cook it!

- Some mushrooms are better than others...

- ...but I still dont really like them.

- You can actually eat horsetail, you just can't find any.

- Several ways to set a pudding!

- Mario does not get enough vitamin b-12 in his diet.

- Portobello is the worst mushroom, oyster is the best mushroom.

- No seriously, i'm so done with mushrooms!!!

Total Ratings:

*            x 6

**          x 7

***        x 27

****      x 32

*****    x 23

Average score: 3.62

Favourite Recipe:

#85 Megaton Dinner
Toss up between this and the mango pudding! This one won me over because I thought a pow block was just the most ridiculous thing to attempt out of this whole list, and I took a chance on a silly idea i had - one that forced me to buy spam for the first time ever and try cooking something i'd never eaten before. And I just think I smashed the brief, and what's more i'm a total convert! I even bought another can of spam to make something like this again later.

Least Favourite Recipe:

#52 Volcano Shroom

I'll admit my execution of this was poor, trying to get a quick and simple version of a cheese-stuffed mushroom... I thought it would be pretty simple and i'd get a simple spicy grilled cheese on a vegetable. Instead I got dehydrated cheese on a wet sponge.

My bad.

Special thanks:

Special thanks to the following resources:

mariowiki.com
Tobi who has volunteered to compute the scores in spreadsheet forever.

My lovely family who made the best looking store-bought gingerbread house ever, and put up with a few of my weird mushroom cakes and stews!

Cooking Mama's Cooking Challenge: Complete!

 We've done it! All 75 recipes. Using the in-game instructions. Some good, some a little embarrassing. I had a great time.

Things I learned:

- How to make a mean hamburger/meatball sauce

- That I needed a mini deep fryer in my life!

- When in doubt, always pre-cook your bacon!!

- Mama doesn't like garlic

- Mama LOVES ketchup

- Mama just assumes you always have some cooked rice and dashi stock to hand.

- You need a special rice and even specialer equipment for making mochi, and its not worth the hassle.

- How to dice onions... over and over.. and over again...

Total Ratings:

*            x 1

**          x 9

***        x 19

****      x 32

*****    x 14

Average score: 3.65

Favourite Recipe:

#24 Meatballs
The best of cooking mama's skill set, this has got mince, flour coating, deep frying, and dashi based sauce! It ended up a little less complicated than it seemed, and a delicious unique variant of meatball I've never had before that I'd definitely do again.

Least Favourite Recipe:

#51 Shrimp Gyoza

This one was really on me, I think I used the wrong type of gyoza wrappers, steamed them too long... but mamas not about giving me that sort of information. Also even in its melted state, it just wasn't all that flavour-wise.

Special thanks:

Special thanks to the following resources:

Fandom Cooking Mama Wiki
Aromie Youtube Channel
Tobi who has volunteered to compute the scores in spreadsheet forever.

My lovely family who helped with several recipes!

And that about wraps it up I suppose! I'm enjoying this so I've already lined up the next game challenge. Look forward to that reeeal sooon.