Stardew Valley #19: Salmon Dinner

Ingredients: Salmon, Amaranth, Kale

Item Description: The lemon spritz makes it special.

We have some salmon, dried amaranth grain (nice one waitrose), and fresh kale from my very own herb planters!

I wanna keep this pretty simple. Just gonna fry these up with some olive oil, one for now and one for later.

I've never made amaranth before, but it seems like it's prettymuch the same deal as couscous. Put in some hot water, boil, simmer, and wait for it to absorb the water. Here it is cooked btw.

Now the description mentions a "lemon spritz" I don't know what that is, but ive got a spray bottle and a lemon, I'll squeeze the juice out and spray it on the dinner. This is something, right?

Juiced up and ready to go

Next I want to fry up the kale just a little bit, throw it around in the remains of the oil and fish flakes.

I hadn't really come up with much beyond "lemon juice" for seasoning, so ill add a bit of salt and pepper to everything as I plate up.

***

Tastes healthy. I wish I'd gone harder on the lemon spritz, and maybe added some herbs or stock to the amaranth as it has no flavour of its own. The salmon, especially the crispy bits of skin did most of the work in terms of flavour. Nice, but MORE seasoning next time!! more!!

Stardew Valley #18: Pancakes

Ingredients: Wheat Flour, Egg

Item Description: A double stack of fluffy, soft pancakes.

So I made up this pancake batter for recipe #8 Complete Breakfast, and used the rest of this batter for this recipe the next day. So here it is! For american style "fluffy" pancakes you have to include a raising agent, unlike crepes, so we've got self raising flour AND a bit of baking powder to boost it further. And a tablespoon of sugar to give it a little starting sweetness.

Then we add the wets, which is egg, melted butter and about as much milk as there is flour!

Now here's where we initially used the batter for complete breakfast, and as you may recall I felt the pancakes were a little bit dry in that... so when i got the rest of the batter out this morning, I figured id add a little bit of extra milk and see if that helps!

These pancakes are already spreading a little wider than the old ones, but they're cooking well.

Double stack, I assume that means 2, and let's not forget some syrup and butter. Yes I still didn't get maple, it's actually only been a day.

*****

Success! These have indeed come out less dry than the ones I made for complete breakfast, so I guess i'll have to give 'em full marks. They're not my tidiest pancakes but they're my tastiest. And maybe better alone than with hashbrowns and eggs. Although, with some fruit...?

Stardew Valley #17: Hashbrowns

Ingredients: Potato, Oil

Item Description: Crispy and golden-brown!

Potatoes and Oil acquired, im also peeping at some recipes to really make the most out of this and do hashbrowns properly. There's a lot of different techniques, but I like the sound of mixing these with a bit of flour, egg and onion.

This is the perfect task for my peeler that has a julienne mode! These might be thicker and longer than using a grater, but maybe thats nice, I want a sort of rustic look to match the sprite. Also after grating 1 big potato, it seemed like plenty.

I only have a red onion because I made this decision last-minute, but hopefully it wont make much difference to the appearance. I'm just using half an onion, chopped finely with the layers separated.

Now i mix the dry bits in a colander and leaving it to dry for a couple hours while i play jackbox party pack 8 over discord.

Now in an even bigger bowl without holes in, i'll break an egg and mix it up a bit, then add in all the potatonion

Adding a pinch of salt and about 2tbsps of flour, some recipes dont have any flour and we arent making potato cookies, but we do want to somehow attempt to vaguely bind them into patties... i guess...?

Now i'm just gonna... ill just uh.... ok "shaping" these seems pretty impossible, but ive just sort of squeezed a handful and thrown them into a pan with a decent amount of oil in

Yeah!!! 

*****

These are so crispy and oily I almost want to have them with vinegar, but I had them with mayo and sriracha and that was good too. Happy with the outcome, though I guess they'd be even better as a side, like with some baked beans or even put inside a burger! Or say... a complete breakfast... Still I cant help but want to give them full marks as they're a brilliant side dish that i'd make the exact same way again.

Stardew Valley #16: Carp Surprise

Ingredients: Carp

Item Description: It's bland and oily.

So, for this I learned that they don't really sell carp in the UK, its considered a pretty undesirable fishmeat. We also have zero clue about cooking method or anything, all we've got to go off of is "it's bland and oily" and "surprise!". I guess ill go for a fatty type of fish... And I saw this smoked herring (aka kippers) for sale! Unseasoned and extra buttery. I also got some sugar snap peas for garnish.

Since cooking method is dealer's choice, this is designed to be microwaved, perfect!

***

I think I know why kippers aren't so popular these days, its in that awkward place where they're too small to bother pulling out the bones, but big enough that the bones tickle your throat as they go down...That aside though, it was actually pretty decent and I managed to finish off all 4 fillets, big protein wins for ya girl.

It definitely ticks off the box for being oily, but was it bland? actually... no... the smokey rich fish was quite flavourful, and I was very pleased with my side as it paired well with the sweetness of the peas.

Stardew Valley #15: Glazed Yams

Ingredients: Yam, Sugar

Item Description: Sweet and satisfying... The sugar gives it a hint of caramel.

So luckily ya girl knows a fair bit about fine american cuisine, enough to know that glazed yams probably refers to candied sweet potatoes. Got a 1kg bag of sweet potates, the darkest of dark brown sugars. I'm also adding on recommendation of most recipes, some butter and some cinnamon and nutmeg spice. A lot of recipes also reccomend a bit of orange or lemon juice, but im going to be a little bit weird and try adding a splash of fancy cider vinegar i bought from down south. I think it will add a more savoury kick that should be ok considering this is technically a baked vegetable dish.

First we gotta peel 'em all. Should I use the whole bag? Eh might as well, what else am I gonna do with them.

Then we can chop them up into nice sized chunks. A good size for forking, but small enough that they dont take forever to cook.

Now a lot of the recipes seem to reccomend mixing together the glaze on the hob, so I guess i might as well. We've got the butter, sugar, a sprinkle of cinnamon and nutmeg, and just a dash of the cider vinegar. Smells like spiced apple pie!

Now I just pour it on and toss them around a bit to make sure they're coated. 

Then I pop it in the oven with a tin foil lid for 40 mins, checking a few times and flipping them around with a spoon to stay moist. After about 10mins I realised it was still staying very liquidy, at the bottom and probably wouldnt dry out or thicken much at all, so I cooked it without the tin foil for the remaining 30.

*****

Tasty! The vinegar's sourness might not be to everyone's tastes if they're used to a sweet puddingy dish but it was fine by me. The spicy and caramel-y glaze really penetrated the vegetables and it was very moreish, also smells amazing. Glad I made an entire 1kg because I feel like i could easily eat 1kg of these! Probably won't in one meal though.. but like I probably could...

Stardew Valley #14: Bean Hotpot

Ingredients: Green Bean

Item Description: It sure is healthy.

Beans!!! Thats it thats the post. Oh and I got some vegetable stock, a pinch of marjoram and parsley from my herb box, and a lil bit of butter.

So like, i don't think green bean hot pot is a thing right? I feel like this is made up. But I also think we can totally do it. It'll be a bit like spring veg soup but with 1 veg. Anyway we rinse that veg.

Then I wanna cut off the stem ends, they are hard and like eating twigs I dont like em. the butt ends are fine tho.

Slam them in the pot with the herbs and 1 crumbled up stock cube. And then some boiling water.

LMAO this looks like trash water what have I done

Never mind this looks and smells pretty good. After the beans look nice and tender I added just a little cube of butter and mixed it in.

****

Obviously this isnt a meal so I had it with a couple slices of leftover pizza. But even when compared to the delicious pizza, this was surprisingly nice?? The beans were fresh, crunchy and tender and the stock and butter added plenty of salt and flavour. Im not really sure I recreated anything close to the intended recipe and I could have tried to make a proper casserole with other ingredients instead of just beans.. but I dunno, it can be really nice to really appreciate a single ingredient. 

Stardew Valley #13: Pizza

Ingredients: Wheat Flour, Tomato, Cheese

Item Description: It's popular for all the right reasons.

A pizza day! Since I have already made Pizza from scratch before and I'll take any excuse not to make my own dough, I was delighted when I saw my grocery store had some pizza bases! I highly recommend this type of recipe for someone whos nervous about learning to cook, as its really just a matter of throwing things together but you get all the satisfaction of a home cooked meal!

For the tomato paste you can mix your own passata based pizza sauce, OR you can do what I remember learning in school, and smother the base with tomato concentrate using the back of a spoon. but thats a little... school pizza-y on its own, so ive also got a jar of minced sun-dried tomato paste, which will make the sauce sweeter and oilier. Also im addling a little sprinkle of garlic powder and oregano as well. Pizza flavours.

Next we gotta drain and chop a ball of mozzarella, grate the cheddar cheese, and any other toppings.

I've gone for a sprinkle of cheddar and sliced mozzarella. To me this is a classic british way to do pizza cheese. Cheddar adds a tangy flavour, and the mozzarella melts into that classic stringy creamy cheese.

Based on the graphic for this recipe, I felt like green peppers and pepperoni would be a good choice, plus thats very typical british/american topping. The pepperoni seemed a bit big so i ended up slicing it into quarters.

Now its ready to go in the oven! Also yes it is lucky that I happen to have a perfect sized pizza oven tray. I swear I don't have like 300 different types of oven trays. Ok i do have like 6 though. Also don't spend too long trying to get a good photo when your oven is on and open. Im experienced and fast(lazy)

*****

Wahoo pizza! Honestly? Without a homemade crust, this does taste a little more like a pizza you'd buy from a grocery store or bakery. But I do that all the time. "It's popular for all the right reasons."