Stardew Valley #50: Roots Platter

Ingredients: Cave Carrot, Winter Root

Item Description: This'll get you digging for more.

I've gone and got us a selection of cave carrots and winter roots! We've got carrot, celeriac, ginger and parsnip.

This step isn't necessary I guess, but when buying root veg loose from a big supermarket I kinda like to peel them to be on the safe side from all the manhandling and pesticides.

Chopping the carrot, parsnip and celeriac up into big chunks and placing them on a baking tray. Yes it's time for yet another chunky vegetable tray roast! I don't have many ideas for these types of dishes ok.

As for the ginger though, that's a strong flavour thats going to be the main feature of the seasoning! So we grate a good bit of it in our finest grater.

And we mix that in with some other stuff to create a glaze/marinade for our vegetables. I've got lavender infused cooking oil, soy sauce, honey, celery salt, thyme and cayenne pepper.

Then I apply it on all the vegetables with a silicone brush. And shove it in the oven for like, 25 min? I dunno.

Don't forget to flip them halfway through!

***

A pleasant, zesty flavour that goes down easy. But... well, together the vegetables are all a bit samey in flavour. It's already a bit similar to other recipes like vegetable medley, glazed yams, autumns bounty, farmers lunch..
This'll get you digging for more.... side dishes to go with it!

Stardew Valley #49: Miner's Treat

Ingredients: Cave Carrot, Sugar, Milk

Item Description: This should keep your energy up.

Ayo this ones weird, and my track record with candy is not good because I dont want to actually make it proper because its a lot of work and specialised equipment and training and that. But i did see some recipe for candied grapes in boiled sweets that im gonna see what happens if i replicate with.... carrots...?

For "cave carrot" I wanted to get some heritage/rainbow carrots to be a bit more fun but they didnt have any, so ive just got a carrot and a parsnip.

Ok so we are going to make like lollipops, see, with the carrots, and dip them in caramel and then coat with them crushed up rainbow boiled sweets.. you with me? No? Come on.

Ok so the ratio of these sweets is... not amazing either. Doesnt feel like theres a point in doing orange on orange, so i'll just crush 3-4 each of the other colours. Oh also, the only rainbow boiled sweets I managed to find were sherbet filled ones. That'll have to do, probably quite nice actually.

This looks cool! this is happening right? This is something?

Ok since the recipe has sugar in milk, ive got a heap of sugar, a splash of milk and some syrup to hopefully, i dunno, stabilise it? 

To make caramel I think it needs to get up to about 300f, so ive finally cracked out this food thermometer someone got me for xmas the other year. Handy! Also by the time it got up to like 250f it started foaming up so i dunno, this isnt pro quality, maybe its about a good time to start dipping.

OK yeah I dont know. I guess I didnt wanna waste a lot off food, but making a small batch makes it all extra hard to try and apply things to things. Also for some reason I thought the vegetables would be able to cook while i was dipping them, but in reality you dont wanna just hang around deep frying stuff in hot sugar... Also the caramel is failing to stick to the veg as it cools... so its just getting all kind of messy in here. I also gave up on making them different colours and tried to sprinkle a rainbow over them all. Yeah, i've made a mess. I also foolishly decided to try and get this done before going to a party so I ended up rushing it.

**

This is stupid and unweildy and im never gonna make it again.

But................... ok im gonna say it.... the toffee and fruity sherbet actually goes REALLY WELL with the raw carrot and parsnip. I think there's a real potential in carrot and parsnip candies? It's stupid, its messy, it sticks straight to your teeth, but it actually tastes great.

Stardew Valley #48: Dish O' The Sea

Ingredients: Sardine, Hash Browns

Item Description: This'll keep you warm in the cold sea air.

I've already made hashbrowns once, but that was effort so I want to use store bought ones this time! I've also got tinned sardines, that's the easiest way to get em.

Pop these bad triangles in the oven for a bit.

Now to see what we're working with here... These should already be pre-cooked but i want to warm and crisp them up a bit in a saucepan i used to frying bacon earlier today.

These are VERY soft and threaten to fall apart, but I've got a spatula we can do this

Right we got the sards and a side salad, just gotta wait for the hashbrowns to finish in the oven.

Now for the finishing touch!

I wanna get some sauce on this meal.

***

These hashbrowns are great! They pair reasonably well with the sardines, surprisingly, but everything does just kind of seem a bit... incidental. The sardines are good, compared to herring/kippers the tiny bones are much less noticeable so id buy them again, but id probably break it up and mix it into a kedegree or potato salad or something. It'll keep you warm in the cold sea air, but maybe not as much as a stew.

Stardew Valley #47: Survival Burger

Ingredients: Bread, Cave Carrot, Eggplant

Item Description: A convenient snack for the explorer.

It's a burger! Simple enough. You could potentially do a veggie burger for this, but im still in my "vitamin b12 deficiency is no joke" arc so I want to do a beef and vegetable patty. We got lean beef mince, we got the eggplant, we got the carrot, we got some sesame burger buns for the bread.

First of all, lets grate this eggplant.

OK this isnt going well, you dont wanna know how long I tried to grate this thing only to get this far... Lets try something else.

Honestly even the blender is a bit of a pain (that slippery skin and spongy inner really is something huh?) But we got there in the end.

Alright we got our veg mince! Beef mince, an egg and a bit of fine breadcrumbs, this should make it nice and easy to form into a patty. I decided not to add onion, as its already like 30% vegetable and I thought itd be cool to let it have its own subtle flavour.

That said, lets add some survival spices! I think some chilli powder, salt, pepper and paprika should do it. I don't know why I have mild chilli powder but nows a good time to use a bunch of it.

Mashed it up with a fork, stand by while I get my hands really greasy and cold.

These are looking quite alright! I mean ok they sort of look like zombie diseased patties but we know they arent so shut up. I was going to fry these but you know what, I've got a grill, ive got time. 

Did you think I forgot about the cave carrot? Nuh-uh! I thought itd be fun to use the carrot as part of the burger garnish actually.

like this! 

The carrots very raw and wet, so i wanna crisp it with the patties (which are mostly cooked now). Is this something? Is this cooking?

Alright these look done, toasting the bun as well.

I want to pick some sauce. For some reason I was feeling bbq and mayo... theres something about smoky bbq sauce that reminds me of caves. You get what I mean right? 

Also sorry advance warning I kinda burned the back of the bun, agh. Pretend I didnt. ;)

***

It's an adequate burger. Good, even. I like the crunchy bite the carrot brings. It tasted kinda healthy and cheap, like a low fat burger with extra vegetables. The eggplant doesnt really bring in much contrast, so I kinda think I should have added onion or some garlic. And a fattier mince. And pickles! And maybe not overcooked it a bit. 

Is it a convenient snack for an explorer? Uhh I guess, i mean not as convenient as a sandwich tbh. Or a pasty. Or packet of crisps... loaf cake... bento... tesco fried chicken wrap meal deal... sorry what? Oh! Time to publish!

Stardew Valley #46: Farmer's Lunch

Ingredients: Omelet, Parsnip

Item Description: This'll keep you going.

Omelets! Parsnips! Some other stuff!

I'm going to start with doing parsnips my favourite way, which is honey roasted. Gotta make a mess peeling them.

Then im just gonna chop them into good sized chunks

A nice big tablespoon of honey, some olive oil, black pepper, paprika and salt. Ideally you should probably mix the ingredients up, but just tossing the parsnips around till its roughly mixed is fine by me. I'm also gonna add a tablespoon of water, to keep the parsnips from drying out too much since we didn't blanche them or anything.

Now just shove them in the oven till they look all... yknow, delicious. Everything else will cook quite quickly so we can take a break and come back.

Handful of beans with the stalk ends clipped...

Once the parsnips are half cooked we can just throw these in.

Right, time to make the omelette! I could just reuse the parsnips bowl, whats it gonna do... season my eggs? oh no!

I also thinly sliced some cheddar to add to the omelette. Why? Well part because i love it, but also because "Farmers Lunch" reminds me of the "Ploughman's Lunch" dish we have in the UK, which traditionally has big chunks of sharp cheddar.

My favourite omelette pan is rectangular, so im gonna make it a rectangular one! But folded over and not a tamagoyaki roll.

Hell yeah! Lets check on the vegetables next..

Also hell yeah!

*****

Square plate, square pans... sorry all my kitchenware is so square. Anyway this was great! These might be the best parsnips i've ever had, let alone made myself! The sweet vegetables paired so well with the tangy cheese omelette, making this feel like some gourmet recipe. The beans were a little tough, but i still prefer that to mushy overboiled ones. I thought I might add some sauce if it was a bit plain, but it really wasnt!