Summer is finally starting to wind down! Finally. I don’t know about you, but it’s been as hot as Hellfire Peninsula in Stormwind lately. So of course, when you get out of the hot sun after working all day, you don’t want a hot meal. No no, you need something to help you cool down. That’s why I love a good, cold pasta salad.
Continue reading “Stormsong Valley Chicken Bacon Ranch Pasta Salad”
Miss Jean, a druid and an avid gardener, got me hyped up last winter to try and grow my own veggies. I planted a few different types of tomato plants, some little cherry tomatoes, some big ol’ slicing tomatoes, and some felberries, which are sorta similar to tomato but they taste a bit like tingling.
At first it was great! Every day there were a few cherry tomatoes, or a felberry. And then all at once EVERYTHING came into season at the same time. I realized that even with cooking for the Keg, putting some in the chicken pasta salads (tune in next week!) a lot of these tomatoes were going to go bad if I didn’t figure something out. I’m not a fan of most tomato sauces (I know, I’m weird) but there is one thing I can’t get enough of.
Salsa.
Continue reading “Easy Summer Salsa”
You know a dish is ingrained in a culture when you ask how to make it any you get told that one — there is no recipe, you just inherently know how to do it and two — no not like that, move over let me show you.
Rice is easy to grow on the Echo Isles, and Trolls are known for their intense spices. When I approached my good friend Zan’juul and asked him how to make this, I had no idea it would be an ordeal. It turns out there are as many ways to make this as there are Troll tribes and my simply asking ‘how make the yum food’ was enough to spark a debate.
How do you know who to listen to? Whichever Troll looks most likely to eat you — that’s why you obey. I don’t make the rules.
for you are crunchy and good with sauce
One of my favorite things about Dwarves is that they know how to make some damn ribs. There’s something special about eating ribs. It’s almost like a ritual. The fall off the bone meat, the sticky fingers, the bone. I don’t know about you, but I love gnawing on the ends of the ribs while my food is settling. It’s so primal.
But sometimes you just can’t justify the trip all the way out to Ironforge. And sometimes, you work in a tavern that isn’t properly equipped to smoke things. Don’t get me wrong, the Keg has great tools! We’ve got… a spoon. At least one pan. A cup or twelve. Ya know. The essentials. But we don’t have a smoker.
So when summer comes around and the craving strikes, what do you do?? The answer, like for most other problems, is to FAKE it!
Shhhh no one will ever know
When I was living on the streets, food was hard to come by. I would go days without eating, and even when I did get a chance, more often than not it was scavenged from rubbish bins. A memory I’ve held very close was my first cheeseburger. I remember the sauce running down my chin, the cheese and grease exploding with flavor in my mouth, the crunch of the onion, the sourness of the pickle. It was so foreign to me, fluffy buns and thick crumbly meat. I hadn’t eaten much Human food before that and elves don’t really have anything quite like it.
The only pain is that it’s a bit hard to take on the go. While making the Pandaren egg rolls, I was stricken with an amazing idea. All the deliciousness of a cheeseburger in the convenient package of an egg roll.
Continue reading “Cheeseburger Egg Rolls”
This one has a bit of an odd story behind it. My birthday was a few weeks ago, and I decided to head to Gadgetzan in Tanaris as part of the celebrations. While there, I came decided to wander through a few shops. I came across a very nice Goblin and we got to chatting. He was very interested in my little project here, and asked to sponsor it. I told him I wasn’t really comfortable without knowing his products a bit better so he gave me a free sample.
After the exchange (there were the usual customs fees, brokerage fees, a currency exchange fee to move from Stormwind gold to Bilgewater gold, and of course, a small fee for mismatched coins, as I had a few Ironforge coins mixed in) I was given a rather interesting can of Duskwood Style Dusky Crab Lumps, courtesy of Kwality Katch.
Kwality Katch! It says ‘Kwality’ right in the name
hmm…
Man, where do I even start with this one? It’s a massive favorite in the non-Pandaren nations. I remember being able to find this even in Orgrimmar, and sometimes you get lucky and find a cart in Dalaran. Noodles are of course, the go-to, but there’s something divine about the crunchy, sweet, savory, little bit tart stickiness of a dish like this.
When I lived in Halfhill, the old Pandaren that used to let me rent a room from them told me the story about how when their ancestors began to set up their farms and breweries from the West, the insectoid Klaxxi were beginning to spread in from the East. Wars raged and fire burned and crops were destroyed and overall, there was terror.
One Pandaren in particular was desperate for peace. And he realized that when he worked a long hard day, he was rather cranky before he got his supper. So, he thought, perhaps it was the same with the angry Klaxxi. He’d seen the nectar they ate, and decided, well that simply couldn’t be sustaining enough. So he came up with a dish — a perfect blend of everything he thought a hard working creature needed. Protein for strength, vegetables for health, fruit and sweetness for the disposition. And with it, he offered up an offering, that Bug and Bear could sit together in peace and the commonality of food.
Did it work?
Peace of cake
So this is another cauldron recipe! Again, if you have an Instant-Cauldron, I’ll try and figure out the conversion for you!
Have you ever been to Kul Tiras? Weather-wise, it’s kind of like Stormwind on steroids. Stormwind is wet and cold from the bay and it’s that wet that gets into your skin. But in Boralus, it’s even more intense. It gets all the way into your bones! At least for me, it doesn’t seem to matter how much I bundle up, I’m always cold and damp. Good thing those Kul Tiran jackets are so stylish.
One thing that seems to warm our island neighbors is baked beans. Now this is kind of a mis…name… cuz they’re actually done in a cauldron, but man they are delicious. They’re easy to make on the sea with ingredients that are easy to preserve. And I’ve found that they actually can store for a few weeks in a cold-box, and even freeze pretty well.
Beware, beware, the sailor who’s had beans
Have you ever heard of Murphy’s Law? It means that anything that can go wrong — will.
Have you ever heard of Cole’s Law? It’s thinly sliced cabbage.
Top kek
Feed the Horde 