Valentineâs Day is coming soon, and in Animal Crossing, that means Brewster serves hot chocolate instead of coffee! Originally, I had envisioned making super thick European-style hot chocolate, but I feel those are best served in tiny demitasse cups. Powdered hot chocolate, though, can be scaled and consumed in any quantity desired, PLUS, you can use milk, water, or any dairy substitute. AND,âŚ
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âWell, the stuff is so rare, I only know one. Itâs called Mississippi Quantum Pie. Itâs delicious! If you want me to make you one, I can. Just bring me some flour, vodka, and a Nuka-Cola Quantum. I can whip it up in no time.â The Mississippi Quantum pie is one of the few appetizing-sounding consumables in Fallout 3. I donât know whatâs âMississippiâ about this pie, but it contains two ingredientsâŚ
So, youâve acquired the Hematophage perk. Congrats! The sun suddenly hurts. Good news: those blood packs in your inventory give you +20 HP! The Wastelandâs a tough place, and any source of HP helps. Though, sipping blood packs like theyâre juice pouches may get a bit boring after trekking through the Wasteland for monthsâŚso, whatâs a resourceful Lone Wanderer to do? You think Moira will put thisâŚ
With the exception of a few design details, Iâve completely moved my blog from Tumblr to its own domain. (My Tumblr page will update when the main site is updated, and Iâll still respond to asks/randomly like stuff so youâll still see me randomly around Tumblr). Idk if itâs burnout from work or what, but I had a sudden surge of ideas/plans for Mythril Fork. Iâve been baking a TON, some of whichâŚ
Spring/Summer were busy, but good to me. I traveled a lot for work, my family visited, my in-laws visited, my husband and I started working out 6 days a week/eating healthy...the latter caused a sharp decline in cooking tasty foods and ramped up time spent in the outdoors.
(The blackberries are from a half-hearted attempt to pickle blackberries, the first two photos are from one of our last camping trips in Virginia, and the above photo is from Trinity Alps Wilderness).
Also, I got my first video game-related tattoo a few months ago (yee-haw). I miss New Vegas.
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A hearty, oil-free granola - perfect fuel for adventuring.
I recently learned how to make crunchy granola without oil. A Google search will tell you the empirical formula is 3 cups of dry components + 1/2 cup of a liquid sweetener. Easy enough, and it yields granola with tons of clusters (the best part). I like to add extra fixings once the granola has baked and cooled, which makes it a great trail snack or hearty breakfast.
Granola with fixings
2 cups oatmeal (not quick cooking)
1 cup dried millet
~2 tbsp sesame seeds
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2/3 cup orange juice (or ~3 tbsp OJ concentrate)
1/2 cup maple syrup (or other liquid sweetener)
1/2 cup dried currants
1/2 cup dried sour cherries
1/2 cup slivered almonds
1/2 cup dried coconut flakes
1. Reduce the OJ down in a small saucepan over medium high heat until it has thickened, and youâre left with about 1/4 cup of juice. Alternatively, use a few tablespoons of concentrated OJ. Set aside and let it cool.
2. Preheat oven to 375 F. In a large bowl, toss together the oatmeal, millet, salt, and cinnamon.
3. Once the OJ has cooled, add it to the oat mixture along with the maple syrup (maple syrup works really well for super cluster-y granola, but feel free to use honey or any other liquid sweetener).
4. Mix well. Spread the mixture out  in a solid rectangle, about 1/4 inch thick, on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat (really compact it together).
5. Bake for 10 minutes, or until the edges start to brown (mine took about 15 minutes). DO NOT STIR WHILE ITâS HOT. Remove from the oven, and let it cool for at least 30 mins before breaking it up.
6. After the granola has cooled, break it up into chunks. Add it to a bowl with any other fixings you like. I used the dried fruit, almonds, and dried coconut, but you could certainly enjoy the granola plain.
I like fancy cakes and tarts just fine, but sometimes I want a snack thatâs a little simpler - fruit & whole grain. It certainly sets the mood when Iâm trekking terrain that reminds me of The Shire.Â
Watup, friends. I havenât posted in a loooong time, huh? To explain, I have a limited amount of freetime cuz, Iâll admit it, Iâm a workaholic. I love cooking video game-esque foods in my spare time, really I do! BUT, I love doing other things too, like going out doors! Or drawing! Or taking pictures of things that remind me of video games! Video games have shaped the way I see the world, which is why this blog is taking a different path...
Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to convert this blog into something more than a video game food blog. I envision a dumpsite of sorts for all of things I like to do (inspired by video games, of course)...Iâll still be posting recipes, maybe not just replicas of foods seen in video games, but also foods inspired by them.
I understand if you came here just for the food, so no offense taken if you wish to unfollow. I didnât want to have to repost all of my recipes, hence just changing my tumblr name (soon).
A light, fluffy egg dish flavored with only the finest fragrant cheeses.
Brought to you by my iphone
Itâs been a long couple of weeks, friends. I started working overtime, and I spent my weekends soaking up some early spring.
Every time I go hiking, I feel like Iâm in an MMORPG. So here, have some more MMORPG food!
I took the cheese souffle from FFXIV as a version of Japanese souffle cheesecake. Itâs crustless and much lighter than NY style cheesecake. Nonetheless, itâs very tasty.
Sidenote, this is the first time Iâve ever seen fresh currants in a grocery store!Â
Ingredients
(adapted from Just One Cookbook/Cookpad)
Base
60 g butter (room temperature)
400 g cream cheese (room temp)
60 g sugar
6 egg yolks (room temp)
3/4 c heavy cream (room temp)
juice from a lemon
1 tsp vanilla extract
80 g flour
Powdered sugar to dust springform pan
Meringue
6 egg whites (cold)
100 g sugar
Glaze
2 tbl apricot jam
~2 tsp water
Equipment
9-inch springform pan
large roasting pan or baking dish
parchment paper round for bottom of springform pan + strip of parchment ~4 inches high to go around inside of springform pan
pastry brush for spreading glaze
Directions
Prep your pan! Butter the pan all over the bottom and sides. Line the bottom with a round of parchment paper cut to fit. Line the inside with a strip of parchment paper. Butter the parchment paper with some softened butter + pastry brush and coat with powdered sugar. Knock away the excess sugar.Â
Put some heavy duty foil around the base of the pan. It will go into a water bath, so you donât want water seeping into the bottom of the pan. You want the foil to come up at least half way.
Prepare the base. Cream the butter, cream cheese, and 60 g sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in egg yolks and heavy cream. Add the lemon juice and vanilla and beat until incorporated and smooth. Scrape down the sides and beat some more. Add the flour (you can sift if if you want an ultra smooth base) and beat until incorporated.Â
Put the base in another bowl and set aside. If youâre using a stand mixer, clean the bowl and make sure no trace of fat remains.Â
Make the meringue. Beat the egg whites until foamy. Slowly add the 100 g sugar until all of it is incorporated. Beat on high for ~10 mins, but check for stiff peaks periodically. You donât want to overbeat the meringue.Â
Preheat your oven to 325F (racks in the middle and bottom) and get some water boiling.Â
Put ~1/3 of your meringue into the base mixture. Mix it up until itâs incorporated. Donât worry about deflating the meringue yet.
Pour the base into the meringue. FOLD the mixture until everything is incorporated to avoid deflating the meringue.Â
Pour mixture into the springform pan and tap onto the counter a couple of times to remove big air pockets.
Place the pan into the roasting dish or baking pan and pour ~1 inch of boiling water in the pan.
Place the pan into the oven on the middle rack. Bake for about 20ish minutes until the top is lightly golden brown. If the top starts to crack a bit, donât worry. If the cracks arenât too bad, theyâll shrink when the souffle cools.
After 20 mins, turn the oven down to 300F and bake for another 30 mins until a toothpick comes out clean.
Turn the oven off and prop the oven door open. Leave the souffle in the oven for 15 minutes before removing from water bath and cooling completely on a wire rack.
While the souffle is cooling, heat the apricot jam with a little water in the microwave. Stir and brush onto the top of the souffle. Let cool completely before removing from sides of springform pan/taking off the parchment.
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A round pastry filled with sweet faerie apples and fragrant spices.Â
I apologize for the lack of variety...FFXIV recipes are pretty easy to do with stuff I have on hand. And I canât say no to a fruit tart. I know the in-game recipe doesnât call for almonds, but frangipane is so good. You could even use the same pastry cream that I used in the snurbleberry tart. Or you could fill it with apple sauce...Itâs your call. The almonds go really well with the apples and butter. I downplayed the cinnamon because I didnât want it tasting like an apple pie.
I mostly used the pear + almond tart recipe from Pastry Affair as a template, with the addition of unsweetened apple sauce and apples, of course.
Ingredients
(adapted from Pastry Affair)
Tart shell
150g all purpose flour
66g sugar
113g cubed, cold butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
Filling
50g softened butter
100g sugar
160g almond meal
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
~12 oz unsweetened apple sauce
2 medium apples, peeled, cored, and sliced thinly (I used aurora apples)
In a food processor, or with your hands, combine the flour, salt, sugar and cold butter until you get a coarse mixture with a sand-like texture.Â
Add the egg and the vanilla. Pulse or mix a few times until combined.
Pour contents onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Bring up the ends of the plastic wrap to form a ball of dough. Press the ball down into a disk. Chill dough for ~1 hr.
Roll dough out into a circle large enough to press into a tart pan. Remove excess.Â
Bake dough at 350F for about 25 mins until golden. You might need to use pie weights to keep the sides from melting down.
Filling
While the tart shell is baking, make the frangipane.
Combine the butter and sugar and mix until light and fluffy.
Add in the vanilla and almond extract and the eggs. Beat until combined.
Add the almond meal. Beat until combined.Â
Pour into baked tart shell.
Pour the apple sauce on top of the frangipane and smooth out.
Arrange the apples around the tart. Sprinkle the top of the apples with cinnamon sugar.
Cut the 1 tbl butter into pieces and scatter over the top of the tart.
Bake at 350F for about an hour until filling is done and apples are browned slightly.
Let tart cool.
Warm the apricot jelly in a microwave or stovetop with a little water to thin it out. Brush onto top of cooled tart and let it set for a few minutes.
Walnut Bread & Fermented Butter - Final Fantasy XIV
A soft white bread filled with fragrant walnuts.
Slightly pungent butter allowed to ferment for several days after churning.
I donât have a lot to say about this recipe, just to say nothing makes you feel more accomplished than making your own bread AND butter. Itâs a lot of work and patience, but the pay off is pretty damn sweet (bread, butter, and buttermilk for future pancakes, maybe?!).
Iâm not a huge fan of chunks of stuff in my bread, so I used ground, toasted walnuts to make this soft, sweet, heavenly-smelling bread. Texture probably isnât so much a huge deal, but definitely toast your walnuts if you want the most flavor.
This is just a modified Hokkaido milk roll recipe. The tangzhong starter pretty much guarantees you a soft, airy texture. Plus, itâs a fun technique to add to your skill book.
Ingredients
Walnut bread
(Adapted from King Arthur Flour)
Starter
14g bread flour
43g water
43g milk
Bread
348g bread flour
50g sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tbl instant yeast (if you use instant, you donât need to proof it)
113g scalded (& slightly cooled milk)
2 eggs
57g melted butter
156g finely ground, toasted walnuts
egg wash: 1 egg yolk + 1 tbl milk or heavy cream
Fermented butter
4 cups heavy cream
1/3 c whole milk plain yogurt
salt
Directions
Walnut bread
*This recipe makes 1 big loaf or 2 little loaves.
To make the starter, place the 14g flour, 43g water, and 43g milk in a saucepan and heat while whisking until thick. Remove from heat and cool.
Mix together the dry ingredients. Add the tangzhong starter, eggs, melted butter, and milk. Using a dough hook and stand mixer, mix for ~10 ish minutes. The dough will still be pretty sticky.Â
Smooth the dough into a ball and place in a buttered glass/metal bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise in a warm spot for ~1-2 hrs until doubled in bulk.
After the initial rise, gently smoosh the dough down into a rectangle (it shouldnât be so sticky anymore) and fold into thirds, letter style. Place in a buttered loaf pan, seam side down. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for another hour or so.
Preheat oven to 375F.
Just before baking, brush the egg wash on the top of the loaf.
(I had my oven racks placed in the top and bottom third of my oven). Bake the bread on the lower third rack of the oven for ~30 mins until the top is dark golden brown and a thermometer reads 190F in the center of the loaf.
Let the loaf cool in the pan for ~20 mins and remove. Let cool on a rack.Â
To slice, turn the loaf upside down and cut from the bottom to the top to avoid smooshing the loaf.
Fermented butter
*This recipe takes 12-60 hrs to make butter, so plan accordingly.
In a large jar, place the cream and yogurt. Stir to combine.Â
Cover the jar with a clean dish towel and secure with a rubber band. Place the jar in a warmish spot (70-80F) for at least 12 hrs until the mixture has thickened like sour cream or yogurt. This can take up to 60 hrs (Mine took ~40 hrs). It wonât smell bad or anything, at least it shouldnât.
Once the mixture is thickened, place in the fridge until it reaches 60F.
Place a large bowl or pitcher of ice water in your fridge. Youâre gonna need it.
Put the mixture in a bowl and mix (with a stand mixer...otherwise it gets messy with buttermilk sloshing around) on high for ~10 mins. (I covered my stand mixer with plastic wrap to ward off the splashing buttermilk.)
After about 10 mins, you should see the clumps of butter hanging out in the buttermilk/covering the whisk. Strain the mixture into a mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth over a bowl to catch the butter milk. Save the buttermilk for something!
Squeeze as much buttermilk as you can out of the butter. Once youâve done that, place the butter into a clean bowl and pour some ice water over it. The water will become cloudy due to the residual buttermilk. You want to get rid of all the buttermilk or else the butter will go rancid.
Knead the butter in the ice water and discard the water when it becomes cloudy. Repeat until the water is clear.
Once the water is clear, knead some salt into your butter.
Place the butter on a piece of parchment paper and roll to make a log of butter.Â
Crispy potato dumplings made with InstaMash; + blood sausage, broc sprouts, and a healthy dose of the desertâs finest irrradiated whisky.
Okay, I took some creative liberties with this one.
Iâve had Fallout 4 since it was released, but I havenât had time to really play it. It doesnât help that my computer freaks out every time I try to play. You know what my favorite Fallout game was? Fallout: New Vegas (Ok, maybe it was Fallout 3, but Iâm biased since I lived in Northern VA). I even had an RP blog for one of the characters.Â
Iâve been wanting to create a dish that my Courier could make out in the Mojave, but you know, Iâm not big on Cram. Or centuries-old salisbury steak.
But InstaMashâŚThe truth is, you can make some bomb-ass gnocchi with instant mashed potatoes. Thatâs probably not a secret. Instead of blood sausages (found in-game), I opted for spicy chicken sausages and âbroc sproutsâ aka Brussels sprouts (I imagine theyâre both from family Brassicacea, creative liberties, right????). The real secret: use rye whisky (thanks, Cass!) to get awesome flavor and get yourself some Rad-X.
Ingredients
InstaMash Gnocchi
(adapted from King Arthur Flour)
1 1/3 cups instant mashed potato flakes
1 ½ cups hot water
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
241 g (~2 cups) flour + more for rollingÂ
The Other Stuff
1 lb chicken sausage (or whatever sausage, choose your own adventure)
Vegetables (I picked Brussels sprouts, and they were the shit)
Spices (I used garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper)
Liquids (I used a splash of chicken stock and a splash of apple cider vinegar)
2 shots of rye whisky, or more, or none!
Directions
InstaMash Gnocchi
Make the mashed potatoes. Let it cool! If it seems too dry, resist the urge to add more water.
Mix together your flour, salt, and cooled potatoes. Add the eggs and stir. I found it easier to mix with a rubber spatula and fold the dough on itself.
Knead the dough a few times and shape it into a disk. Cut into 8 wedges.
Roll each wedge into a long snake.
Use scissors to snip off 0.75 inch pieces of each snake of dough.
Roll each piece in some flour. The next part is kind of tricky. Use the back of a fork to put the ridges in the gnocchi. Hold the fork backwards with the tines facing downwards. Roll each piece down the tines. You want to kind of drag the piece of dough down the tines so that one end kind of curls off while youâre still dragging the dough downwards. You ultimately want one side to have impressions from the tines and the other side to be kind of a hollow cup. It might take some practice, but you can totally skip this step if you want.
Once all of your gnocchi is ready, drop them (in batches) into a pot of boiling, salted water. Since I pan fried them later, I stopped boiling them as soon as they floated to the top. Let the gnocchi dry before pan frying.
The Other Stuff
In a skillet, fry your sausages until theyâre done (165F internal temp for chicken sausages btw)
I roasted my Brussels sprouts separately (bc idk what I was thinking) in the over at 425F, tossed in olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder for ~20 Â mins, but you can pan roast them too with your sausages.
Move your sausages out of the way, add a little oil or butter, and fry up the gnocchi until theyâre golden brown. Add a little chicken stock or something to get all of the stuff off the bottom of the pan and add your other spices.Â
Add your sausages and Brussels sprouts and the whisky. Cook for another few minutes until the liquid is absorbed.
âThe Other Stuffâ is pretty vague, because honestly, it depends on your inventory. Gnocchi will go with everything. Seriously. And just like in the Mojave wasteland, you better eat whatever youâve got to stay alive. If you wanna use Cram, go for it. If youâre like me and hoard every jalapeno pepper in the desert, roast that shit up and throw it in there.
You want cheese??? Blamco has nothing on InstaMash gnocchi mac and cheese.
Idk, you canât go wrong. Make the gnocchi already.
A colorful tart made with blood red snurbleberries.
I got some kick ass strawberries from the farmerâs market this weekend. It kind of makes me glad that I live in California, but I still miss Virginia, sometimes. Mostly because late spring/summer in Virginia = strawberries, and the rainy season in California is getting kind of depressing.
I digress.
I chose to forego the gelatin in this recipe, hoping the jam would retain its consistency, but it ended up a bit runny when I cut a slice. I would recommend freezing or chilling the tart for a few hours before cutting.
Ingredients
Tart shell
(from NYTimes)
145 g flour
1 stick of unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/2 tsp salt
3-4 tbl ice water
Pastry cream filling
(from Mastering the Art of French Cooking)
*This recipe makes enough custard for two tarts. Save the rest by freezing, or cut recipe in half.
2 cups milk
212 g (~1 cup) sugarÂ
5 egg yolks
72g (~1/2 cup) flour
1 tbl butter
1.5 tbl vanilla extract
Strawberry topping/glaze
1 13 oz jar strawberry preserves (I used Bonne Maman)
juice from a lemon
~2 pints of strawberries, cut in half
Directions
Tart shell
In a food processor, add your cold, cubed butter, flour, and salt. Pulse until the texture looks like sand.
Add 3 tbl ice water and pulse a few times. If it comes together, stop. If you squeeze it in your hand, and it still feels dry, add another tbl of ice water.
Dump the mixture out on a piece of plastic wrap.
Bring the ends of the plastic wrap together to form the mixture into a disk of dough. You want it to be ~1 inch thick. Place in the fridge or freezer to chill for a few hours.
When youâre ready to roll the pastry, it needs to be soft enough to roll without cracking. That means you want to leave it out on the counter for ~15 mins if you took it out of the fridge, or let it thaw for a few hours if you took it out of the freezer.
Once itâs at a workable temperature, roll the pastry on a lightly floured surface until itâs ~13 inches in diameter. If it wants to shrink back every time you roll it out, cover it and let the pastry rest for a few minutes.
Gently place the pastry in a tart pan, and even out the bottom and work your way up to the sides of the tart pan. Roll and excess over onto the inside of the tart pan, to thicken the sides. Pierce the bottom a few times with a fork.
Freeze for ~30 mins. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F.
Take tart pan out of the freezer and place directly in the oven. Bake for ~25 mins, until golden brown. The bottom may puff up a bit, but take the back of a measuring cup and flatten it down.
Let the tart shell cool completely before use.
Pastry cream
Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until itâs a light yellow color and it falls in ribbons if you lift the whisk up.
While youâre whisking, you want to heat up the milk. Donât let it burn, you want it heated just until it starts to boil.
When the egg yolks and sugar are ready, whisk in the flour.Â
Slowly pour some of the milk into the mixture, in a stream while whisking.
As the mixture heats up from the milk, you can add slightly more milk at a time, until all of the milk is added.
Pour the mixture into a large saucepan over medium-high heat and whisk the shit out of it. You donât want it to start sticking to the bottom.
The mixture will thicken as it approaches a boil; cook it for 2-3 minutes once it starts boiling and remove it from the heat while continuously whisking.
Add the butter and the vanilla. Whisk to combine.
If you want a really smooth pastry cream, strain it through a mesh sieve to catch any bits of cooked egg.Â
Chill the pastry cream overnight or until completely chilled with a piece of plastic wrap touching the surface of the cream.
Strawberry topping/glaze
In a small saucepan, add the strawberry preserves and lemon juice. Heat until it starts boiling vigorously. Reserve ~3/4 of it and let it cool until itâs not super hot, but still has a bit of fluidity to it.
The glaze will get heated up again during assembly, so you can set it aside.
Assembly
Pour about half of the pastry cream into the tart shell and smooth it out.
Pour on the cooled, reserved strawberry preserves. I chilled mine for about an hour at this point.
Once your tarts is chilled, arrange your strawberries on top.
Heat the remaining strawberry preserves until it bubbles. Let it cool for a minute, then use a pastry brush to brush onto the fruit.
Chill the tart for a few hours before cutting.
For the duskborne aethersand component, I wanted to add some cardamom to the pastry cream, but my husband didnât want to go to Safeway at 11 pm. :| Iâll probably take another crack at this some other time since I wasnât really happy with the red jelly-like layer. Stay tuned.
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Seaweed salad with sesame-crusted shrimp with ginger-lime glaze. Cocktails for attendees of Carpenterâs show.
This dish is inspired by the fish-inhabited town of Barrelbottom in Alice: Madness Returns. I suppose it includes some elements of the Mysterious East level as well.Â
Alice: Madness Returns is a really pretty game; I loved it despite the repetitive puzzles and clunky controls. The art styles vary depending on each level of the game, but as a whole, itâs a bit creepy, fanciful, chaoticâŚIDK. Itâs a combination of many things, and I hope to incorporate more recipes inspired by the game.
My original plan included pickled candy cane beets, but I couldnât find any. Total bummer.
I also need to work on collecting photo props.
Also, I love colored cellophane for lighting effects.
Ingredients
Salad
1 package seaweed salad mix (I used this brand because there are many types of interesting algae, but you could use wakame)
Whatever you want to dress your salad with. (I like acidic salads, so I used a mixture of rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, a little soy for salt, and honey)
Sesame-crusted shrimp
(Adapted from Martha Stewart)
½ lb-ish shrimp (I had about 27 individual shrimp), shelled and deveined.
ž c sesame seeds
2 tbl flour
1 tbl sugar
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1 eggÂ
1 tbl water
vegetable oil
Ginger-lime glaze
~ 5 tbl sugar
1 tbl soy sauce
4 tbl water
juice of 1 lime
1 tsp ginger syrup, or grated, fresh ginger
1 tbl cornstarch + 1 tbl water
Directions
Salad
Soak the seaweed for 7 mins in cold water.
Dry.
Dress salad just before serving.
Sesame-crusted shrimp
I used skewers because I like the presentation, but this can be done without them. You can also remove the shrimp tails or leave them on. In hindsight, I would take them off if I use skewers next time.
Rinse your shrimp and pat them dry. Skewer them if you want.Â
Make your sesame crust by mixing together the flour, sesame seeds, salt, pepper, and sugar. Place on a plate or a flat dish.
Whisk together the egg+1 tbl water in another flat-ish dish.
Dip your shrimp into the egg/water mixture, then press both sides into the crust mixture. You want a really good amount of sesame seeds on both sides. Repeat for each shrimp/skewer. Set aside.
Heat a skillet with the vegetable oil. Place skewers/shrimp in the skillet, but donât crowd the pan. Cook in batches if you need to. Cook the shrimp until the crust is golden brown (~3 mins per side).
Drain on a paper towel/cooling rack.
Ginger-lime glaze
Put the sugar, water (4 tbl), soy sauce, ginger/ginger syrup, and lime juice in a sauce pan. Heat until it boils.
Mix the cornstarch with 1 tbl water and stream into the glaze.
Stir and boil until the glaze thickens.
Remove from heat and let cool for about 5 mins before brushing onto the shrimp.
Part I of Dark Carnival-themed recipes. A Mustachio-inspired dairy-free ice cream with a crunchy chocolate topping.
I miss Left 4 Dead 2. I played the shit out of that game, especially during my last couple of years of undergrad...you know, back when I could stay up until 4 AM killing zombies. My favorite level is Dark Carnival, where you and your teammates fight your way through a zombie-infested amusement park.Â
One of the mascots of the amusement park is Mustachio, an evil pistachio whose likeness taunts you into playing various amusement park games during the level, which inevitably attract the horde.
Good times.
This is the first amusement park food-inspired recipe I plan on posting as a homage to Dark Carnival. Iâm actually pretty sure Iâm lactose intolerant, but totally stubborn about it. One of the things I absolutely canât have is rich, delicious ice cream. Itâs pretty upsetting. Luckily, dairy-free ice creams can be equally creamy and delicious!
Notes
I use an ice cream maker for this recipe. Itâs kind of necessary IMO to get that creamy, churned goodness.
Iâve been trying to work on my photography and rely less on Photoshop lately. The green color comes from green cellophane hung in front of my light source. The fading light worked in my favor, giving me a creepy, weird effect that feels so L4D2.
I used raw pistachios for the ice cream base and added chopped, roasted pistachios during the end of the churning process. You could use all roasted or all raw, but I think the roasted pistachios give the ice cream a nice flavor.
Ingredients
âMagic Shellâ chocolate topping/chocolate in the ice cream
1 cup chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)
2 tbl coconut oil
Dairy-free pistachio ice cream with chocolate chunks
2 cans coconut milk (full fat, you need the fat for creaminess)
1/2 lb raw, unsalted pistachios (I reserved ~3/4 cup to top the ice cream/leave some chunks of pistachio in the ice cream)
160g (3/4 cup) sugarÂ
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp almond extract
Optional: 1 tsp matcha powder (I wanted to amp the green color, but leave it out if donât want it)
~1/2 of the magic shell topping
Directions
âMagic Shellâ topping/chocolate chunks
Put the chocolate chips and the coconut oil into a heat-safe dish and microwave for 30 seconds.Â
Stir everything up and microwave for 15-20 second intervals until the mixture is smooth and everything is melted.Â
Let the chocolate cool to room temp before adding it to your ice cream.Â
Ice cream
I soaked the pistachios (excluding the 3/4 cup I reserved) for about an hour to get rid of the papery skin on the outside, but you really donât have to.
In a blender, add the 2 cans of coconut milk, the soaked pistachios, and the matcha (if you want it). Blend until as smooth as possible.
Strain the mixture into a pot/saucepan through a mesh sieve. You want to get rid of the pistachio bits, if you can. It makes for a smoother texture, but if you canât thatâs ok.
Add the sugar to the mixture and boil it for a couple of minutes while stirring. Pour into a heat-proof bowl and add the almond extract and salt. You want to chill this completely.
Meanwhile, if your pistachios were raw, toast the reserved portion and chop coarsely. Set aside.
Once the ice cream base is completely chilled, add it to your ice cream maker. Churn until itâs fairly solid (~20 mins) and stream in ~1/2 of your âMagic Shellâ and add your chopped pistachios. Churn for another few minutes, until everythingâs incorporated.
Spoon into a loaf pan, or container with a lid and freeze if you want a harder ice cream, or top with some Magic Shell and eat if you like a soft-serve texture.