So, almost completely due to my love of cooking in Skyrim, the other day I picked up leeks while grocery shopping. I've never cooked or eaten leeks before, but the placard at the store explained they tasted like a cross between garlic and scallions, which meant that I then had to get them. Om nom nom nom.

As an aside, my awesome Remicaid salad lacked scallions today. Filled with sadness.

Anyway, the only thing I had heard of to make with leeks is leek and potato soup. A less lazy more experimental person than myself would probably have looked up more options, but leek and potato soup sounded pretty good, so I decided to just stick with that. I had no idea how to make it, so I spent about ten minutes googling 'leek and potato soup recipes' online.

Dude, how is 'googling' not recognized by spellcheck on the internet? By that same token, how is 'spellcheck' not recognized, either?

Returning to the topic at hand, every recipe I found in that ten minute span said that at some point, I was going to have to pour everything into a blender or food processor. Being lazy spectacularly uncoordinated not particularly fond of smooth soups lacking chunks of discernible ingredients, I decided to just kind of make up a recipe as I went along.

It resulted in PURE AWESOME.

Ingredients (all measurements are handwavey unless otherwise specified. Especially with things like spices and seasonings, I just add until I think I'm done):

*6 large Russet potatoes, peeled and "cubed"
*2 bunches leeks
*2 bunches scallions
*2 yellow onions
*2.5 lbs bacon
*Frozen corn
*Chicken broth
*Garlic
*Adobo
*Pepper
*Parsley
*Other seasonings
*1 quart light cream
*3 Tbs butter
*3 Tbs flour
*Water

Cooking:

So, first I peeled and "cubed" the potatoes. Cubed is in quotation marks because I just kind of hack them until they're the size I want, which could be anywhere from quartered on down, depending on the size of the potato. I seasoned the potatoes with Adobo, pepper, parsley flakes, and possibly some Italian seasoning and dumped them into a pot. I filled that pot with chicken broth (much more than was needed to cover them, possibly two quarts?) and turned it on to medium-high to cook the potatoes.

Then I cut up the bacon and fried it in a frying pan. I probably wouldn't have used the entire 2.5lb package, but it was frozen and defrosting it in water was going to take too long. I tossed it into the microwave and part of it started to cook a little by the time it was done, so I shrugged and decided to use it all.

BECAUSE THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MORE BACON, OKAY?

I learned a few soups and/or chowders dinners back that you should never just toss raw bacon into the pot and let it cook. It does cook, no worries about that, but it gets boiled, which results in a displeasing texture and a lack of delicious bacon-y flavor. So, protip folks, always fry up your bacon first. I like my bacon pretty soft and chewy, not hard and crunchy, so I undercooked it just slightly, then scooped the bacon out of the pan and tossed it in with the potatoes. It finished cooking there, but maintained its proper texture and flavor. I emptied the bag of frozen corn into the pot as well and let them all cook together.

I reserved the bacon grease and dumped in a LOT of minced garlic, and the washed, peeled, and chopped scallions, onions, and leeks, then added more adobo, pepper, parsley, and whatnot to the pan over them. I sauteed everything until the yellow onions got translucent and everything else got soft, then added that into the pot with the potatoes and bacon. Then I added the quart of cream, more seasonings, stirred it all together, and let it simmer.

While it was simmering, I decided it needed to be thicker and made a roux. ( Making a good rouxCollapse )

Once the roux was finished, I stirred it into the soup itself and let the whole thing cook for about another 5 or so minutes. After that, the soup/chowder was done, ladled into bowls, and served with a nice savory bread. I suggest the rosemary bread recipe included with bread machines, but a thick rye or sourdough will also do.

[Moving over to Dreamwidth. Catch me over there as booksomewench. This entry cross-posted to both sites. Feel free to comment here or there.]

So, ddrpolaris got me Skyrim for Christmas, as those of you following along on Twitter already know. All hatemail/rending of flesh and hair at my complete disappearance from the planet can be directed his way.

Anyway, I got the game on Sunday, but I didn't start playing until late Sunday night--I'd stayed up till almost 5am Christmas Eve so that I could finish Dragon Age: Origins (I'm really bad at finishing video games, it's true) and by the time we woke up and ddrpolaris arrive to open presents, we were already prepping for Christmas dinner and guests, and so playing my shiny new game would have to wait. As of the writing of this post, I think I've had the game for something like...seventy-two hours, total.

I'm not going to admit out loud how many of those seventy-two have been devoted to playing my game, but guessing in the mid- to high sixties might not be amiss. >.>

Most of that time has been spent picking flowers, chasing butterflies, and cooking meals. And, wow, did that previous sentence come out as over-the-top girly. I assure you, though, the first two activities are directly related to my desire to make ALL THE POISONS. I love experimenting with the alchemy stuff; both the discovering what each of the ingredients can do and then combining them to make awesome potions.

I also spend an inordinate amount of time stealing things from people (YOUR CABBAGES WILL NEVER BE SAFE FROM ME!), organizing all of my stolen books, and inventory management, so I don't have to drop a single stolen wheel of cheese or hide gauntlet before I have a chance to sell it.

My love of cooking in game comes from a different drive, though I suppose it's at least slightly related to the same enjoyment I get from stealing (all the ingredients), and experimenting. From the time I started playing and loooong before I knew there was an in-game mechanic for cooking, I was collecting foodstuffs and plotting what I would "make" with it. Yes, I'm that kind of crazy person who collects a bunch of seemingly useless stuff just so that in her head, she can pretend that her character is making stew out in the wilderness. I had a plate, a bowl, a tankard, some bread, and a kettle all before leaving the first area of the game. Because it wouldn't make sense for my character to eat soup without the proper accouterments to prepare it and eat it from.

I'd feel weirder about admitting this, but I know most of you. Crazy's a prereq for friendship with the majority of my f-list.

Anyway, one thing I realized tonight is that I'm rather dissatisfied with the number of food recipes the game offers. There are very few available, compared to the amount of stealable obtainable components, and many of the foods available for purchase in game cannot be made by the PC--stuff like apple pie, baked potatoes, grilled leeks, and stuff like that. On top of that realization came another--I would so buy DLC that was nothing more than addition food recipes (though if they wanted to add more alchemical components, I wouldn't argue.) I'd also love it if Bethesda were taking recipe ideas from players.

And so, being the giant nerd I am, I decided to compile a list of recipes that I came up with, using (for the most part anyway) only foodstuffs already found in game. Feel free to suggest your own!

( Skyrim RecipesCollapse )

Interestingly, there are no pigs in Skyrim, so no bacon. Boo. And there are sheep, but no mutton.

[Moving over to Dreamwidth. Catch me over there as . This entry cross-posted to both sites. Feel free to comment here or there.]

So, yesterday I decided to do ALL THE THINGS, which included making two dinners at once because...well, I don't quite know why. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And it was! Both meals were successful! At least, I'm assuming so--we'll be eating the second meal tonight and if it's OHGODAWFUL, I will update this post to let you know.

And since I like sharing recipes online, I figured I'd share the meals I made last night. They were nummy and, who knows?

( Apple-Cider Vinegar PorkCollapse )

( Fiesta Stuffed PeppersCollapse )

And now I'm hungry again. Is it suppertime yet?

Mostly so my new readers don't decide that I'm just a ranting ball of ragey rantingness. I mean--don't get me wrong. I totally am. I just happen to have other hobbies.

...Really.

So, on Sunday, I took out four chicken breasts to defrost for Monday's dinner (one for me, one for shogunhb, and the others for ddrpolaris and/or leftovers), forgetting that shogunhb has game on Monday night. So then I decided to make chicken corn chowder for dinner for my Tuesday game. I'm firmly of the 'you use defrosted chicken in three days or you throw it away' opinion.

Of course, we ended up using hippy chicken because making doompuppy starve isn't very nice though funny so I still have the four breasts leftover. Why, yes, we are having chicken tonight.

So anyway, I spent some time scrounging the internet for corn chowder recipes. Except 99% of them included the ingredient 'creamed corn' which I'd be hard-pressed to eat during famine. So, I decided that I would look for some recipes for clam chowder and make the rest up as I went along. In the end, I found two I liked, cherry-picked from both of them and made up my own recipe.

It was the best part of the evening. I made an entire stockpot full and it was gone by the time dinner was over. I was the only one who didn't go back for seconds (I was full). Even k1ttycat, who assured me at the beginning of the night that she disliked corn chowder, thought it was delicious.

In her defense, all the corn chowder she'd ever had was made with creamed corn. Seriously, that stuff is vile.

So, as best I can, I will duplicate the recipe here. All measurements are kind of handwavey, except where specifically noted.

shadowravyn's Best Ever Chicken Corn Chowdah
( The -ah is to assure everyone that, yes, it's proper New England chowder, not that nasty Manhattan crap. Or that fake Rhode Island nonsense. Pssht.Collapse )