braised riverbeast [red wine braised lamb shanks]

There’s nothing better than coming to your garrison from a long raid and enjoying a hearty home cooked meal. Even before I started playing WoW, I was always fascinated by the robust recipe options offered throughout the game. Choosing to level up the cooking profession was definitely a no-brainer for me  because of my interest of mercilessly killing virtual wildlife and throwing their meat over a roaring flame. MEAT GOOD.

LOOK AT ALL THIS POTENTIAL MEAT!

 I guess that it’s fitting that I rolled as a hunter in this game.

Appropriate title: the Butcher

Since my local butcher doesn’t offer River Beast, I had to choose a substitute. I decided to go with lamb as my meat of choice. I personally love lamb and its slight gamy flavor. If you’re not a fan of lamb, feel free to use beef. You may have to adjust the cook time and quantity of liquid since typically larger than lamb shanks.

There’s something special about red wine and red meat. That enchanting aroma that gently wafts through your home as the meat slowly cooks in a bath comprised of its own fatty juices and wine is just magical... Excuse me while I get a bucket for all of this drool.

UNIT COMPOSITION

1. salt
2. pepper
3. 6 cloves of garlic
4. 1/2 tablespoon of butter
5. 1 cup of red wine
6. 1/2 cup of beef stock
7. 2 lbs of lamb shank, french trimmed (~4 lamb shanks)
8. 2 carrots, sliced
9. 3 parsnips, sliced
10. OPTIONAL: parsley

BUILD ORDER

Prep time for this is about 25 minutes, or up to 45 minutes if you plan to french trim your lamb shanks. Cook time is ~1 hour, 45 minutes. This makes 4 servings.

Just to note, french trimming is completely optional! It’s really only for presentation purposes.

If you’re going to french trim your lamb shanks on your own, you’re going to want a very sharp paring knife. Here’s a tutorial I used.

Basically, you’ll want to make an incision around bone at the very end of the shank. Then, cut into the meat, and remove about 1″ of it. Scrape off any excess fat/tendon away from the bone until it’s fairly clean. When cooking, the meat will slide down from the bone.

OPENING

1. Season your lamb with salt and pepper.
2. Put a pan on high heat and add in your butter.
3. Sear the lamb for about 30 seconds each side, or until brown.
4. Place lamb in a large baking dish. Pour in your red wine and stock. You should have enough liquid to cover 3/4 of the lamb shanks.

MID GAME

1. Preheat your oven to 350° F.
2. Place your garlic in the baking dish.
3. Place the entire baking dish in the oven and bake for 1 hour.

LATE GAME

1. After an hour, flip over the lamb shanks.
2. Add in your chopped vegetables and continue baking for the remaining 45 minutes.
3. Remove from the oven and plate the lamb shanks and vegetables.
4. Pour the remaining liquid into a pan and reduce on high heat for about 5 minutes.
5. Drizzle the reduced red wine sauce over the lamb. Sprinkle chopped parsley over the plate.
6. Eat!

I took some photos of the lamb shank without the vegetables since I wanted to replicate what it looks like in-game:

Image from WoWhead

 But, to have a balance meal, you need to throw in some vegetables!

GG WP!

Hopefully this dish has satisfied your Draenor cuisine cravings for now. Until next time, happy hunting!

murloco’s tacos [baja-style fish tacos]

Hi! My name is Homebrewed, some of you may know me from Twitter. I am a huge fan of Warcraft and more recently Hearthstone. My favorite amphibious humanoid is the Murloc, I am even quite fluent in Nerglish. So, my recipe I want to share with you today is Murlocos, Baja-style Mur…fish tacos.

Murloc spotting in Overwatch gameplay trailer #Overwatch #Murloc pic.twitter.com/LR0hOHL9b0

— Homebrewed (@HomebrewedDwarf) November 23, 2014

The weeks after I came back from BlizzCon I received some news from the doctor, in other words, I need to start eating healthier. So in this venture, I have been cooking at home a lot more and finding different ways to make some of my favorite food to fuel up into between work and gaming. I was inspired by a dish I had one time at The Reservoir – Restaurant and Tap Room – Waterbury.

There are some things you can do ahead of ahead to cut on the actual time from cooking to eating when you go to fry your fish and assemble your tacos. I recommend making the pickled jalapeños and the cilantro onion salsa the day before as it keeps for at about a week. Also, I do want to recommend, that when you slice the jalapeños you buy some cheap plastic gloves, powder free, to protect your hands.

Total prep time for this dish is about 1 hour. Cook time is 40 minutes. This recipe will make roughly about 16 tacos. You will end up with leftover condiments! 

OPENING HAND

EARLY GAME

Ingredients

1. 3/4 cup water
2. 3/4 cup distilled white vinegar
3. 3 tablespoons white sugar
4. 1 tablespoon kosher salt
5. 1 clove garlic, crushed
6. 1/2 teaspoon oregano
7. 10 large jalapeno peppers, sliced into rings

Directions (Pickled Jalapeño)

1. Combine water, vinegar, sugar, kosher salt, garlic, and oregano in a saucepan over high heat. Bring mixture to a boil, stir in jalapeno peppers and remove from heat. Let mixture cool for 10 minutes.
2. Pack peppers into jars using tongs, cover with vinegar mixture, cover, and refrigerate until needed.

MID RANGE

Ingredients

1. 1 large red onion, thinly sliced
2. 1/4 cup fresh lime juice
3. 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
4. 2 teaspoons olive oil
5. 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
6. 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions (Cilantro Onion Salsa)

Chop everything, juice your lime, and place all the mixture into a mason jar and pop it in the fridge.

Ingredients

1. 3/4 cup cold seltzer water
2. 1/2 large egg, beaten
3. 1/4 cup cold vodka
4. 2.5 ounces unbleached cake flour, by weight
5. 2.5 ounces white rice flour, by weight
6. 1 liter vegetable or sunflower oil
7. 1 pound haddock or cod
8. Red cabbage, sliced
9. 16 corn tortillas
10. Kosher salt

LATE GAME

Directions (Fish & Assemble)

1. Slice up your cabbage and put aside
2. Slice fish into pieces that are about two inchesin depth
3. Heat oil in a cast iron Dutch oven to 375 degrees
4. Combine seltzer, egg, and vodka in a bowl
5. Combine rice flour and cake flour in a separate bowl
6. When your oil reaches temperature, add the wet to the dry ingredients and whisk to combine and surround that bowl with ice on the outside to keep the batter cold
7. Dip your fish into your batter, shaken off excess, and slowly place into the oil about four pieces at a time
8. Cook for about two minutes until golden brown and remove from heat
9. Place cooked fish on a paper towel and season with salt
10. Heat your corn tortillas directly over the burner if you have a gas stovetop turning with tongs to heat them through or in a pan with a very slight mist of water
11. Put everything together and enjoy!

Aaaaaughibbrgubugbugrguburgle!

——————————————————————————————————–

Special guest recipe by Homebrewed. He’s a  writer, a Hearthstone aficionado, and a Murloc whisperer! You can follow his adventures on his Twitter: @HomebrewedDwarf 

 

healthstones [matcha green tea protein balls]

I PVP a lot. The majority of my time spent in WoW is either queuing up for Arenas, skirmishes or battle grounds. I’m even guilty of using the group finder to join large gank squads that roam the lands of Draenor for the sole purpose of farming the bones of the enemy faction.

OH HEY GUYS WHATCHA DOIN??

The Arena team I run with is comprised of a Hunter (that’s me!), a Paladin and a Warlock. Before each match, our Warlock slaps down a Soulwell so we can create Healthstones. Of course, I always saw it as tasty tasty food.

I CAN’T SEE ANYTHING

So, I decided to recreate my own real life Healthstones so I can eat Healthstones while I eat Healthstones. Yo dawg.

I keep a lot of protein powder at home because my boyfriend and I are trying really hard to achieve sick gains. I have been religiously following the YouTube channel, Buff Dudes, for inspiration on healthy cooking and workout routines. Some of their recipes turn not-so-healthy things, such as brownies, into handheld protein-fueled snacks. My goal with Healthstones is to sneakily hide protein and nutrition into bite-sized portable snacks. A quick snack to enjoy before your next arena match!

UNIT COMPOSITION

1. 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder
2. 2 teaspoons of raw agave nectar
3. 1 tablespoon of shredded coconut (optional)
4. 1 tablespoon of unsweetened matcha green tea powder
5. 1/4 cup of raw pistachios, roughly chopped
6. 1/2 cup of peanut butter or almond butter

BUILD ORDER

Prep time for this is about 15 minutes (add 10 minutes of blanching the pistachios) This makes 6 servings (~6 individual Healthstones). Idle time is about 30 minutes. 

OPTIONAL: If you want squeaky clean pistachios without the skins, I recommend blanching them. To blanch them, take your shelled pistachios and toss them into boiling water for about 30 seconds.

Then remove the pistachios from the hot water and place them in a bath of ice water. Once they are cool to the touch, gently rub off the skins from the pistachios. Let them dry on a towel for a few minutes.

1. Combine your protein powder, agave, and peanut butter in a large bowl.
2. Add in your matcha green tea powder.
3. Using a spoon, stir the ingredients together, adding coconut occasionally to thicken the mixture.
   
4. Stir in half of your chopped pistachios. Leave larger pieces for later in order to decorate the stones.
5. Begin shaping them into golf-ball sized mounds. Place large pieces of pistachio on the mounds for decoration.
6. Sprinkle a little protein powder onto a plate (this is to prevent the Healthstones from sticking to the plate while cooling). Place your newly shaped Healthstones on the plate and cover with saran warp. Let cool in the fridge for about 30 minutes.
7. Eat!

GG WP!

Next time you queue up for arena or LFR, make sure you have some tasty Healthstones in your bag to curb your hunger. Thankfully, these Healthstones don’t have a cool down.

 

blood of mannoroth bisque [green vegetable bisque]

So I finally bit the bullet after years and years of saying “no” … I installed World of WarCraft for the first time a few days ago with some encouragement (a.k.a. friendly threats) from the lovely and amazing Kymba.

She has used her special powers of persuasion to not only get me to join WoW, but to also get my boyfriend to reactivate his account. Let me reiterate — this is my first time EVER playing WoW. As a result, I have no idea what I’m doing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I’m not new to MMOS, but I am TEN YEARS of content behind in WoW. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do! By catching up, I mean I have to go collect ALL OF THE MOUNTS I CAN!

This isn’t my first World of Warcraft recipe — I’ve actually made one before with guidance from Sha of Happiness — but this is my first WoW recipe as an official WoW player.

Kymba had suggested that I try tackling the Blood of Mannoroth as my first solo Warcraft recipe. The Blood of Mannoroth is an integral part of the lore of Warcraft, so it seemed fitting to turn it into a recipe!

UNIT COMPOSITION

1. salt
2. pepper
3. 1 teaspoon of olive oil
4. cup of spinach
5. 1  1/2 cups of broccoli, chopped
6. 1 1/2 cups of tofu
7. 2 cups of almond milk
8. 1/2 of an onion, diced
9. 5 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
10. 2 leeks, roughly chopped

You will be blending all of the ingredients together, so you don’t have to cut them perfectly!

BUILD ORDER

Prep time for this recipe will take roughly 45 minutes. Cook time for this will be roughly 1 hour. This recipe makes about 4-6 servings.

OPENING

1. Preheat your oven to 375°.
2. Place your garlic, onion, broccoli, and leeks on a roasting pan. Season your vegetables with salt and pepper.
3. Drizzle the olive oil through the vegetables. Rub the olive oil through the vegetables.
4. Roast for about 45 minutes, stirring the vegetables to prevent burning every 10 minutes.

MID GAME

1. Remove your vegetables from the oven and place them in a pot.
2. Add in half of your almond milk and your spinach.
3. Heat until the spinach has wilted.
4. Take a hand blender, and blend the vegetables until smooth

LATE GAME

1. Add in your tofu and remaining almond milk. Continue to blend until smooth.
2. At this point, if the bisque is still too thick, you may need to add in additional almond milk or water.
3. OPTIONAL: If you want to make a smooth bisque, you will need run the bisque through a sieve to separate the solids from the smooth bisque. Once you have the additional solids, blend them once more and re-add them to the bisque. Continue this step until smooth. This may take an additional 20+ minutes.
4. Bring the bisque back up to medium heat.
5. Eat!

And that’s it, you’re done! GG WP!

Now, drinking this vegan Blood of Mannoroth may not give you blood lust or cause you to become a minion of the Burning Legion, but it is good for your health! Since it’s full of delicious green vegetables, this creamy bisque is both delicious and nutritious. A great start to your New Year! 🙂

Hopefully I’ll catch you in Draenor! If not, maybe we’ll clash swords (or in my case, dinosaurs?) in the Arena. 😀 HAPPY HUNTING!

garden terror seeds [stuffed red cabbage]

If you’ve had a chance to play the Garden of Terror map in Heroes of the Storm, you will completely understand the importance of eating your vegetables. LET ME IMPROVE YOUR WEAK FLESH! 

On the Garden of Terror map, players are encouraged to collect seeds by smacking Garden Shamblers and the Garden Terror.

Once your team collected 100 seeds, you can return to your base and summon your own GARDEN TERROR! When a player controls the Garden Terror, they are free to roam the map and cause havoc. Typically, what I try to do is run straight for the towers and start smacking away.

There’s just something so darn awesome about being a giant plant and rampaging across the map. ROOAAARRRRR.

However, one should not play Heroes on an empty stomach… So I’ve devised this recipe to curb your hunger while channeling your inner Hero of the Storm!

Since the seeds are key to success on this map, it seemed natural to recreate such an important feature in food.

UNIT COMPOSITION

1. salt
2. pepper
3. 1 teaspoon of olive oil
4. 1/2 tablespoon of worcestershire sauce
5. 5-6 cloves of garlic, diced
6. 1/4 lb of crimini mushrooms, diced
7. 2 roma tomatoes, seeds removed and diced
8. 1/3 lb of spinach
9. 1/3 lb of  ground turkey
10. 1 red cabbage

BUILD ORDER

Prep time is roughly 30 minutes. Total cook time is about 45 minutes. This will make 4 servings (about 2 each)

OPENING GAME

1. Set water to boil in a large pot.
2. Carefully peel the leaves from the red cabbage.
3. Place leaves in boiling water for about 6 minutes or until soft (the water will turn dark purple).
4. Remove and let cool.

MID GAME

1. Set a pan on high heat and add olive oil.
2. Add in your diced garlic. Let garlic brown. Then, add in your mushrooms and tomatoes. Saute for about 5 minutes.
3. Remove from heat and let cool for a few minutes.
4. In a bowl, combine your ground turkey, salt, pepper and worcesteshire sauce. Add in your sauted vegetables. Mix until combined.
5. Take a tablespoon of meat and place it in center of one of the cooked cabbage leaves. Then fold the edges of the cabbage leaf to create a pouch. Use a toothpick to hold the top together.

LATE GAME

1. Place the “seeds” on a baking dish and bake for 25 – 30 minutes at 375° F.
2. While the seeds are cooking, lightly boil your spinach. It will take about 2 minutes to cook.
3. Once the spinach has cooked, drain it and arrange it to form leaves on the plate.
4. Remove the seeds from the oven and place them on top of the spinach.
5. Eat!

And BOOM, you’re done! GG WP!

Hopefully you have made enough so you can share with your teammates:

I’ll see you in the Garden of Terror… But let’s hope you’re on my side! GOOD LUCK, HEROES!