The Semi-Reformed Nomad

You can't take the pie from meeeeee.... I am a big fan of many of the franchise affiliated cookbooks, and I have been particularly appreciate of Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, who writes a lot of them, including this one.  I was first introduced to her with a Feast of Ice and Fire; she also did Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, the original World of Warcraft, and the Shire cookbook, which are all enjoyable.  Among those of her popular works I don't have are the Elder Scrolls cookbook, the updated World of Warcraft cookbook, and the now official "Game of Thrones" cookbook.  She also runs a blog that updates with recipe and addresses any errata in first editions at the Inn at the Crossroads. But I digress.  You browncoats are here for the grub. The book is organized as Kaylee building a cookbook using both ideas from Serenity's crew, along with sample recipes from Blue Sun's expansive catalogue of foodstuffs and sundries, since no settler can head off to the outer planets w...

 Most weeks I'm trying to cook some stand out recipes from a cookbook.  I have so many that cooking all recipes in an entire one, particularly when my audience is limited (no spicy food for one; no fish for one, etc) seems unrealistic. So we mark the end of the first half of samples from Around the World in 450 Recipes .  It's pretty expensive new, but you can get it with the resellers on amazon.  My own copy was an impulse grab at Half Price Books. The Africa-inspired cod with prawn sauce was AMAZING, and not all that complicated. The book does leave a bit of vagueness in some of the recipes and it appears geared towards a British audience so you may have to google some ingredients to find their common American equivalent.  Other than that... the fish and prawns implied throwing the garlic and onions in simultaneously, which is a common but pretty fatal culinary misdeed.  So I threw the onions in about half an hour before the rest and what resulted was an ...

 So I'm thinking of having a few categories I'm experimenting with.  One I'm excited about is new recipes I tested out from my extensive cookbook collection and blog readings. Let's try a first post: This week I'm cooking from "Around the World in 450 Recipes".  Monday night, I chose the "Africa" section for Jollof chicken and rice, a hotly contested dish originating from West Africa. The recipe is a little light on spice varieties but I went with it mostly as written, only substituting Red Boat fish sauce for dried shrimp because I could not find dried shrimp for love or money.  It gives the dish a nice umami burst.  The chicken was a nice cut up bird from Wegman's, since I was too lazy to do the cut work myself. Results were quite nice, I thought, though possibly a little less than authentic.  I did pare the green pepper down to a quarter of one due to a less than brave palate in my dining companion and the remaining ingredients did well.  ...