'Medieval' Feast - Preparation

Have you ever wondered how those huge banquet feasts were done? Or was it a case of "I'd rather eat this but good lord it is a lot of work to prepare!" and your great untapped reserves of food awesome go ... well, untapped?

No! I say, they shall not remain untapped and I will rise to the cooking station and make a feast! Why? Because I like to cook. And cooking is fun. But, I understand that not everyone has the same delight in cooking, and the idea of preparing a 'feasts' worth of food makes hearts quail and eyes grow large with the anime-esque sweatdrop of nerves down the brow.

I'm rolling up my sleeves, and taking the trauma out of preparation and the cooking process. It is, after all, what this blog is for. To de-mystify recipes, to hopefully, help people make sense of the procedure and how to turn out glorious bits of food from everything and anything in the pantry and fridge. As of writing this,  I have not, yet, actually -made- my feast, so if it doesn't work too well, you'll find out when I do!

Let us begin...

Teriyaki Salmon with Siracha Cream Sauce and 'dirty' Fried Rice.

Oh. My. God. Okay, so I was browsing for salmon recipes or things to do with salmon, and I came across a pinterest recipe of the salmon and siracha cream sauce. It looked stunning (as they always do) and ...mine does not look as stunning but it tastes AMAZING. It is lovely and you really cannot go wrong. I know the ingredients list is a little daunting, but most of it is simply 'put it all in a pot'. Super straight forward.

Baked Lemon Cheesecake

A bit of history for you, and context; I can't bake. If it involves something with flour, I am utterly lost and useless and it just ...doesn't work. Pasta-dough, cakes, scones, pastry ... nada. Even packet-mix cake mixes end up dry and horrible and just ...yeah. I can't bake. I'm a cook, not a baker. This however, worked, and worked well. I know baked cheesecakes are not for everyone, but they're really easy.

Chicken Nuggets and Shredded Salad

Picture this. Your kids are hounding for chicken nuggets. They want chicken nuggets and they want them naaaaaaaaow. And you, being the concerned, health-conscious parent don't want the little darlings to eat the deep fried crap, but crumbing things is like a whole other language and it never stays on the meat you want it to stay on. Oh god. Well! Never fear! Here are some delicious crumbed chicken nuggets that are healthy, and will have your kids raving. (Or at least, had those I subjected them to scoffing them down like woah). Feeds 3-4ish.

Stuffed Potatoes of Woah

This is something you make when you're -really- hungry, and want to chop things up. A lot of things to chop up, to tell the truth, as there is two parts to this recipe. There's a coleslaw, and the ...well... rest of it. But so worth it. So very worth it. Serves 2-4

Lightly Spiced Oriental-style Crab Soup

This weekend just gone has had a Crab Festival. Which means crabs EVERYWHERE at the festival and at $5 a crab I splurged and bought 16 of the things, figuring that oh, there'd be 3 spare at the end of it. Nuh-uh. I have 9 spare. 2 more went off to other people. What am I going to do with 7 crabs? Eat them, naturally, but shellfish has a short shelf-life, once it's thawed (by the time I'd gotten them home, yup they'd thawed) so... what to do with crab other than just ...eat it? I made a Crab Soup. Oriental style.

I was gonna show you a picture, but my camera is flat :(

Mutton/Lamb Sticky Sweet Stuff

This came about because I had a whole pineapple, and six cutlets of mutton (that's older/adult sheep, has a fuller flavour than lamb), and three people to feed. Had to use the pineapple, because it was ripening happily on the sink, and was getting to the point of being nearly over ripe so... I tried making a sauce-y type marinade without actually marinading. The fresh pineapple can probably be replaced by drained, tinned pineapple, NOT in syrup though! That would be waaaay too sweet.