Runn Tum Tuber Suprise

It should come as no surprise that I use some recipes from The Gamer's Fridge. They are really really great recipes. On there is a recipe for Runn Tum Tuber Surprise, I made it that way, but I wanted to enhance that recipe further.

Pulled from the dirt!

4 medium baking potatoes
1 c of colby jack and mozzarella blended cheese, divided
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tbsp hot sauce
1/2 tbsp garlic powder
olive oil
2 tbsp butter
1/2 c milk
1/4 sour cream

Preheat oven to 325ºF

In a small bowl, mix the salt, pepper and olive oil and brush that on to the unpeeled potatoes. Poke small holes in skin. Place on middle rack for about an hour.

Remove potatoes, let cool about 15 minutes before handling and use ovenmit to handle. Taking a sharp knife, cut a portion of the top off. Spoon the flesh into a bowl. Leaving 1/4 inch for stability.

Add butter, milk, sour cream, garlic powder and mix thoroughly. Mashing as you go. Add salt and pepper to taste as well as hot sauce. At this point you also want to add the hot sauce, you can add more if you like a kick or less if you don't. Mix until potato is orange.

Take half of the cheese and spoon about a tablespoon into each shell. Then add the mashed part back into the shell. Top with the rest of the cheese. Place back into oven for 15 minutes or until slightly golden brown on top.

Remove from oven and carefully serve.

Stormchops

Did you know that it's impossible to find a butcher that carries Clefthoof meat? Apparently I'm not the only one with this issue. Niki Casselberry over at The Gamer's Fridge seems to have the same issue in finding this meat. Which is where the stormchops recipe comes from. My recipe is adapted from hers, and trust me, they are both just as a tasty.


Ingredients!

4 large boneless pork chops (perfect substitute for Clefthoof meat.)

4 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder 

2 tbsp hickory liquid smoke

4 tbsp  honey

In a small dish, mix all the ingredients together until well combined. Place the chops in an oven save dish and pour the mixture over them. Marinate in the fridge, covered, for 30 minutes.


While they soak up all the yummy goodness, take this time to reflect... no seriously though, turn your oven to 400º F and then go play WoW until it dings that it's done. Which should be around the same time you need to remove the chops from the fridge.


Remove the cover and put these in the oven for 20 minutes (45 if you have bone-in chops.) Use a meat thermometer to check the internal temp, you are looking for it to be 145º. If there is still pink though, keep it in the oven a little longer. 


Once finished, take from oven; careful it's only slightly less hot then the fire elementals on Hyjal. Leavei t rest in the pan for 3 to 5 minutes. Serve with your favorite sides or perhaps some Crystal Song Carrots and a Runn Tum Tuber Surprise.

Stormchop, Runn Tum Tuber surprise and Asapragus

Draenei Beef Stroganoff

Vhat do you vant? Oh new recipe, da?

Is for Draenei specialty. Is very fillink and deliciously flavorful too. I zhink you vill enjoy it as much as ve enjoy makink it.

Vhat you vill need for zhis recipe:

1 1/2 lbs cubed round steak
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
1 medium onion, sliced
8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
1 can beef broth
1 can cream of mushroom soup
Salt
Black pepper
Garlic powder
1 c. sour cream
Cooked egg noodle

Season ze meat vith zhe salt, pepper and garlic. In a large skillet, quickly brown zhem on all sides in zhe olive oil and butter. Remove zhe steak from zhe pan.

Add zhe onion slices and mushrooms to zhe pan drippings. Saute for a few minutes, until the onion is tender.

Put zhe steak back into zhe pan with zhe onion and mushrooms. Add mushroom soup and beef broth.

Cook over low heat for about 30 minutes, covered.

Adjust seasonink to taste, adding salt and pepper, as needed. Stir in zhe sour cream zhe last few minutes, right before you serve. Serve over cooked egg noodles.

Zhis is a very yummy meal and makes enough for four servinks. Make sure you be keepink a look out for ozzer recipes from ze Draenei.

Vindameriel Baque'mitore Wolf-Heart

With a mouth full of name like that, it can only be assumed that she is an elf. Which she is. Vindy, as she prefers to go by, is a Sin'dorei (Sin-door-ay) or more commonly known as a blood elf.

When I first made Vindy, I had no idea what I was planning to do with her. What I did know is that she was a mage, she was my first real attempt at a role play character in World of Warcraft. Vindy's story was fairly simple and used in such a away to cover my back-side so I wouldn't immediately be called out as a new player.

The game had been out for nearly seven year when I created her. During which time I went with the back story of what happened when the scourge came to Silvermoon and ravaged the grounds. Vindy's parents were killed in the battle to defend their homeland. Having saw them die, Vindy retreated to her family's small house north of the major city. Locking herself away until she needed to come out, Vindy gave up all of her magic. Returning her eyes to a crystalline blue color.

As the years passed, she ventured out when she needed to, but never for too long. Finally, for what was apparently no good reason, she returned to Silvermoon City. It was there she found her first companion, and her eventual mate, Branam.

Branam sensing that the small elf was in over her head, he quickly took to protecting the girl from the dangers of the vastly different city. Their relationship grew, it would be several months and several different lovers before Vindy would finally confess her attraction to Branam. It was several weeks after that that Branam finally admitted that he had feelings for Vindy.

Vindy

Recovery!

I'm doing a lot better but still not 100% better just yet.

I am planning out menus and cosplay ideas as well doing more than a healthy amount gaming on my newest toon.

A worgen!

I enjoyed playing through the opening story, I enjoyed creating a background for the character. Over the next couple of days I think I will gradually introduce my characters and explain how their story is. Also tell details of any cosplay that may or may not have planned.

Please bear with me as I try to recover as gracefully from this illness that seems to be plaguing me like Sylvanas did to Gilneas.

Love Is In The Air Special: Chocolate Covered Strawberries

I love chocolate. I love strawberries. And today is a special day to show your significant other just how much you love them with these delightful little treats.

One thing I will be covering in this is tempering chocolate. Sure you can do it in a microwave, but my microwave has a little pixie in it at the moment and it starts to spark when I turn it on, making it a microrave. Cute...but deadly

Here's a picture I drew of such thing.

To make a double boiler if you do not have one already (which I don't) you need several things

A large heatproof bowl
A medium size pot

Fill the pot just enough so that water is not touching the bottom of the bowl. Place on high heat and bring to a rolling boil. Turn heat down, place bowl on top of pot. Keep an eye on the water level.

For the berries

1 lb fresh strawberries
6 oz semi sweet chocolate chips (or if in bar form chopped)
3 oz of white chocolate

Did you know that white chocolate is not actually chocolate? It's not, I swear!

Anyway back to the berries!

Remember that pot and bowl you have on the stove, put the semi sweet chocolate in there. Keep a close eye on it. Once it starts to melt, stir and stir and stir until no chunks are left. Make sure that you do not get any water or other liquid in there otherwise it might seize up and give you a lump of goo that is useless!

Once chocolate is melted, you will need remove it off the heat but keep the bowl over the water. Take each berry and dip them in about 3/4 of the way, hold over the bowl letting the excess chocolate drip back in. Place the berry on a wax paper covered cookie sheet.

With a clean bowl, melt your white chocolate. Using a fork, dip into the white chocolate and gently drizzle it over the strawberries. Set them aside for 30 minutes or until the chocolate has set.

Conjured Mana Muffin

I completely under why mages conjure this food and don't take the time to go through by hand to make these. My shoulder is killing me from the amount of mixing that had to be done. The batter is more of a dough at first and you may find it easier in the beginning few steps to mix it by hand.

To make mana muffins, the first thing you need to keep in mind is not to over mix the batter. You end up with a muffin that has a huge bubble like dome.  I did this and some of my muffins look goofy. They still taste good, though. I also cut back on the amount of sugar in this recipe, which I lovingly adapted from here.

Components you will need:

1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. light brown sugar, packed
1/2 c. vegetable oil
2 large eggs at room temp.
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c. all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 c. sour cream
1/2 c raspberries, whole
1/2 c strawberries
Turbinado sugar

Preheat the over to 375ºF. Line muffin tin, or grease only the bottoms. Muffins tend to rise better when they have something to cling to.

Using a mixer (hand or stand,) combine all the wet ingredients until well blended. In another bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.

This is where you may want to use your hands if you don't have a stand mixer. Takes the dry and wet and mix until just combined. It should have a semi-crumbly look. Fold in the sour cream. Make sure that you do not over fold as you will need to add the berries next.

Be gentle with the berries, they are soft and you do not want your mix to be exploded with bursts of pink and red from berries that have have turned to mush.

An ice cream scoop will be useful to spoon in enough mix into each muffin cup. Sprinkle a little bit of the sugar in the raw on the tops for a nice crispy sweet top. Fill about 3/4 of the way and put in over for 20-25 minutes. Check the centers with a toothpick. When you remove them, carefully pull them from the muffin pan and cool on a rack. Wait 10 to 15 minutes before eating.

Enjoy with a nice large glass of Ice Cold Milk.