Fried Eel, Spicy Eel

When I told Alex I was thinking about making the Stardew Recipes but I was planning to skip some things like eel, what she probably said was something along the lines of "Why?" or "No, you can't skip anything," although in my memory it was much more commanding. (Extremely Tywin Lannister voice "Nonsense, you will marry the spicy eel and that will be the end of it.") At any rate, I didn't have much of an argument at the time, although if I knew then what I know now about...spines...I might have put up more of a fight.

I followed this recipe for the Fried Eel and after much deliberation created Spicy Eel by adding sriracha to the Fried Eel

Spicy Eel is one of the most valuable dishes in-game, as it gives you a luck buff and a speed buff, both of which are super useful in the mines. Still, I wasn't sure how "the fictional version of this is really helpful in a game you don't play" was going to go over with the children.

As it turns out, Anna's exact words were a deliriously relieved "Mom! It's just fish nuggets!" And Ivy, as we are learning, will eat absolutely anything that slithers out of the briny depths.

ASSESSMENT: The eel actually does taste good, as most fried things do, and especially good with sriracha and a squeeze of lemon. As for luck and speed, I had a better run this morning than I've had in weeks, although the temperature was also the lowest it's been in weeks (months?), impossible to say what the deciding factor was there. I can still feel eel spines underneath my fingernails.

PROJECT STATUS: Electric 

Chocolate Cake, Tortilla, Fish Taco

For her 10th birthday, Anna requested "a simple chocolate cake" either because she has now transitioned from little kid to small adult OR because her desires have finally begun to fall in line with my blog projects.

She is the blog MVP, I really need everyone else to get on her level

No one requested that I make tortillas out of masa, and yet...here we are. I keep a tortilla press in my cabinet for a reason, and that reason is to remind myself that some things are best left to professionals who can craft tortillas that are more than three and a half inches wide.

So tiny. So bad at holding food.

While I was at it I figured I would knock out Fish Taco as well, mostly because my children were spending that particular Taco Tuesday with their grandparents so I was free of hyper-specific individual requests (egg, cheese, black olives, no crispy edges, etc). I just seared some Ahi tuna with a little bit of cajun seasoning and used the leftover red cabbage slaw from my earlier, more pointless endeavor.

But Erica, you are saying. The reason that slaw was pointless was that it lacked mayonnaise and this fish taco recipe clearly calls for mayonnaise as well and you vowed to us that you would do more work than necessary to achieve accuracy.

Aha! I did not indicate how much more work than necessary.

ASSESSMENT: I've eaten so much cake in the past week that I am no longer able to assess it with any coherence, but I remember a time when this particular chocolate cake seemed like a good thing. I still cannot craft a fully functional tortilla. Samin Nosrat's cabbage slaw continues to be a blessing and I think she should receive a Nobel Prize for it, maybe also a Pulizter and a VMA.

PROJECT STATUS: Waiting for some galaxy-brained individual to request birthday eel

Blueberry Tart

Decided to go with easy/pleasant last week and made a Blueberry Tart--it's especially easy if you accidentally ignore about 1/4 of the directions and just mix all the blueberries together to start with, ahem.

Ugly! But eeeeeeeasy.

This was, unsurprisingly, pretty well received, particularly when presented as a breakfast option.

Although if you are keeping track at home, Ivy really outdid herself on the "anything to thoroughly baffle my beloved mother" scale by responding slightly less favorably to the blueberry tart as she did to her first taste of...octopus.

Also her second and third taste, whose child is this

Anyway, like I said, this recipe was from last week, but I'm just now getting to it because we've been pretty busy taking care of the new addition to our family!

Her name is Julianna the Fourth of July baby and she scares the cat

ASSESSMENT: Again, hard to go wrong with just cooking fruit and sugar and cinnamon and cramming it in some pastry, just any old way.

PROJECT STATUS: Subtle and refreshing

Crab Cakes, Indeterminate Vegetable Dish

Let's start with the crab cakes, because they are pretty straightforward--although I did realize I was out of Dijon mustard halfway through making these, and substituted dill mustard, which I liked a lot. The dill and seafood combination was reminiscent of a time when these summer projects were about 8000% more ambitious and social and such.  

Sorry I did not organize a "wildly hip Scandinavian party" around these, I know one of you is very disappointed

Now, the problem occurs with the second dish, which is Samin Nosrat's cabbage slaw. There is no problem inherent in the dish itself, which is my very very very favorite version of cabbage. The problem is that I definitely thought I was making a Stardew dish when I picked it, and later could not recall which dish. For example, if I meant for this to be a Red Plate...

 ...then I left out the radishes.

And if I meant for this to be Coleslaw...

...then I left out the mayonnaise. 

Now, my first thought was "mmmm kind of seems like this recipe can just cover both of those dishes, it's close enough, who puts mayonnaise with red cabbage anyway, also I could lie and say I did add radishes, pretty sure no one will analyze the picture closely enough to call me on it" BUT THEN that visit to the comprehensive Bon Appetit coverage of blogging nightmares past reminded me of who I am, a person who does a lot of extra work to be exacting about meaningless projects that no one asked for.

Anyway, this was a good meal.

I hope you all are having some summer adventures.

And appropriately awarding yourselves with queso thereafter.

ASSESSMENT: I think the crab cakes did make me feel faster and more...defensive

PROJECT STATUS: Unnecessarily complicated