By Quintin Smith on April 19th, 2010 at 5:24 pm.
The idea was simple: take five food items from World of Warcraft and turn them into five real-life, practical recipes, for fun. This idea was complicated somewhat when Mr. Rossignol pointed out to me that it had been done before, primarily by a site called The Tauren Chef which sells its recipes online instead of giving them away. The solution, once again, was simple: do it better than everyone else, and for free. Read how Intrepid Girlfriend and I got on after the jump.
Contents:
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Phew. Okay! That’s your lot. Thanks to my long-suffering girlfriend for her help. And as long as I’m giving thanks, thank God the two of us didn’t try and realise our hazy plans for Dragonbreath Chilli complete with actual firebreathing. Maybe next time.
Well done! Vegetarian versions now plz. And vegan.
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Did you not eat enough vegetables in Paris, man?
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For the Absolute Worst Dinner, you could totally cook the boar’s face without the ribs. And the omelette would work if you just swap the sausage for asparagus or spinach!
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Quinns: The dairy causes problems for vegan woman, but it sounds delicious to me. Eggs are a rare treat that I don’t like unless they’re in omelette form.
Alec: Having this moment completed digestion of Paris mystery vegetables one through seventeen, I’m ready to move on with my vegetable-life.
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Hang on, France has vegetables? Last I heard they considered ham to be in the same food group as lettuce.
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Lettuce is a vegetable, sure, but ham is a food group unto itself.
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Seconded! Vegetarian versions, although to be fair, these look amazing if I did eat meat. Once I acquire an oven in my college dorm, I’ll be trying some of these for sure (in particular, the omelette). Many thanks, Quin
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Man, that Omelette has my mouth watering. Annoyingly I don’t have another 3 people to share with.
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I am hungry for them all. The Dumplings especially.
KG
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Omelette looks good.
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I’d be excited by the omelette if I hadn’t had a truly delicious one just last night. My mother-in-law produces the best tasting chicken eggs in all of New England. Lucky me.
The Beer Basted Ribs and the dumpling soup will be sampled. Oh yes. They look great.
Incidentally, since it seems you and/or your girlfriend are excellent cooks, more of this sort of thing, please. Any other members of the Hivemind able to cook?
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Wait… you’re married to a chicken?
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How can you be so insensitive? His wife was obviously adopted… by chicken.
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Note to self: when posting on the Internet, be extremely careful with phrasing.
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I thought of that old joke, y’know, the, this… this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, “Doc, uh, my MOTHER IN LAW’s crazy; she thinks she’s a chicken.” And, uh, the doctor says, “Well, why don’t you turn her in?” The guy says, “I would, but I need the eggs.”
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The Bellara’s Nutterbar on that little picture looks like a Snickers to me.
Also, I was wondering what makes those dumplings dessert-like. Until I realised my eyes were playing tricks on me. Hot and meaty, eaten by nomadic peoples of an arid region… not pudding.
I feel I should direct you to the entirely not game but definitely crazy confection related , formally Pimp my snack. Giant Jaffacake anyone?
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The life-buoy sized Party Ring. Help.
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The full Easter-egg sized Cream Egg can only result in vomiting. Lots of it.
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Holy feck. The giant chocolate bars (like the Toffee Crisp). This is MAD SCIENCE at its most delicious.
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I can’t believe this is the only way I get to see Julie’s haircut!
Also. Hiiiiiii Quinns.
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Hello Favourite Canadian Rosy! In future all of my correspondance will take place in my articles for the extra hits.
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What kind of buffs do these provide? “-1 hunger”?
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Very disappointed to see that mystery meat does not appear to be an ingredient in any of your recipes.
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This comment thread is missing one statement:
OMNOMNOM
Fixed!
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My flatmates are in for a big surprise.
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Nice one!
I am intrigued at the outlandish and heretical notion of making dumplings out of anything but matza meal … but I have to try it now!
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Matza meal? Dumplings are made from flour and the fat scraped from the kidneys of a pig (otherwise known as suet). Silly person.
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You’re thinking of matzoh balls, which are noticeably less delicious than a proper dumpling. Still pretty good though.
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This all looks amazing. I’m seriously crappy at cooking, but I’ll have to try to make at least the omelette. Being German, I should probably want to make the dumplings too, but that just sounds scary complicated.
Also, we’re also seriously bleeding nerd cred here, by either openly admitting to knowing how to cook or admiring those who do.
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Pssst. Don’t tell anyone. but I’ve never even tried instant raman noodles.
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The Beer Basted Boar Ribs are comically horrifying. Ugh wow! It’s like a zombie Ganon cake. So loathsomely…hearty!
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Man I want those dumplings. If our oven hadn’t just broken I would seriously be considering going to buy the fixings for that.
Also I need to dig out the Breadcrab recipe from a years-old PC Gamer.
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Thankfully my wife used to play WoW and thus I have persuaded her to make the ribs.
Ok ok, I’ll probably help too.
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>a site called The Tauren Chef which sells its recipes online
Capitalism at work. Awesome >____>
But hey, since you can sell the WoW riffraff a re-skinned fairy horse they sure are going to buy this cr*p as well.
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That horrifically huge omellete looks like something actually doable and edible.
I’m so gonna make one in a drunken haze one of these days.
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My current obsession is making “Spanish Tortillas”, and as mentioned, the monster omelette is very similar.
It started out in the early days as a three egg omelette with some frozen vegetables fried off with cubed potato before adding the eggs, but they’ve been getting bigger and bigger. Current tastiest version is mainly onions, peppers and mushrooms fried together (mushrooms going in last), then I add cubed potatoes deep-fried (in deep fat fryer!) to golden, I meatify with chopped up pepperami and/or chopped up pre-cooked bacon, throw in a huge dollop of butter and add the beaten, seasoned eggs, toss the mixture over the heat – takes no time at all and doesn’t leave a smooth surface (had too many problems with it drying out the eggs if I just left it, hence the mass of butter and tossing. Makes a change from tossing out of boredom. What was I talking about?) Throw the cheese on and pop under pre-heated grill until cheese browns.
Definitely trying this with the eggy bread variation though I can see that being a lot soggier than my deep-fried potato cubes.
It’s normal to be eating about three dozen eggs a week, right?
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Now this is an article I want to read while eating dinner!
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Oh my….The ribs will have to be cooked, as well as the dumplings. Cant stand eggs so the omlette looks….wrong.
And as or the Pimped creme egg….wow, now i really want one!
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Never having played more than a couple of hours of WoW (that was enough for me) I’m not in on the joke, here, but the idea behind it is nonetheless brilliant (and the results look interesting enough to be worth trying on their own merits). Well done Quinns, are any of these foods high in iron perchance?
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I have played WoW for months on end, and I am not sure you need to have done so to get the joke – all fantasy settings, be they videogames or films or books, try to make themselves feel even less grounded in reality by naming their foods in an odd way. It is just that in the case of woW, those names are more descriptive and lend themselves to imitation.
There is a cookbook by Nanny Ogg I can heartily recomend, too.
Fun fact – in one Star Wars book, Luke om noms things which are called Topatoes. I am not sure the author was trying very hard, there. Or they didn’t spell tomatoes correctly, one or the other.
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@Mr_Day
Well yes, obviously I get the joke in the general sense, what I meant was that I didn’t play nearly enough WoW to see any of these food items actually referenced.
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Yeah, I have a tendency to be needlessly patronising at times.
Another topatoe?
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Nanny Ogg’s cookbook is excellent, and I will second the recommendation. Especially the chocolate pudding with Special Chocolate Sauce… heaven
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Hmm, no mention of the minimum level requirement to eat those foods.
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this is why I love RPS.
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The dumplings in tlalpeño are exactly the sort of thing my mother would make on a Sunday evening. I’ll be passing the recipe along.
Do you think the spiced bread recipe would work in a bread machine, Quinns? It’s one of those fancy ones where you just dump the ingredients in and then it does the whole molesting-the-dough thing on its own before cooking it. Or would the dough definitely have to be doughy before adding the spices?
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Forgot to say: I do, however, take offence at this comment:
You should probably go out to your nearest Irish Tesco and buy some deliciously over-priced Reese’s peanut butter cups (I know the UK has them, so I presume Tesco in Éire does too). Then scoff the lot. Once you’ve digested those, you can come back and amend that article to say how totally sorry you are that you didn’t just make a giant Reese’s peanut butter bar.
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Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups totally did slip my mind! Man. Shit. I think I might instinctively block all American confectionary from my mind ever since that one time I tasted a Hershey bar.
RE: spice bread, it would totally work in a bread maker. I mean, it’s got to, right? It’s only substituting some water for milk and adding spices. No danger. Please don’t blame me if your bread maker detonates like a grenade.
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Quinns: Hershey bars are for s’mores and nothing else.
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Also, please do tell us if your bread maker does detonate like a grenade. Because that would be awesome.
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Awesome ! I might try a couple ones for the fun of it !
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This is magic :) I wasn’t sure what to expect when I saw this post, now I’m convinced this is the best thing I’ve seen on RPS thus far.
Excellent work Quinns and Girlfriend!
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That looked, eh, special. Soup base sounded nice though.
Personally I’d prefer what the hero in Quest for Glory II dined on at the inn (no need to include bellydancing cats though). Might be hard to source some of the stuff I guess.
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That desert looks delicious. And YES there’s something about melting chocolate. A bit of a childhood dream for many people i suppose. And no it’s not an ingredient to save money on as you found out the hard way :)
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The Nutterbar looks delightfully delish. I can’t really eat food like that any more, so I’ll just water at the mouth for it instead. >.> Amazingly done with each dish though, I must say.
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I’m confused by the amounts. What’s a 200g? Speak AMERICAN
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So you’ll be wanting everything in that not at all ambiguous measurement, ‘cups’?
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@colin hansen
No please speak metric. Really please. It makes math easier and cooking more fun. Trying to double recipes that speak of lbs/oz/cups is a pain. (try living in Scandinavia, Australia and the UK in succession, makes you appreciate usable base ten standards).
Don’t even get me started on the stone age ways of describing ones physique in stones and feet, what are we cavemen?
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@Rich – it works for boobies (sort of)…
@Pedant – I was kidding, the metric system is of course better. Unfortunately I was raised on the Imperial system (note the cool name) so it is fairly difficult to eyeball things in meters and kilograms and so on. Inches and feet are just how I think.
Although to the credit of the Massachusetts school system, every science class I ever took dealt solely with metric. Especially physics – did you know that the imperial system doesn’t really have standard measure for mass? Just weight.
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@Colin Hansen
What’s a slug then?
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I was raised in the metric system and I don’t find having an intuitive idea of the most common Imperial units that difficult. 3 feet is about one meter, 4 inches are about 10cm, and so on.
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This is why I love Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
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Girlfriend’s such a boar……
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Waaaaay!
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Videogame cookery – the acceptable face of cosplay. ;)
Nice article & photos, an enjoyable read. Thank you Quinns & Intrepid Girlfriend.
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Kieron = Delightful Girlfriend (who is indeed delightful)
Quinns = Intrepid Girlfriend
I demand to know the adjectives for the rest of the hivemind’s better halves!!!
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Actually, Kieron’s is now Delightful Fiancée, to be exact.
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And we didn’t receive a completely off-topic post linking to some ill-fated 90′s pop music in celebration?
Failed.
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This was awesome. I’m definitely queuing at least one of these recipes up to make.
How were you melting your chocolate by the way, it kinda looked like you were doing it directly on the fire but that seems somewhat hard.
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Just heating up an empty saucepan, dropping the hard chocolate in, waiting and stirring works fine. Unless I’m misunderstanding you.
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I see, I was asking because the only way I know how is au bain marie.
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Stick some water in a medium saucepan, and put a metal bowl over the top of the pan so some of the bowl is in the water. Melt your chocolate in the bowl, with regular stirring. This prevents the chocolate getting burned.
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Au bain marie is where its at.
Straight over the heat and you may burn your chocolate.
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Whoops! Girlfriend has informed me that the reason we could just use a saucepan instead of au bain marie is because we were using cooking chocolate. Actually her exact words were “The chocolate told me to,” which is sinister.
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A much easier way is to just chuck it in the microwave, take out now and then and stir it to make sure it melts together nicely. Water baths are so last millenium :)
edit: In a glass bowl, and being careful not to let it get too hot.
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I’ll put beer into many a food, but I’d never thought to try it as a baste for ribs. Cider or Jack Daniels sure, but not beer. I must try this.
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British food that looks edible and actually makes my mouth water? DOES NOT COMPUTE
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Wow, someone mocking British food, how utterly stunning and original. Of course if tourists would stop purchasing food from central London chain pubs whose menus consist of re-heated frozen crap then perhaps they’d actually bother to discover that it just marks them out as someone unwilling to bother looking beyond the places signposted from ‘Big Tourist Attraction 1.’
Actually, as a tip to anyone visiting the UK, any place that markets itself as having ‘traditional British food’ is probably a bit shit. That’s not to say there is no traditional British food which is good, but usually when used as a marketing term it means ‘cheap bland boring stuff reeled out to capture the tourist trade.’
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I kinda like pub food. But yeah, definitely. I keep having to tell people that the food is not that bad. And you lot really seem to know your sausages, for some reason.
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British cooking was pretty bad post-war, but now no longer deserves its reputation. Over the past 15 years or so British cooking has come on in leaps and bounds, and is fully utilising excellent local ingredients and influences from all over the world to bring out some really special stuff. At the same time, the average Brit is far more likely to be exposed to good technique, as some of the UKs biggest celebrities are chefs.
You can get some pretty dire stuff in the UK, and a lot of traditionalist die-hards still cook meat and veggies far too much, but you can get some of the best meals of your life by making a little effort.
Also, British supermarkets are vastly superior to American ones in terms of quality of produce and pre-cooked meals. And why aren’t there any proper British sausages here?
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I think ‘traditional’ foods are becoming a thing of the past simply because there are soo many creative chefs and cooks who are blurring the lines between different cultures’ foods.
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I knew I’d stir up some rage on a british website :D. Don’t get me started on sausages however, I’m german, I cannot be fooled when it comes to sausages or beer.
Well allright, your breakfast sausages – bangers? – are quite good actually..and porridge ain’t that bad either. Actually during my whole trip to the UK the worst food I’ve had was from KFC…
But your pies? Disgusting..
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Knew a French guy who stayed here for a bit recently. He actually started liking Bangers and Mash, and Steak and Ale pies etc. When he went home he went ahead and cooked a full roast beef dinner with Yorkshire pudding (having stayed in Yorkshire) for his family. I always thought you’d get horribly chastised in France for that kind of thing.
The German guy working in my lab likes pretty much all British food too. He just doesn’t like tea or cider (‘hard’ cider to the yanks).
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@Toyoch re UK food
I agree! Any country where “Whole day breakfast” in can sells well, and Frankie Boyle can make successful jokes about the food at Lidl being exotic, is special. Add to that Scotch eggs, obsession with fried chicken, dodgy pies and a complete lack of understanding of bread (Hovis white loaf is a crime). I say this as a person who likes greasy shit food but there are limits.
Love how the Brits have welcomed other food cultures though, that is something they should be proud of, going into a big Sainsburys/Tesco Superstore is a treat really. And they know their crisps.
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The bread? I get your point, as bread from the bag is horrible stuff. Gimme a nice crusty fresh loaf any day.
All day breakfast in a can? One word. Students.
Fried chicken? Fried fish maybe. I’d say Kebabs are more popular than fried chicken. Although that’s nothing to be proud of.
I won’t hear anything bad about proper steak and kidney, steak and ale, chicken and mushroom etc. pies. Say what you want about pork pies though. I may love them, but they are a crime against food.
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A German mocking English food? how ironic! :D
If your tastes run anything similar to the Gerrys I know from uni, ypu just haven’t decent pie yet. My local pub makes the greatest homemade pie, chips and peas in the world. A permanent menu of Steak and Potato, Chicken and Leek, and Feta and Mediterranean Veg. A Daily guest pie which has featured Fajita pie, corn beef hash, bacon double cheeseburger pie, thai curry pie, meat ball pie, etc.
English cooking is magic! Though I admire the German approach to food, Meat, Beer and Salt!
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Food in the UK runs the whole spectrum from vile junk food / cheap-and-nasty shops to really top-end cooking, farmers’ markets etc. and covers a vast range of styles with ‘traditional british’ being just one amongst many. For what most people eat most of the time it is more informative to look at baskets at a Tesco supermarket check-out in preference to pub menus. My experience is that it is ‘somewhere in the middle’ with ‘a bit of everything’.
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OMG OMG Guys! Guys!
Er, Quinns has the exact same grater as I do.
Recipes look good too, dumplings look like a cool challenge, I think I might cook those. Oh yeah, best cooking instructions evar.
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What, no gooey spider cakes?
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For additional cooking ideas, WoW.com (Formerly Wowinsider) used to have a column called Well Fed Buff that specialized in the creation of wow themed food, available for free of course :)
The column still technically exists, but they folded it into a much broader category known as “World of Warcrafts” which covers roughly everything created with a wow theme, covering the recipes in a nigh impenetrable layer of papercraft, sculptures, plushies and decorative cakes.
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The only cooking advice I’ll accept from Greenskin scum is how much they want to be burned by my holy flamethrower! (Note: Anything under “well done” is ignored)
But yes, those do look pretty good. Well done Quinns.
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So I was intrigued by this quote in the Boar Ribs account:
“We only have so much effort for this.” –Lermontov
You might forgive my suspicion, but I’m fairly certain RPS editors just pulled that quote out of their ass and then attributed it to a classical Russian poet. You guys are so edgy that you’re the only ones who know that Lermontov ever said this. Or that anyone prominent said it at all, really.
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It’s actually a quote from the cooking bit of Scott Pilgrim, and a joke. But who knows? Lermontov probably said a lot of things.
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“RPS editors”?
Lol!
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Avoiding onion teargas is simple, and you can take two different routes:
1. Onion in freezer for around 15 minutes.
or
2. Onion in fridge for an hour or so.
No burning of the eyes or associated blindness-caused knife maimings.
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…and you will not find spray-on cheese in any British supermarket.
Or indeed Hershey’s ‘chocolate’, which appears to be make of the stuff they pave roads with.
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Reply fail. Was supposed to be a reply to the Toyoch thread.
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I’ve read RPS faithfully for two years now. This article is the greatest.
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What exactly is strong white flour? Flour that works out?
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It’s flour made from especially hard wheat, which makes about as much sense.
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It’s flour with a high gluten content, making nice stretchy dough for bread.
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The solution, once again, was simple: do it better than everyone else, and for free.
Awesomely put !!!
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Sorry if I offend people but, this looks disgusting, except for the Bars and the Dumplings.
Bread is a joke really, garlic is not a spice.. and it’s mild / sweet spice, not hardcore spices.
AHHH I’m only nerdraging because I’m a cook but meh, they could of done alot better.
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Realised I have shockingly neglected my cooking skill in WOW. Now to rectify.
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Hey, Quinns, didn’t you know? Dragonbreath Chilli is the house specialty at Fawlty Towers (cue Basil miming how his wife makes toast…).
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By the way, why did you eat your soup in an ashtray? (Genuine question – that bowl looks like an ashtray! Why??)
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I believe it’s been designed that way so you have somewhere to put your chopsticks.
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Oh my god; that omlette looks fantastic!
*stomach rumbles*
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Oh alliance members, you and your vegan meals.
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All of these look delicious. I’m going to make those dumplings at the soonest possible occasion. Thank you, Quinns.
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Bravo for effort.
Just a comment on the Beer Basted Boar Ribs – you do know that ribs do not necessarily have to have eyes, tusks and a snout, right?
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@DarkNoghri – Right, but American scientists just use the metric system. So no one uses the slug.
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I never suspected I would be reading videogame based experimental cooking, but this is excellent.
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>nut-related butter
Giggled like a schoolgirl.
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Just as I’m getting into the whole recipes-from-blogs malarky, this comes along! Can’t wait to try the dumplings & the bread; I suspect the omelette will be created under the influence. Fantastic work: moar like this please!
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Very nice collection. The Tauren Chef may charge, but there’s also a nice WoW themed blog called that has a few nice recipes for free.
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This is great, but the use of gluteny stuff makes it impractical for this gluten-free household :(
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Here is an interesting game related recipe. I extracted it from Spell Hold (the asylum in baldur’s gate 2) courtesy of Dradeel (one of the inmates ) http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u139/Eseller_2007/1-4.jpg
Dradeel’s Recipe
Baldur’s delight
Sweet treats from the fabled kitchen of mother baldur.
5 Tablespoons of cornstarch
1/2 cup chilled water
1/2 cup hot water
1/2 cup orange juice
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon lemon juice (or and exotic, such as rosewater)
2 cups of nuts (again as exotic as you like)
a portion of powdered sugar or some other tropical candy sprinkle
Mix the cornstarch throughly with the cold water and set to the side
blend the hot water, orange juice and sugar together, bringing the mixture to a boil
to this, add the cornstarch and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring often
remove from the heat, stir in the nuts and add the lemon juice or your alternate flavoring
pour the entire mixture into a buttered or greased pan and chill
When set, cut into section of about an inch and roll in the powdered sugar or sprinkles to prevent from sticking.
Enjoy.
Right so who’s going to make it huh? :p
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That omelette looks flipping tasty
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+1 for The Further Adventures of Quinns and Intrepid Girlfriend!
Haha, this was legendary :D
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Hey, this was awesome!
Just a quick note, though: I just decided to bake the spice bread (although I of course forgot garlic, stupid me), and I noticed that salt’s not listed in the ingredients despite the fact it’s in the instructions. To anyone wondering about this, around 3/4 of a teaspoonful should be fine.
Also, to those using fresh yeast instead of the dried stuff, you need to mix that into warm fluid. So warm the milk and water a bit less, around half a minute in microwave I’d say, and mix it there. Worked for me. Oh, and you’ll definately need more fresh yeast than 7g for something of this size.
Now I’ll just need to wait for the oven to do its magic, and we’ll see how I did. Will probably try the dumplings soon, provided I can find some chipotle in this little town…
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Awesomly, fresh yeast is illegal in Ireland for everyone except bakers. It can be used to make bombs, see. Delicious bombs.
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Those dumplings look and sound delicious. I will definitely be making these next year at uni; I’ll be sharing a house with two nerds, so it’ll be doubly appreciated.
I may try the bread soon. Thanks a lot, Quinns!
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Being the incredibly impulsive person I am, the moment I saw these recipes I knew I had tor try them.
After a quick trip to the store, I began to make the Smoked Desert Dumplings. Despite my inability to cook, it actually came out quite well. The soup itself was actually the star for me though. I may not be able to cook, but I sure can dump spices into a pot well. It was really worth it, well done! I would have this again anytime.
After that, I decided to try the nutter bar. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to buy anything that was listed. So, I ended up melting half a bag of chocolate chips, and a broken up half eaten hershey bar. Instead of nuts, I used chashews. Also, there was a lack of marshmallows in the house, so I broke up a mini marshmallow bunny from easter, and stirred that in. It was simple, and the results were surprisingly very good, even with my lack of proper ingredients.
In short: Wow, that was a surprise. Very good stuff in here!
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Is it too late to get in a “This food will give you the Searing Gorge” pun?
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Stick to the original recipes and keep the side of rhetoric.
“I didn’t fight my way to the top of the food chain to eat carrots.”
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Has to be the most creative thing ive ever seen related to WoW. What a cool girlfriend. If i told my girl i was going to be making Roasted Boar Ribs from the mmo i played, she would probably leave me haha.
Great job and ill be sure to try out one or 2 of your recipes….when shes isnt around!
10/10
Awesome.
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What kind of sausage did you use for the dumplings? That recipe looks great, I’m going to make it today.
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I just made the Nutterbars, they are delicious!
Maybe I´ll try some of the other stuff next week, it sure looks tasty! Also, another episode of this would be much apreciated. :-)
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lol so funny!!!Looks very appetizing!! Thx for this posting.
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