Author Topic: The Gamer Cookbook  (Read 12474 times)

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Meg

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The Gamer Cookbook
« on: June 02, 2008, 06:27:22 PM »
For those who have visited the wizards boards, you may have seen the notice that on March 13, WizO Kayn (Brenda Earnest) passed away.

One of the projects she was trying to get started before her death was a Cookbook of sorts from her fellow WizOs and board members.

I'd like to finish this project and open it up to the larger Gaming community as a tribute to her.

The end product would be a .pdf-- nothing too long, but an actual Gamer Cookbook/ Guide.

I'm thinking of categories like:


Healthy Snacks at the Table
Gamer Grub (tried and true recipes)
Easy Group Meals (for when you are feeding the crew)
Wow them! (Impressive meals for the crew)
Sweet Treats (deserts)

What I need:

  • Help with the sections-- think typical cookbook style but with a fun, gamer-vocab flair. 
  • Help putting it together-- gathering images, beginning/ending material, etc.
  • Spreading the word about this project and getting people from Wizards, ENWorld, and lots of other gaming sites to participate.  If you are a member there, start a thread on that site (with a link here) and people can post either there or here, whichever is easier, as long as someone then copies/pastes here.
  • And of course, recipes!  Ideally, a photo would accompany the recipe. 

I'd like to follow the format set forth at Recipezaar:
http://www.recipezaar.com/261214 (as an example)

  • Description (2-3 sentences about the dish)
  • Ingredients (if you have multiple pieces of the dish, such as cake and frosting, list the ingredients separately)
  • Directions (Step by Step)
  • Modifications (if applicable)
These do NOT need to be original recipes.  This is more about collecting the food that is good to eat at game table (or before you sit down).  Gaming inspired dishes though would be fantastic.  If you get the recipe from somewhere, just credit it.

So first and foremost, are there any other details that need to be worked out before we start collecting recipes?   
« Last Edit: June 02, 2008, 06:34:02 PM by Meg »
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AfterCrescent

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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #1 on: June 03, 2008, 11:02:44 AM »
I notice for the actual "meals" you have them separated by difficulty/time. What about desserts? Are we looking for the simple desserts or categories for those or anything goes?
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Meg

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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #2 on: June 03, 2008, 11:18:27 AM »
Sure!  I'm up for any category that could be useful to a gamer/ gaming group.

I think I also want to add in dietary restrictions.  Josh for example is severely allergic to gluten, so maybe a paragraph on accommodations for certain restrictions and then we can just not in recipes if they are gluten/ dairy/ peanut/ etc-free?  What other categories there should I have?
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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #3 on: June 03, 2008, 11:24:15 AM »
If you're doing the pdf, it might be easier to just organize a section of the table of contents for a dietary restriction. Something like "Non-Peanut Dishes" or "No-Gluten Dishes".  And then, just at the top of the recipe, under the name, have an allergy warning like they have some foodstuffs now "Warning: Product contains X, Y, and Z" or something... Just an idea.

Another good section might be for those dishes that are not only easy, but cheap, for the gamer on a budget.
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Meg

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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #4 on: June 03, 2008, 11:30:55 AM »
That could be a good idea too-- I could have it all hyperlinked as well so if you open it on a computer you could just click to the recipe.

I LOVE the idea of budget snacks!  Good call!
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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #5 on: June 03, 2008, 01:37:36 PM »
I have lots of recipes. You've probably seen most of them over on Nifty, Meg. I'd be happy to repost them here.
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Meg

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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #6 on: June 03, 2008, 01:40:25 PM »
I have-- I especially like the ones where you cooked for your whole party.  Those especially would be awesome to repost here, in the most applicable category-- meals to feed a bunch or budget bundles, or whatever the categories should be. 
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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #7 on: June 03, 2008, 01:47:03 PM »
I'll see what I can do about getting them converted to the format you want in the near future.
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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #8 on: June 03, 2008, 01:57:38 PM »
Including a practicality note/rating in a dish might be a good idea.  Some foods are really great and really easy but they make a godawful mess if you try to eat them while wrangling dice or cards.
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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #9 on: June 03, 2008, 02:24:14 PM »
easy / healthy : popcorn. air popped...
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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2008, 10:41:27 PM »
I registered just for this Meg...:)

I can definitely help out with healthy snacks and with general writing, advice, and some recipes.

After years of hosting gaming at my house, and being an avid cook, I've found that for my playgroup what works best is snack-y foods, not big meals.  If we're going to do a meal, we're going to break from gaming entirely to serve it, eat, and clean up before resuming.  So, most of my contributions will be suggestions for appetizer-type foods and munchables as opposed to complex recipes.

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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #11 on: June 05, 2008, 10:45:41 PM »
Plugging my own blog...

http://ericandchrissysfood.blogspot.com

Also, the best recipe site ever:
http://epicurious.com

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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #12 on: June 05, 2008, 11:07:43 PM »
While I was linking it, I just wrote a new post, which is probably appropriate here as well.

So, this isn't a recipe so much as just a piece of commentary. A few paragraphs about one of my favorite use of leftovers: Chicken Salad. But first, an aside on Chicken.

I honestly, really, truly don't understand people who prefer white meat to dark meat. Dark meat tastes better and is moister. This is a simple fact. The only thing white meat has going for it, objectively, is that it's lower in fat. It's also somewhat easier to make boneless, so if you're doing the boneless breast thing, you get a lot more meat in a single coherent lump than if you're doing the boneless thigh thing. When fast food places brag about their "all white-meat chicken strips" or whatever, I laugh. At least it's "all chicken", and not chicken food product.

Anyway, Chrissy agrees with me about dark meat, although she's not as vocal about it. As a result, whenever I cook a whole chicken (which is very satisfying, smells great, and I've got a lot of good recipes for it), I typically end up with a lot of breast meat left over. As we've already discussed, I'm not too fond of breast meat. It's not too bad, especially when it's just been cooked and you cooked it well. When I roast or grill a chicken, the breasts stay moist (sounds dirty, doesn't it?) and are pretty good. Just not as good as thighs. And afterward, they dry out a bit and just get boring.

The answer? Chicken Salad. This stuff rocks.

What's in a good Chicken Salad? Chicken (duh!), Binder, Crunch, Flava.

Chicken: self explanatory. Cut it into 0.5" to 1.0" cubes, more or less. It's best to do this the day after you cook the chicken, because that gives the juices time to run out of the meat. That makes the chicken dry (boo!), but it was bound to happen anyway, and if it leaks into the mayo, that just makes the chicken salad unappetizing. The binder helps with the dry chicken, and if you feel like your chicken bites are too dry, cut them into smaller pieces.

Binder: Traditionally, this is mayonnaise, which is one of the things that turns people off to Chicken Salad. The first trick is: don't overdo it. You want to be able to see the chicken, it shouldn't be swimming in it. This is just like any garden salad, the dressing should be pretty skimpy, you don't eat lettuce in a soup of ranch dressing right?

Here's the thing, though. You don't need to use mayo for Binder. I've used mooshed up avocados, homemade aioli, soybean salad dressing, annie's goddess dressing, and lots of other stuff. Not all at once, of course. Anything that's relatively restrained in flavor and has the right kind of consistency will do.

Crunch: A good chicken salad has crunchy bits. This is traditionally the role played by Celery. A note about Celery: those weird strings that make celery hard to eat are pretty much on the outside of the celery stalk. So, use a vegetable peeler and peel your celery. But as you can imagine, I've experimented with lots of other crunchy bits. I like to use sunflower seeds, water chestnuts, chopped onion, celery root (not quite as crunchy, but also not as strongly celery-flavored). You could even use stuff like radishes or carrots.

Flava: Everything else. Once you've gotten a thematic idea for crunch and binder, what else do you need? If you're using avocado, you'll probably want a little bit of tomato and jalapeno and cilantro, for a weird guacamole-chicken-salad. I'm a big fan of a little bit of barbecue sauce, or some paprika and cumin and garlic. Minced garlic and onion help here, even if you don't want to use big chunks of onion for a Crunch.

As you can (hopefully) see: Chicken Salad is really a giant category for all sorts of stuff you can put between two slices of bread. It can be southwestern (chipotle aioli, garlic, corn, celery) asian (a sesame-rice vinaigrette, edamame, and carrots) traditional (mayo, celery) or my favorite: just plain delicious (mayo, celery, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, paprika, cumin, garlic, onion).


FormalinFrax

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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #13 on: June 05, 2008, 11:18:39 PM »
I prefer white meat.  I don't mind a fattier meat, I prefer fattier cuts on beef, for example.  But dark meat has a certain flavor to it, and I don't like that flavor as much as I like the taste of the white meat.

In other words, it's not "a simple fact" that dark meat tastes better.  It's a matter of personal preference.

Anyway, when I roast a chicken, it's the white meat that gets eaten first, and the dark ends up as leftovers for chicken salad ;).

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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #14 on: June 05, 2008, 11:26:52 PM »
Perhaps you could include some vegetarian recipes in the cookbook? I know I have a bunch I could contribute. They could also be filed under "healthy" if you want...


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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #15 on: June 05, 2008, 11:38:32 PM »
I prefer white meat.  I don't mind a fattier meat, I prefer fattier cuts on beef, for example.  But dark meat has a certain flavor to it, and I don't like that flavor as much as I like the taste of the white meat.

In other words, it's not "a simple fact" that dark meat tastes better.  It's a matter of personal preference.

Anyway, when I roast a chicken, it's the white meat that gets eaten first, and the dark ends up as leftovers for chicken salad ;).

I suppose I should have prefixed my post with: I'm opinionated about stuff like that. I suppose now isn't really a time for white-vs-dark-meat flamewar.

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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #16 on: June 06, 2008, 12:44:31 AM »
As you can (hopefully) see: Chicken Salad is really a giant category for all sorts of stuff you can put between two slices of bread. It can be southwestern (chipotle aioli, garlic, corn, celery) asian (a sesame-rice vinaigrette, edamame, and carrots) traditional (mayo, celery) or my favorite: just plain delicious (mayo, celery, sunflower seeds, dried cranberries, paprika, cumin, garlic, onion).
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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #17 on: June 06, 2008, 05:00:40 AM »
Duck has the breast and leg cooked separately, chicken works best that way too.  When I cook a chicken I usually cook the breast/wing to perfection, then tear down the rest of the meat for a different recipe.  Or I butterfly the chicken and pull out the thigh bones, or cut it down and bake it or...

One of my favorite gaming meals is chicken thigh sandwiches.  Take a bunch of thighs and debone them, leave the skin on.  Grill until GBD (golden brown and delicious).  Because you are going to be standing around eating these on paper plates you want them to hold the sauce.  So after they are GBD toss them in a bowl of sauce and put them back on the grill. 

The other trick to neatness is to make the sandwiches to order.  The messiest thing is when you have people put their own fixins on.  I could write a book on the art of dressing a sandwich alone. 
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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #18 on: June 06, 2008, 07:19:48 AM »
This next one has become a gamer favorite in some of my groups. Its a 1 pot or 2 pot dish from Germany/Switzerland. Devilishly easy to make and tasty to boot:

Tiroler Grustel

You need:
Bits of bacon
Meat loaf
boiled potato snippets.
Onions
and any amount of spices you want to chuck in as well.

What you do is you tear the meat loaf up into tiny bits and bake that along with the bacon and the onions.
After thats done you shove it on a plate and bake the potatoes.
You then bake the potatoes in the same pot and when they are nicely done you shove the meat and onions back with it.
Stirr it up for a little while, add the spices (I like garlic) and then, eat it.
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Re: The Gamer Cookbook
« Reply #19 on: June 06, 2008, 12:02:29 PM »
That sounds good Radijs, but you're hiding the difficulty in the ingredients. Meat loaf isn't exactly something you can buy off the shelf.

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