I’m aware that a fruit salad isn’t exactly a sophisticated dish worthy of writing down a recipe for, but for one, it gave me the perfect excuse I needed to plate up the coconut quenelles I was craving for a couple of weeks now – they, or rather this type of fluffy dumplings in various types of flavors, are the usual suspects to top off my compotes during the autumn and winter months but a rather rare guest in the summery department. Plus, trying to stick to the GW2 recipe for once made me use a combination of fruit I usually don’t mix, or wouldn’t use in a fruit salad at all for that matter, and it turned out to be delicious.
Continue reading “GW2 Cactus Fruit Salad & Coconut Quenelles”
Well, at first glance, unceremoniously turning the GW2 version of a cheese platter (or roll? I’m actually not quite sure what the devs intend this to be…) into a bunch of cheese bisquits might not make a lot of sense, so I’ll give you guys the full scoop behind my choice. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t just cook my way up and down the Tyrian menu, sometimes I let the ingredients listed take me into a different direction, sometimes I somewhat stick to the general idea of the ingame recipe or, if it’s a classic, I try to wow you guys with my mad kitchen skills in the classics department… you get the picture, I think. In this case, it wasn’t the dish itself, or the ingredients that set me off, it was the name of the dish. The simple combination of the words „Cheese“ and „Triangle“ made a long forgotten childhood memory rise to the top when I spotted the ingame recipe in the list of snacks. My grandmother’s infamous cheese crackers. She used a triangular cookie cutter to shape them.
Today was one of those days, the ones you wish you didn’t have had the bright idea of doing anything more than heating an instant soup in the kitchen. I felt like prepping my thai salad for dinner like I’ve done tons of times before. As soon as I tipped over the bowl I was grating my radish into, redecorating my kitchen floor in the process, I started getting that sinking feeling… but I soldiered on, having no idea what else to do with the remaining ingredients due to a sudden food brain freeze.
Asparagus season! Finally! I have been eyeballing the Tyrian Steak & Asparagus dish for months now, internally drooling and ticking the days off on my calendar, the X marking the beginning of the season. I know, I know, basically everything is available at any given time (if you ignore outrageous prices), but some things, for me, just have to remain a seasonal thing, something to look forward to and revel in once it arrives. Cherries, strawberries, plums, mushrooms… and asparagus. Only once did I make the mistake of giving in to the allure of a box of pretty-in-white asparagus I found some time around christmas. Apart from them having a terrible texture and no flavor, eating asparagus in winter was just plain weird.
A couple of weeks back we decided to taste-test a new Indian place at lunchtime. It was nice enough for a lunch-place in the courthouse district, standard menu, friendly waiters, pushy customers, the usual lunch business. While the dishes we ordered weren’t too bad (although….dousing spinach in coconut milk doesn’t make it a curry, really…), there was something… off, out of place. It took me about two spoonfuls of my something-with-spinach to pinpoint what was bothering me.
Sometimes GW2 has a way to poke and prod at my subconscious basic instincts until I give in – the hunter-and-gatherer part of me for example. While I’m not really OCD’ing on achievement collections (my dislike of anything PVP related would make that one hell of an unpleasant experience) I just have to finish things I’ve already started. One wonderful autum morning last year I noticed I was just a few miniatures short of a tier upgrade or a completed tab in all of the miniature collections. Hmm… one or two items short of the finishing line? That would have bugged me to no end until I had taken care of it, so I went Mini-shopping right away to get it out of my system.
When I saw the Delicious Rice Balls during the Tyrian Lunar New Year’s Festival, all kinds of rice ball recipes were instantly going through my mind, Mochis, Onigiris and other types of mostly japanese treats. Way too many options to decide right away which one would be the best “Delicious Rice Ball” to cook up for this tyrian dish. When I made the 
On today’s trip to the store I really needed inspiration. It was one of those days where you look out of the window at 11 am thinking it couldn’t possibly be past 8 am yet judging by the light. This resulted in an almost irresistible pull towards the comfyness of my bed and in a complete lack of ideas for dinner (other than: It has to be warm. And comforting. Could it even cook itsself?) and a seriously unmotivated zombie-shuffle to the store.
Nahdala's Kitchen 