Nerdy Craft Time Food Edition Part 2!

As promised we'll be visiting Game of Thrones for this Nerdy Craft Time Food Edition! Oh my goodness was I excited for this, plus the bowl of brown that I made was super freaking delicious! I'm certain that for real real a bowl of brown would be disgusting, greasy, mealy, and generally taste like shit. However, I try not to make horrible food for my family so we had to recreate something that looked a little gross but tasted fantastic. Aside from me, no one in my family watches GoT so I had a good time seeing their reactions when I told them what it was called. If you didn't want to thicken it with flour you could try potato flakes. You know, the mashed potato flakes in a box, I just shuddered typing that. But my uncle uses them so it's a legit option, of course he also eats food that sits out on the counter all night and makes sure everything is swimming in oil....  Or you could try to cook it down a bit more. Which would require a higher temp on the stove and boiling it uncovered for a little bit. Make sure you stir it like crazy if you decide on this option.
Fun fact about the bowl of brown, I made this like 3 months ago, took photos, and filed them away until I found or made a suitable lemon cake recipe. I had to type out what I did mostly from memory, which is horrible, unless it comes to food I guess. Food is the one thing in my life worth remembering. I should really write this stuff down as it happens.

I also made lemon cakes! Because any Game of Thrones food nerdy craft time has to include Sansa's favorite treat. The result is exactly what I envisioned when I pictured Lady Sansa and her little friends sitting around daintily eating lemon cakes. I love lemon bars and enjoy making them because they are like pure sunshine in your mouth, but for this I thought it needed to be a little more solid, something that you wouldn't get too messy eating with your hands. Which is how I would imagine them eating this treat, obviously it wouldn't be Sansa's favorite if it made a huge mess. How unlady like! These are individual cakes made in muffin tins, the cake itself is dense enough that it doesn't crumble while you eat it with your hands, and it is chock full of delicious lemon flavor!
All of this reminds me that I want to get a dwarf lemon tree this year. But much like the Stark children (before... you know...shit went down) I too live in the north, and lemons don't grow here. They actually advise against me even getting the baby lemon tree and I have to contact the plant place to make sure they don't send it to me before mid May or else it will die on it's way to me. Northern living problems.
Most of everything else in the books either seemed pretty low key, simple simple, or pretty disgusting. I'm not a huge fan of kabobs, I had thought about a root veggie beef stew and some hollowed our bread in place of the "skewered meat and onions in bread trenchers" but it almost seemed forced. I was intrigued with the "Eggs and hot peppers" the breakfast Tyrion eats with Oberyn, but how simple is that? Cook up some scrambled eggs, add hot peppers. Done. I know some people have done duck and rabbit, but as a girl from a family of non hunters I'm in short supply of duck or rabbit. I suppose I could have made a whole chicken but my recipe for that is freakishly easy.
Get a whole chicken, Throw it in the crockpot, add some chicken broth and whatever seasonings you like (I use Soul Food Seasoning for everything + Garlic + Honey + Onion), and set that bitch on high for 7-8 hours. Bam. Delicious fall off the bone super moist chicken awesomeness. Not exactly GoT friendly though...

In the end I just made the two recipes and called it a day. I've been agonizing over this Game of Thrones NCT food post for months. MONTHS! I've just been having a really hard time getting inspired lately, it's been so ridiculous. I have all of these crafts planned but no ideas on how to execute them. Hopefully February will inspire me more then January. I'm blaming it on our freakish cold up here in the Midwest. I swear to you we need to make some kind of sacrifice to the old gods and the new, hopefully they'll take mercy on us, and send us some warmth!

Although in the words of Cersei Lannister... "The gods have no mercy, that is why they are gods."

On to the recipes!!

 

I actually think it looks pretty delicious in my adorable blue dutch oven. Maybe if I cooked it up in a giant steel pot that hasn't been cleaned in years it would have been a tad more authentic.

 

Bowl of Brown

So you'll need a bit more then in the photo, this is what I started with and ended up with a bit more.

So what you'll need

2 Tablespoons garlic
6-8 carrots, peeled and chopped into bite sized pieces
2 large (or 1 lrg 2 littles) onions peeled and coarsely chopped
5 large potatoes peeled and cut into bite sized pieces
1 lb of ground beef (thawed) 2lbs if you really want more meat
1 head of cauliflower coarsely chopped

2 cups of cooked rice
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 can of black beans

 

You'll also need the following seasonings!

 

Honey to your taste, I use about 4 Tablespoons but start with 1 and work your way up
Soul Food seasoning (I get it at the dollar store)
Powdered beef soup base (beef broth)
Garlic Powder
Onion powder

And if you have it, Brown Gravy mix. It isn't really necessary, I just like the taste.

and flour

 

 

So what you'll want to do is throw the oil in a dutch oven or soup pot, then add the carrots, potatoes, and onions. Set your stove on medium/low heat and put a lid on that sucker until your onions are soft, stirring occasionally. About 15 minutes.

Then you'll want to add your hamburger, breaking it up as it cooks, you'll want to cook it until it's almost not pink or until it isn't pink anymore.

 

Then add 4-6 cups beef broth (depending on how much your pot can take really, it's not an exact science here), bring it to a boil and then simmer on medium/low heat with the lid on for about 20-25 minutes. Stirring occasionally and checking to make sure your carrots and potatoes are done.
You'll want to add your seasonings now. I use about 4 Tablespoons of the soul food seasoning, 4 Tablespoons honey, 2 Tablespoons Garlic powder along with the your 2 Tablespoons garlic, 3 Tablespoons onion powder, and 3 Tablespoons brown gravy mix.
Just Taste as you go, start with one T each and increase from there. Also I'm more of a season until it tastes the way I want then a "lets measure it out exactly" type of person so those measurements are "abouts" or my best guess as to how much I use. Like I said before, season to your taste. More onion powder and honey will make it sweeter, obviously more garlic will make it more garlicy, and more soul food seasoning will make is a bit more spicy.

 

Now you'll want to add your cooked rice, beans, and cauliflower and simmer medium/low heat with the lid on for about 10 minutes or until your cauliflower is soft.

 

Turn your heat up to high and while you wait for it to come to a rolling boil, pour about a half a cup of water into a measuring cup and whisk in 5 Tablespoons flour. It should be thicker then water but not crazy thick. If it's too thick add a bit more water. Then pour this slowly into your pot while stirring constantly. Once the "bowl of brown" is thick enough to your liking you can stop adding the flour mixture and serve it up!

 

And that's it, you're done! It goes fantastic with some soft bread that you can rip up and dip!
It really is super delicious. You could also add shredded chicken or pork or substitute it for the beef if you'd like. For me, adding different meat would have been more "bowl of brown" then just beef, but then it would get dangerously close to booya and I wanted it to be different. (I've got a super awesome booya recipe right HERE if you'd like to go check it out!)

 

 

Just imagine the powdered sugar dusting on top... I seriously wasn't going out in -30 temps to get sugar.

Sansa's Lemon Cakes

*Adapted from All You Magazine's Lemon Tea Cake recipe*

What you'll need
2 large eggs
1/2 Cup sugar
The zest from 2 large lemons Plus the juice from both
2 1/2 Tablespoons lemon juice (from the bottle)

1 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup oil (I always use olive but you can use vegetable or canola as well)

Powdered sugar for sprinkling
Cooking spray or butter to grease muffin tin

 

You'll also need something to grease the muffin tin with, which isn't pictured. I use Pam cooking spray (olive oil version)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and spray a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray

 

In a large bowl whisk the eggs, then add the sugar, zest, lemon juice, vanilla, and salt and whisk until it's all mixed.

Add the baking powder and whisk it like there's no tomorrow! Or until there isn't any powder lumps.

 

Add the flour and whisk that until it's completely mixed and smooth

 

Then ladle it into the muffin tins (if you'd like to use liners you totally can! Just skip the cooking spray part and replace it with putting liners in the tin cups)

You'll only fill the cups up about 1/3 of the way or half way full! This is important! Otherwise they'll be way too large.

 

Bake until the cakes have risen, and when you stick a toothpick into one in the center row it comes out clean. About 11-13 minutes. (mine took 12 exactly)

 

If you didn't use liners, wait until your muffin tin is cool to the touch (like 5-10 minutes), the cakes will still be warm. Lay out a clean towel and flip the tin over onto it. Tap the bottom of the cups that didn't release your cakes until they do, or you can use my favorite method of violently shaking the pan until it releases the cakes. This always works so it can't be too bad. Then you can line them up and dust them with powdered sugar if you'd like. I would imagine Sansa's lemon cakes would have powdered sugar but I used all of mine the other night making a giant baked potato cake for my dad's birthday. Considering that it was -30 today, I didn't want to leave my house for freaking sugar. Ya'll will just have to imagine what these would look like with powdered sugar.

 

I hope you love these as much as I do!

Who's excited for Season 4 to start!? I am! 4 words... Joffery's Wedding. Red Viper. OMG! So excited!

 

As always,
Enjoy!