Chapter Text
So Commences the Collection of Recipes from the Previous Chapters!
- Chapter One: Shephard’s Pie
- Chapter Two: Chicken and Dumplings, Hot Chocolate Mix.
- Chapter Three: German Pancakes
- Chapter Four: Spaghetti (not really a recipe)
- Chapter Five: Chicken Noodle Soup
- Chapter Six: Tomato Soup
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Chapter One. Shepherd’s Pie.
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Notes/Recipe:
I adapted this recipe to be closer to the shepherd’s pies I’ve consumed in the past. I’ve actually never made this one, but I want to and it’s very comfy, food-wise.
My adapted recipe (with Dick’s shortcuts in parentheses lol) [opinions and commentary in brackets]*:
For the Meat
- Extra Virgin Olive Oil [or canola or Smart Balance vegetable oil mix, idk I like the last one best]
- Onion, Some Carrots, Celery; chopped (equal parts onion, carrots, and celery = mirepoix mix) [I like using a mix of different onions bc cooked onions are the shit]
- Garlic, minced [it comes in tubs of minced, and fresh is a pain in the ass because I micromanage the process, so get you a tub of garlic for this lol] (tub of minced for Dickie)
- Ground Beef; 1lb pack, ig
- Spices: thyme, parsley, rosemary, salt, pepper, sage [fuck you, sage goes on everything]
- Worcestershire sauce
- Flour and tomato paste, as thickening agents [I actually prefer corn starch to flour for thickening] [actually, you probably don’t need to tomato paste if you don’t want the tomato notes, but be ready to use more flour, corn starch, or whatever other thickening agents you’re using, instead]
- Broth [the recipe says a cup, this measurement may be important]; any kind of broth is probably fine
- Peas, corn, and green beans; frozen mix [fresh sounds like a pain in the ass]
For the Potatoes
- Potatoes [like 2lbs or whatever ig] (Dickie got a tin of premade sadly) [I like a mix of tatoes, too – red and yellow for me]
- A stick of butter [or about 8 tablespoons of Smart Balance, if you’re me]
- Half and Half, heavy cream, milk, or whatever [cream cheese or sour cream also valid]
- Spices: garlic [more of the minced if you’re brave], salt, pepper
- [The recipe says Parmesan cheese, and yeah, that’s good shit – I forgot it while writing, but go for that if you like Parmesan cheese, hell, replace the salt entirely with Parm – Parm is very salty]
Directions
- Heat oil in a pan, add garlic and mirepoix (premade or your own chopped mix) and cook until fragrant. Add beef and brown until. Um. Brown. Spices somewhere in that mix, Worcestershire included. After spices, add thickening agents and mix until incorporated. Then add the frozen veggies and broth. Cook that down a bit.
- Boil water for potatoes. Salt the shit out of the water. Boil the potatoes until they’re tender. Whatever that means. Like… ten to fifteen minutes. Mash the potatoes. Put the other potato stuff in the potatoes. Mash until satisfied or no longer angry. [Peeling is optional but peeled mashed tatoes taste better so peel them.]
- The oven needs preheating, but hopefully you did that a bit earlier (400°F, abt 205°C). Idk why I made this the third step, but whatever. Get that done. Cool.
- Pour the meat mixture [no, I’m not calling it a filling] into a casserole dish. I don’t personally think it matters too much the size of the dish, use your own judgement, fam. Put the mashed potatoes on top. Try to keep the layers even, ya know? Even layer of meat stuff, even layer of potatoes.
- Put the casserole dish/Pyrex/glassware/idk what you’re using, man... put it on a bake sheet so things don’t boil over? I guess? Or don’t, if you’re feeling like taking a risk. Then put it in the oven for like 30 minutes. Bit more or bit less should probably be fine, all your components are cooked to safety.
There ya have it: Shepherd’s Pie.
*I don’t believe in measurements, per se. Eyeball that shit. Measure with your heart, fam.
MintMarzipan ’s Comment/Alternate Shepherd's Pie Recipe!
“I will admit I say this as an American, but tomato paste in shepards pie (technically cottage as its beef but whatever) is very American and should also be a crime.
“Like, if you're making it, the way I suggest (I say as a random internet person offering unsolicited advice) is to throw yellow onions, garlic, green onions (anything in the allium family is always good) in a pan with butter, toss in mushrooms (I usually use baby bellas bc they add a great depth of flavour) and sauté until everything is like half the size you started with. I like to declare here with a dash of red wine, but this totally Extra. Add the meat, frozen peas, and then season with your heart, and cook until the meat is done. Add a few tablespoons of better then bullion (seriously, this stuff can improve pretty much any dish with zero time and effort), I like garlic, or mushroom usually, and then add cream and and red wine. Mix in flour and parmigiano until its a thick, heavy consistency and then throw in a baking dish.
“I usually make my mashed potatoes with yukon gold bc they're cheap and avaliable, cream, parmigiano, garlic power and about enough butter to kill a man. Then in the oven it goes crisp up under a broiler until it reaches your desired level of toasty. And serve! This is horribly unhealthy but it is the tastiest shepards pie I've ever had, and there are never leftovers when I serve it.
“It's also great for making in advance to put in the freezer until you need it. Just put it in a metal baking dish or pie tin, and freeze until you need it. To reheat, just put it in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes to an hour and you're good to go!”
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Chapter Two. Chicken and Dumplings, Hot Chocolate Mix.
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Chicken and Dumplings
Recipe adapted off of this , but changed because there were things I didn’t like. Such as a lack of garlic.
Opinions in either brackets or parentheses. I kept flipflopping.
The Chicken Stuff
- Mirepoix (onion, celery, carrot) [you could buy it pre-chopped, but my favourite manner of play would be with a Vidalia onion and an evil red onion, because I love having different kinds of onions in things]
- Minced garlic [bc garlic goes in everything]
- Olive Oil (or butter, vegetable oil, canola oil – whatever the hell you want it to be)
- Chicken Broth [the recipe I found says 6 cups, but containers usually have 4 cups, so 4 or 8 cups, unless you’re starting from bouillon or soup base or whatever]
- Salt, pepper, whatever spices you feel in your soul (like sage – sage goes in fuckin’ everything)
- Boneless, skinless chicken breast [if I could make chickenless chicken and dumplings I would, but for now I’ll play nice with the chicken]
The Dumplings
- Flour (3 cups, for the dumplings)
- Baking powder (a tablespoon, for the dumplings)
- Salt (a pinch, or 1.25 teaspoons, for the dumplings)
- Milk (1 cup and 2 tablespoons, for the dumplings)
The Directions
- In a pot, sautee your mirepoix and minced garlic in your olive oil for a few minutes, until fragrant or whatever. Then pour in the broth, spices, and raw chicken. Bring that to a boil, then turn it down to a simmer. You’re going to leave that going for a bit, until the chicken is cooked. Fifteen to twentyish minutes. (The recipe says to partially cover it, but I almost never cover things, so do what thou willt.)
- Now, in a mixing bowl of whatever damn size you feel like (medium mixing bowl -- the hell is a medium mixing bowl? Why are mixing bowl sizes so arbitrary?) sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Then add the weird amount of milk. Combine. The recipe I’m adapting off of says you want it to be a “shaggy dough” but I have no idea what that means, honestly.
- Flour up a surface and slap the dough onto it, then roll it out until it’s about a quarter of an inch. I can’t estimate sizes when just given inches or whatever, personally, so like... about the thickness of a pencil, let’s say. Once the dough is rolled out, cut it into strips or squares (of about an inch or two – but again, guesstimation is valid, here, fam). The recipe I’m adapting from suggests a pizza cutter, but you can probably use a knife if you want. Or scissors, if you’re brave.
- Remove the cut chicken from the broth and put all those little dough bits in it, instead. While the dough simmers and thickens the broth (stir that, once in a while, by the way), chop or shred your chicken (I like shredding better, but you do you). Once your chicken is shredded (or whatever) add it back to the thickening broth.
- Your going to want to thicken the broth into a gravy-like consistency, which can take like half an hour. Eyeball it. Once it’s to a consistency you like, you’re ready to serve. Woo! Chicken and dumplings. Good job, fam.
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Hot Cocoa Mix
This one is adapted from the recipe found here , which is the absolute simplest version of homemade cocoa mix I could find. You have to make it with milk because it’s not made with milk powder, but other than that minor inconvenience, this recipe is the shit.
Ingredients
- Confectioner’s (powdered) Sugar, 2 parts (1 cup, if you’re uncomfortable with parts)
- Cocoa Powder, 1 part (1/2 a cup, if you’re uncomfortable with parts)
- Salt, a pinch
- Cinnamon (if you want it), however much you want fam
Directions
- Do yourself a favour and make this in a plastic container that has a lid.
- Dump all the ingredients in the container, slap the lid on, shake vigorously. Fantastic, you’re done. That stores fine for months, really. It’s all dry stuff, and if you keep it sealed and out of direct sun or whatever? Should be fine. Idk, I don’t know how long things are actually good for. My cocoa powder is probably expired but it seems fine, so I continue to use it.
- To make your cocoa from the mix: put, like, two heaping spoonfulls into a cup of milk and microwave the milk until warm. Idk how long. I’d do 15-30seconds, stir, then put back into the microwave and repeat until I’m satisfied. That’s it! You’re done.
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Chapter Three. German Pancakes.
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The Recipe
I just call these German pancakes, but in my quest to find a recipe similar enough to the one I had throughout my childhood, I saw them also called Eierkuchen, Pfannkuchen, German crepes, and... something I forgot. I got this similar recipe, that I’ll be adapting, from here .
The Ingredients
- flour, 1 cup (all-purpose suggested, I agree – other flours taste funny in pancakes, fight me)
- sugar, 1 tablespoon (or however much)
- salt, a pinch (1/4 teaspoon)
- eggs, 2 large (idk or 3 medium or 4 small, why not?)
- milk, 1 cup
- vanilla extract (as much as you fucking want)
- butter, oil, or spray for the pan
The Instructions
- Sift together the flour, sugar, and salt. Also, separately (or first, if you’re brave) whisk together the eggs, milk, and vanilla.
- Mix the wet with the dry until smooth and lump-free (immersion blender go brrr and does this part very fast. 10/10, do recommend immersion blender.)
- The online recipe suggests letting the batter rest for like fifteen minutes. You could let it rest and use that time to clean your work area (which is what I would do).
- Heat up the pan (medium heat, maybe?), oil/butter/spray it, do a test pancake (if you want). Now cook your pancakes! This should take a few minutes per side, but can go faster/slower based on stovetop temp.
The first few pancakes usually are a bit trial and error, for me. The recipe on the site says it makes two to four servings. I cannot speak to this, but I believe about double this recipe would be what my family would make, for six-ish people (five to seven people lol).
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Chapter Four. Spaghetti.
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Spaghetti sauce doesn't need a recipe...! You measure it with your heart and eyeballs. XD
But Dick used:
Garlic (minced), onion (chopped), canned tomatoes (pureed, diced, paste), bay, basil, parsley, sage, salt, pepper, and ring/circle-shaped O-noodles. (Listed roughly in the order the ingredients would have been used.)
(I feel like this is tantamount trolling... “spaghetti recipe” lol)
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Chapter Five. Chicken Noodle Soup.
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The Recipe
This recipe is adapted from the one found here , which I think made a few silly decisions (like specifying unsalted butter and bone-in chicken breast?? Lol), but which I’m using as my reference because I don’t feel like messing with it too much. Rather: I’m pretty sure I know how to make chicken noodle soup, ya know? Who cares if the recipe needs a few extra tweaks?
The Ingredients
- butter or oil (your choice, dude -- go crazy, I like Smart Balance cooking oil)
- onions (you know me - love the multicoloured onion usage, you go for what you like)
- garlic, minced
- carrots and celery
- chicken broth (like 8 cups, or two of those broth containers, idk)
- parsley, sage, salt, pepper -- whatever spices you want, honestly (I just realized that the recipe specifies bay leaves? weird. but might taste good, idk, I’ve never put bay in a soup)
- boneless chicken breast (or whatever the heck you want)
- egg noodles (whatever kind you prefer in your soup, fam)
- frozen peas, carrots, green beans mix (optional)
The Ingredients
- Chop your veggies (onion, carrots, celery, all that) (hey, it’s another mirepoix!) and throw them and the garlic into a pan, hopefully one you’ve heated up and which has some kind of butter/oil in the bottom. Cook that until fragrant or whatever: a few minutes.
- Add the spices either before or after the broth, idk why but I like to add them before? But yeah, then the broth. Throw the raw chicken in there and bring her up to a boil. I have no idea why people cook chicken this way, but like, sure, sounds convenient. That should -- oh, up to a boil then turn down to a simmer and leave for like forty minutes (40min) so that the chicken’s all cooked through. Cool? Cool.
- If you don’t want them to thicken your soup a bunch, boil the egg noodles separate. I do not care, personally. If you are boiling your noodles separate, do that while you let the ch—get the chicken out of the soup, by the way. And make the noodles while the chicken cools. Then pull it apart with a fork or cut it up.
- Once your noods and chicken chunks are done, pour those back into the broth. I mean. Into the broth. Unless you made the noodles in the broth in the first place, in which case just put the chicken in there. Nice, nice. Good job.
- If you’re doing the frozen veggies, then I hope you read the instructions first, because you should probably put those in about the time you take the chicken out, or before you boil the chicken in the first place. Idk. If you only kjust got here and your soup is practically done... just throw the frozen stuff in, as well, and bring back up to a soup-y temperature. It’s fine, soup is reheatable anyway. Good job!
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Chapter Six.
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The Recipe
The initial plan was going to be beef stroganoff, but that was before I’d solidified this chapter and who would be doing what. So, instead, it’s tomato soup (and grilled cheese, but ya’ll can figure that out without my help probably)! The recipe I’m adapting from can be found here !
The Ingredients
- fresh, ripe tomatoes (the recipe suggests 3lbs)
- garlic (as much as you damn well please)
- onion (the recipe suggests half an onion, which is ridiculous – just get a small onion, or play by your own rules and put as much onion in as you want)
- red bell pepper (the recipe suggests half a bell pepper, I’d probably rather use the whole thing to avoid waste, though)
- olive oil
- herbs (basil, oregano, parsley, sage – whatever you feel like)
- salt and pepper
- chicken broth (the recipe suggests two cups)
- optional: half a cup of heavy cream
- optional: parmesan for garnish (I mean, I guess?)
The Instructions
- We’re gonna be roasting the tomatoes, so preheat the oven (450°F or 230°C). Wash and cut your tomatoes into halves, quarters, eighths, or whatever – use your best judgment (the smaller the tomato, the less cutting you’re going to be doing, per tomato). Go ahead and cut the bell pepper and onion, too.
- Throw the tomatoes, onion, and bell pepper (and garlic ig?) onto a baking sheet with a drizzle of oil and salt, pepper, and herbs (maybe the garlic should be here?), then put the tray in the oven for like. 25 minutes. Agitate/stir/whatever the veggies (actually, bell peppers and tomatoes are both fruits . . .) about fifteen minutes into the roasting. So... roast for 15 minutes, stir, roast for 10 more. Or 15 more. Just maybe try not to burn it. (The recipe says to use the broiler to char the tomatoes a bit, but I think that’s unnecessary and borderline overkill, fam.)
- Okay okay, now pour the chicken broth into a pot and bring it to a boil. After it’s boiling, um, turn it down probably, then add all the roasted stuff, probably. The recipe doesn’t say (for some reason) (like really: it forgets to mention the onion ever again??), but it seems wasteful if you're not putting it all in the soup, so do that. Now use a hand blender/immersion blender to blend it smooth and creamy. (You should add the heavy cream in this step if you’re using heavy cream.)
- Um, I guess that’s it? You’re done! Garnish with parmesan, if you want.