Posted July 21, 2022 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
My Fire Roasted Foolbird recipe from last year was my first time cooking anything other than marshmallows on a fire, and it was SO fun! I knew I had to do some open fire cooking again. What better time than with a menu inspired by MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN, the tale of a young boy who lives alone off the land in the Catskill Mountains?
The main character, Sam Gribley, cooks loads of meals on an open fire. It was tough to choose which one, but remembering how long it took to cook the foolbirds, I decided to go with something that would cook a lot faster: fish. I was intrigued by Sam’s method of cooking trout wrapped in grape leaves. Since I couldn’t get trout, I chose snapper, which he eats earlier in the book.
This was SO easy to make, and the flavor was amazing—salty, garlicky, and acidic in all the best ways. The only hard part was the weather! I made this in mid-June and OH MAN THE RAIN. We just couldn’t seem to get any dry weather. My husband, who’s enough of a camping wizard that he can still start a fire with damp wood, just couldn’t get it going in a way he was happy with. It took us over a week (I had to go out and buy more ingredients—the first set had to be cooked on the stove before they went bad), but It was worth it. Considering it only takes about 15 minutes, this is going on my list of go-to vegetarian recipes. Enjoy!
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Posted August 11, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 5 Comments
Our entree today comes from Hayao Miyazaki’s Ponyo, a retelling of The Little Mermaid. I love Ponyo’s preoccupation with food in the film, especially ham! Her reaction when Sosuke’s mom serves pork ramen soup is adorable!
This ramen soup recipe is a recreation of the one in the movie, featuring classic ramen noodles, hard boiled eggs, green onions, and of course ham! It’s a savory, salty, satisfying dish—sure to make you feel nice and cozy on a stormy night. 🙂
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Posted June 2, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 9 Comments
That’s right, folks! Our new Menu of the Month is going to be based on
Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Mister introduced me to
Star Trek after we first got married, and now I’m hooked. Plus, now seemed like a good time to throw in another TV/movie menu, since I haven’t done one since
February. I’ve been looking forward to this menu for MONTHS, so let’s get started! 🙂
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Posted April 7, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 12 Comments
Our April book of the month is definitely a modern classic (or rather a classic series). We’re cooking A Series of Unfortunate Events! I DEVOURED those books as a kid. In fact, when I first started the series, I went to the library three times in three days, because that’s how fast I was whipping through it.
Even though it’s been years since I first read A Series of Unfortunate Events, I still remember the Baudelaires’ Aunt Josephine and her chronic fear of pretty much everything. She was too afraid to even turn her stove, resulting in her penchant for cold cucumber soup.
This particular soup is a light, delicious recipe originally developed by Whole Foods. I specifically sought out a cucumber mint soup, since the author mentions that such soup has “a delicious, minty taste.” I’d never made cucumber soup before now, but this recipe is easy and refreshing, not to mention healthy. Not bad for not using a stove! 🙂
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Posted March 17, 2016 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 13 Comments
Milady de Winter is one of my all-time favorite literary villains. She’s the sort of cold, evil manipulator that you just love to hate. In fact, she’s such a good bad guy that my favorite chapters in The Three Musketeers are the five chapters she spends in prison doing nothing but scheming. Naturally, such a wonderful villain deserves a spot on our menu.
And given her name, I knew the recipe I made in her honor had to be winter soup!
Since I didn’t have a go-to winter soup recipe, I had to go hunting for one while planning this menu. This particular winter soup—my own slight variation on one I found by Chungah Rhee–is fragrant and wholesome. I chose it because it includes an extra step that many soup recipes don’t: it calls for roasting the vegetables before adding them to the soup. I think roasting vegetables ALWAYS makes them better, so I had my eye out for a recipe that took advantage of roasted veggie goodness. And this is definitely it! If I didn’t have a go-to winter soup recipe before, I’ve sure got one now! 😉
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Posted February 19, 2015 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments
Considering Romeo and Juliet is based in Renaissance Italy, I wanted to include at least one menu item that the characters would have likely eaten in that time period. Though focaccia has seen a rise in popularity in recent years, the current form of the dish first became popular in Romeo and Juliet’s day. I love this particular recipe because the dough doesn’t need to rise, and it’s got great herbed flavor and fun texture. The star shape, of course, is a tip of the hat to Verona’s famous star-crossed lovers.
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Posted June 12, 2014 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 9 Comments
Cottleston Pie is a bona fide Winnie the Pooh invention. Until A.A. Milne wrote a poem about it in Winnie the Pooh, it never existed. The playful little poem explains that every creature is unique and acts according to its nature, essentially saying that we’re all what we’re made to be. Simple enough, right?
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