In the King Arthur legends, there are countless accounts of feasts and merriment, but descriptions of the specific dishes they ate are rare. We know from medieval history that these feasts probably involved a lot of savory pies, boiled vegetables, fruit, and roasted meat. I’ll admit I fantasized about roasting a whole pig for this recipe just like they would have done in the olden days, but whole animals are a little difficult to source these days (and I’m not exactly sure how I’d cook one if I found it). Still, large beef roasts were equally common, so I decided to use my go-to pot roast recipe to make a dish very similar to the sort of entrée you’d expect to see at a medieval feast, yet prepared in a way that fits a modern kitchen. Inspired by the Questing Beast which Sir Pellinore so valiantly pursued, this delicious roasted beast is fit for any king’s table.
Category: Book of the Month Recipes
Sword in the Stone Cheese Bites: An Alison’s Wonderland Original Recipe ©
The appetizer for our King Arthur menu is inspired by the beginning of Arthur’s story: his retrieval of the sword from the stone. These easy, delicious cheese bites are just the right snack to kick off a long afternoon of knightly adventuring…or at least reading about knightly adventures! The perfectly British combo of Camembert and English cheddar is balanced with toasted nuts and sweet-tart dried cranberries—a truly kingly dish! 🙂
Jo’s Christmas Gingerbread: Little Gingerbread Women
I mentioned in my first Little Women post that Jo celebrates Christmas while living away from home for the very first time. She loves New York but is a little homesick…until a box of homemade gifts arrives from home, delicious bits of crunchy gingerbread among them! This recipe from Taste of Home is jut the sort of sweet, fragrant, gently spicy cookie that would warm my heart and lift my spirits if I were Jo March. And to make them even more in keeping with our Little Women theme, I decided to decorate my cookies to look like the March sisters!
Baked Apples
No fruit or vegetable appears more often in Little Women than apples. They’re Jo’s go-to reading snack, and the final chapter is even set in the Bhaers’ apple orchard. In honor of Jo’s apples, I decided to make my own interpretation of baked apples, which pairs well with our turkey roulade and has enough sweet-savory balance to work as a side dish or dessert. Plus, it’s got those cozy, subtle spice flavors that fit so well in a Christmas menu!
A March Family Christmas: Roasted Turkey Roulade
As you may recall, we made roasted turkey legs for our Christmas Carol menu this time last year. However, the Marchs’ Christmas turkey features so prominently in Little Women that I decided to pay turkey another visit. This elegant turkey breast roulade (a variation on one I found at The Cozy Apron) is very different from last year’s simplistic recipe. The bread, apples, nuts, and sage are ingredients that the impoverished Marchs could have grown or gathered themselves. When paired with a small amount of luxurious dried cranberries and cider glaze, the dish is elevated to something truly special…and it stretches a simple turkey breast a long way, something a large family like the Marchs would have no doubt appreciated!
Hannah’s Muffs: Sweet Potato Apple Bacon Turnovers
December is here, and with it all the trappings of Christmas. Since I moved in early November and didn’t get a chance to decorate for Halloween, I was determined not to let that happen for Christmas. On the first night of Advent, I set the lights low, turned on a CD of Christmas hymns, and finished almost all my decorating in one night (I saved the tree for the next day). I was so ready for it, and it was actually really relaxing. I even found that it has been a lot easier to remember the “reason for the season,” I guess because it gave me a chance to think about why I was decorating. I know I won’t always get that, so I was grateful to have it this year.
Dauntless Chocolate Cake: Brownie Layer Cake with Chocolate Fudge Filling and Cinnamon Bourbon Buttercream
If you’ve read Divergent, you know there is one dish that stands out above all the others, put on a pedestal by all who taste it: Dauntless Chocolate Cake. It’s so remarkable, Tris’ mother remembers it after years of living in Abnegation.
What kind of cake could merit that level of notoriety? I like to imagine it was a rich, moist dark chocolate cake topped with fluffy cinnamon frosting with just a little bourbon kick (the frosting I use here was originally developed by Eats Well With Others). It’s a good thing they don’t let you taste it until after choosing your faction…otherwise everyone would be in Dauntless!
Abnegation Pea Pod Fries
In Divergent, Tris associates two foods with her home faction of Abnegation: plain peas and chicken breast. When she’s feeling homesick, she finds herself drawn to these foods in the Dauntless lunchroom. She doesn’t realize it at the time, but the reasons Tris feels so torn between Abnegation and Dauntless is because she’s a blend of the two. Today, we’re paying tribute to Tris’ Divergent nature with a side dish fit for both factions: Abnegation Pea Pod Fries, simple roasted peas-in-the-pod with just a little Dauntless cayenne kick, inspired by a recipe by The Smart Cookie Cook. A fitting side dish for our Dauntless Burger!
The Dauntless Burger: Whiskey BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger with Fried Egg and Onion Strings (an AWR Original Recipe © )
I love how shocked the other Dauntless faction members are when they realize Tris has never even seen a hamburger before. I can only imagine what it must have been like for her to taste one after a lifetime of plain, flavorless food. Today, we’re recreating Tris’ first meal in her new faction with a monster-sized burger that’s nothing if not epic.
Amity’s Autumn Apple Salad
Welcome to our Divergent menu! The Mister and I just moved from our first apartment to our very first house this weekend, so things are pretty crazy around here (SO MANY BOXES). But even though most of my kitchen is still packed up, I was super excited when it came time to start this menu. I know Divergent is a pretty big departure from our usual classic books, but Tris has such strong mental associations with certain foods (and I loved the book so much) that I thought it’d be a shame not to make a menu for it. So here it is! 🙂