Red Shirt Fruit Salad

Posted June 15, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes, Pop Culture Corner / 2 Comments

Red Shirts (also known as Redshirts) get a pretty raw deal in Star Trek TOS. The term refers to Star Fleet engineering and security officers who wear a red shirt as part of their uniform…and they have a tendency to die at every opportunity. It’s such a common occurrence that the term “red shirt” has become a pop culture term referring to any character who is killed off to show the situation is serious.

I wanted to dedicate a recipe to the Red Shirts, so I came up with the idea for Red Shirt Fruit Salad! It’s composed of four kinds of red fruit and drizzled with pomegranate dressing (plus some blueberries for contrast). It was easy to throw together and even easier to eat—a dish any Red Shirt would be glad to snack on as a final meal before being sent to their inevitable doom! 😉

11 Father’s Day Foods Sure to Make Dad’s Day

Posted June 13, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Holidays / 0 Comments

Father’s Day is just around the corner, and I’m extra excited this year!

This Father’s Day will be my husband’s first official Father’s Day AND it falls on his birthday, so I really wanted to make it count. Especially since most of the gifts baby makes for him these days come wrapped in diapers! 😉

I usually wind up cooking something for the Mister on gift-giving occasions (for Christmas I made him white rum and almond hot chocolate!). So for Father’s Day, I decided to peruse my archive of meaty main dishes for inspiration when I realized that lots of other moms are probably in the same boat! So I decided to share a roundup of all the dishes I’m considering, so you can use them too!

Starship Enterprise Pizza

Posted June 8, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 7 Comments

When it comes to Star Trek, what feature of the show is more iconic that the Starship Enterprise? The ship has a beautiful streamlined, distinctive look, and I loved the idea of using it as inspiration for a Star Trek entree.

But what to make? Pizza was the first thing that came to mind. From the beginning, I wanted to make party-friendly finger foods for this menu, stuff you could serve at a Star Trek party. And pizza is easy to throw together and wonderfully shareable—the ultimate party food!

So I pulled out my favorite pizza sauce recipe and got to work! With party food in mind, I decided to go with premade pizza dough, since it’s faster to work with. The sauce I used is easy to whip up in about 10 minutes (and can be made and chilled beforehand). I used pepperoni for my decorations and whipped up some homemade pesto for dipping.

So grab a slice of Starship Enterprise Pizza, and let’s boldly party on! 😉

Tribble Energy Bites

Posted June 1, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 4 Comments

Fandom Foodies announced earlier this year that they would be doing a Star Trek recipe month this June. This was perfect, since I was already planning on doing a Star Trek TOS menu this month anyway! 🙂

[EDIT: Sooo it turns out the Fandom Foodies theme was changed to Game of Thrones? Lol! You should totally still check it out. There’s always good stuff on the Fandom Foodies linkups. I’m gonna keep doing Star Trek though, since I’ve been looking forward to it for so long. :)]

All the recipes I’ll be making this month are crowd-friendly finger foods, perfect for any Star Trek party.

We’re starting the month off with a Tribble-themed appetizer: cranberry almond energy bites coated in shredded coconut. It’s a recipe I came up with while I was pregnant with the Little Mister, when I needed a quick make-ahead recipe for postpartum breakfasts and snacks. It’s delicious, quick, and easy to customize based off what you already have in your cabinets. Plus, it looks just like those fuzzy little Tribbles: my favorite characters in all of Star Trek TOS!

Cookbook Update: On Cover Photos & Tea

Posted May 30, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Blogging / 8 Comments

Howdy, folks! Back when I first announced I was writing a teatime cookbook, I asked if/how/when you’d like to receive updates, and many of you requested a monthly post detailing how things are coming along. Here’s the first installment! A lot has come together since I first started working on it, but here are the highlights:

Salted Dark Chocolate Almond Toffee

Posted May 25, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments

I loooove toffee. Sweet, nutty, and satisfyingly crunchy—it’s all I’ve ever wanted in a dessert. So when I saw that the main character in the book Sabriel eats some homemade toffee while traveling through the Old Kingdom, I decided this was going to be my dessert recipe no matter what.

I adapted this English toffee recipe by Ghirardelli to get my recipe, which I completely scarfed down over the span of a few days (no joke—I barely left any for the Mister). This toffee is the perfect combo of salted dark chocolate, toasted almonds, and crunchy caramel candy. And it’s super easy to make!

Sign of Three Lemons: Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins

Posted May 18, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments

In the book Sabriel, the main character and her companions stop at an inn called “The Sign of Three Lemons,” which is named for the lemon trees in the middle of the town square. The innkeepers use these lemons to make scented soaps and a variety of delicious dishes. I wanted to make a lemon dish in honor of the inn for my menu, and lemon poppy seed muffins seemed quite fitting. ^.^

This recipe was originally developed by Creme de la Crumb. I love how tender and lightly sweet the muffins are, with just the right amount of lemon and poppy. Enjoy! 🙂

P.S. These are great for freezing. I froze mine in a ziplock bag to save for post-baby breakfasts!

A Sabriel Reading Kit

Posted May 16, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Reading Kits / 5 Comments

At first I thought I’d have a hard time coming up with items for a Sabriel reading kit, but when I sat down to brainstorm, I couldn’t stop the flow of ideas! Charter marks! Mogget! Swords! So much more! Though Google searches turned out to be comically tricky…since “Sabriel” is also the name of a character from Supernatural. Uh-oh! 😛

But after some digging, I managed to find a lot of fun stuff! I’m especially proud of the amigurumi Mogget I found on Etsy. Enjoy! ^.^

Grilled Tilapia with Tomato Basil Cream Sauce

Posted May 11, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 4 Comments

While reading Sabriel, one of the dishes that stood out most to me was the grilled fish Sabriel eats when she arrives at her father’s house. The fish itself is described as “small and almost circular,” and it’s served with a delicious-sounding sauce of tomato, basil, and garlic. As soon as I read those words, I knew I’d found the entree for my Sabriel menu!

Though the sauce’s base isn’t described, it sounded to me like it was most likely a cream sauce (I’ve seen similar sauces served with fish before). The fish had me stumped at first. The closest comparison I could think of was tilapia, since it’s silver and on the smallish side. I grilled some up, whipped up a cream base I adapted from this recipe, and roasted some grape tomatoes. This has become one of my favorite ways to prepare fish!

Sabriel’s Toffee Tea

Posted May 9, 2017 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Teas / 5 Comments

In the book Sabriel, toffee and dried fruit are the snacks that help Sabriel make it through her trek through the wintery Old Kingdom. I was intrigued by the idea of making a toffee tea, so I took a look at some of the custom blends other people had made on Adagio.com to get a sense of how they achieved the right balance of flavors for toffee tea. Chocolate and caramel seemed to be the two standbys, usually paired with a nut flavor (almost always almond). I developed my own chocolate/caramel ratio to get the right balance of flavors and added in some hazelnut to make it unique. Enjoy!