Tag: Entree

Mrs. McGregor’s Potato Leek Quiche

Posted March 17, 2022 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

The funny thing about learning to cook through food blogging is that my cooking skill hasn’t followed a linear progression. Instead of starting with the basics and working my way up, I hopped around from making soup one day to ornate pastries another. It definitely keeps me on my toes. However, it also puts me in the odd position of knowing how to make chocolate cream puffs with brandy pastry cream…but not quiche. Somehow, in the 8 years I’ve been blogging, I’ve never had an opportunity to make it. So when I sat down to plan the entree for my PETER RABBIT menu, I knew I wanted a dish that could showcase the contents of the McGregors’ garden, and quiche was the perfect candidate.

First, I reread PETER RABBIT and made a list of every plant mentioned in Mr. McGregor’s garden. The potatoes caught my eye, since they would be a great way to make the dish hearty and filling without meat (I’m trying to keep it vegetarian, since PETER RABBIT is a garden-centric story). For flavor pairings, I was inspired by the Leek and Potato Soup with Parsnip and Garlic from my cookbook. Leeks are a type of onion, and onions are mentioned as being present in the McGregors’ garden too. So I took potatoes, leeks, and garlic and made a quiche I could imagine Mrs. McGregor serving to her husband after a hectic morning of chasing off mischievous little rabbits.

I started with my go-to pie crust recipe and added in some fresh rosemary. For my quiche base, I used two recipes for reference: Easy Quiche from The Spruce Eats and Crustless Potato Asparagus Quiche from The Natural Nurturer. I LOVE how the final product turned out. Lots of rich flavors coming together in a filling, aromatic dish!

Templeton’s Smorgasbord Sandwich

Posted January 20, 2022 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

Deviled ham? Swiss cheese? RADISHES? Stick with me, folks. Today’s recipe may sound a bit “kitchen sink,” but I promise it’s delicious. 😉

While reading CHARLOTTE’S WEB, I noticed a lot of the food revolves around Templeton the Rat. He’s mostly motivated by food, which I for one find highly relatable. The whole reason he agrees to go to the county fair is because the sheep wows him with descriptions of all the discarded food he’ll find there.

Today’s kinda weird yet tasty recipe is inspired by the lunch Templeton finds wrapped in a newspaper while looking for words for Charlotte’s web. It includes a deviled ham sandwich, some Swiss cheese, and a hard boiled egg. It got me thinking about the song “A Veritable Smorgasbord,” which Templeton sings in the movie, and I thought it would be fun to merge the whole lunch together into one sandwich.

The deviled ham was easy to whip up (I used my variation on a deviled ham salad recipe from Bellyfull). Since the deviled ham already included a hard boiled egg, I didn’t use one as a topping, but you could if want some extra egginess. I decided to throw in some radishes too, since Mr. Zuckerman grows them on his farm in the book. In the end, the whole flavor profile was giving me 1950s vibes in the best way, which is kinda perfect, since the book was written in 1952.

So don’t be shy, give Templeton’s Smorgasbord Sandwich a try. It might pleasantly surprise you, much like Templeton himself. 🙂

Fire Roasted Foolbird

Posted December 2, 2021 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

Today’s recipe leans hard into the rugged setting of HATCHET–we’re roasting foolbirds over an open fire!

In HATCHET, “foolbird” is what Brian calls ruffed grouse, which are plentiful in his part of the forest and make up a good chunk of his diet once he learns to hunt with a bow. Since grouse are hard to come by in the grocery store, I went with Cornish hens, which are roughly the same size.

It took a while for us to have good enough weather for this recipe (I am SO sick of rain right now), but it was worth it. I got to sit out in the yard on a mild November morning, enjoying the solitude as I stoked the fire and turned the birds. I felt peaceful and engaged at the same time. Even though I’m not usually an outdoorsy person, I felt like I was getting a brief taste of what HATCHET’s author, Gary Paulsen, loved so much about the wilderness.

Plus, the hens turned out DELICIOUS–smokey and juicy, with crisp skin. I stuffed the cavities of the birds with fresh sage and oregano, which grow in the area of Canada where the book is based, and they gave the meat just a touch of aromatic herbiness. Of course, the birds were also flavored with the best seasoning of all: the satisfaction of having cooked it myself out in nature with just a few simple tools…and the help of my fire-smart, Eagle Scout husband. 😉

Maple Butter Basted Steak with Rosemary and Roasted Garlic

Posted September 23, 2021 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

Would you believe me if I told you the Nancy Drew series is absolutely FULL of steak? Nancy and her friends eat it in at least FOURTEEN books! I haven’t made steak for the blog in eons, so I chose it as this menu’s entree and challenged myself to make it seasonal.

Lately I’ve been eating roasted garlic rosemary bread with maple butter on top, and it got me thinking about how well rosemary, maple, and garlic go together. Rosemary and garlic are my go-to aromatics for steak, so I decided to see what happened if I added maple to the mix in the form of maple butter, used to baste the steak as it sears. Oooooh man, you guys. It’s the coolest combo of savory, salty, herby, and sweet. A steak that’s been kissed by autumn.* dreamy sigh *

Plus, it’s a quick and easy preparation, which suits the steak served in THE PASSWORD TO LARKSPUR LANE, my favorite Nancy book so far. This. Book. Has. Everything: Carrier pigeons caught in plane engines, coded messages, kidnapped doctors, pigeon fanciers (raised eyebrow), and competitive diving. It’s a wild ride to say the least. 😀

Halfway through the book, Nancy and her friends help an elderly couple make a steak dinner as she investigates a mysterious blue flame that’s been popping up in their yard at night. Something tells me she wasn’t spending hours waiting for the meat to marinate, so a quick sear with aromatics and compound butter feels appropriate.

If you’re looking for an autumnal dinner to go with your cozy mystery book, this is the meal for you!

A Very Hungry Hot Dog Bar

Posted July 15, 2021 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 1 Comment

Running a blog can be a lot of work. Sometimes I sit down to type and my brain just won’t do words, or a recipe I planned doesn’t work, leaving me scrambling to make something else at the last minute. But other times a recipe is pure fun at every step of the process, from early development to editing the final post. That’s the kind of recipe we’re making today. It was just such a joy to work on. It reminded me why I love what I do! 😀

Mouse on the Go: Stuart’s Hummus Deviled Egg Boats and Mini Pepper Roadsters

Posted May 20, 2021 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

Hold onto your hat’s, folks! Today we’re gettin’ whimsical! 😀

Lately I’ve been trying to make a lot of historically accurate blog recipes, like Rustic Brown Bread from JANE EYRE and Rüeblitorte from HEIDI. I planned to stick with that theme through this menu too, but the only entree in STUART LITTLE is lamb stew. Since I already shared my go-to lamb stew recipe in my HUNGER GAMES MENU, I decided to have some fun and make something silly instead. Plus, I’m unofficially trying to make everything on this menu work for a birthday party just because I think STUART LITTLE would make such a cute party theme, and I’ve never seen lamb stew served at a birthday.

For my focus, I chose Stuart’s favorite modes of transportation: his car and boat. I made deviled egg boats for a WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE menu a few years ago, and the one’s I’m sharing today are a slight variation on that. I made homemade hummus from Gimme Some Oven, mixed it into the filling, dyed the egg white blue to match the boat in the story, and topped it all with a pita chip sail. The rest of the hummus went to fill the roadsters: mini peppers I cut in half and fitted with tomato wheels, pretzel steering wheels, and chive seat backs.

These were SUPER simple and so fun to make. If you’ve got kids, I highly recommend getting them involved with this one. My 4-year-old loved putting the sails on the boats and driving the little cars around his plate!

Lemon Garlic Baked Fish with Oregano

Posted March 18, 2021 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

Did you know baked fish is the only entree mentioned by name in the book HEIDI? That’s lucky for me, since right now it’s the middle of Lent. Talk about a perfect time to test out fish recipes!

Heidi eats this dish while staying in Frankfurt with the Sessemans. Although they’re an affluent family who could afford to make this dish super fancy if they wanted, the Sessemans’ kind, down-to-earth demeanor made me feel like they’d appreciate a simple recipe that let quality ingredients shine. I used walleye, which is genetically similar to zander, a fish native to Germany (and Heidi’s home country of Switzerland!). Fresh lemon, oregano, and garlic were all the dressing it needed to create a refined dish celebrating delicate, tender fish. Also, I found out “oregano” means “the brightness of the mountain,” which is perfect for this book!

I enjoyed the simplicity of the flavors in this dish. Everything was fresh and light, a perfect reminder of the “the brightness of the mountain.” Enjoy! Read More

Mr. Rochester’s Breakfast: Toast with Fried Ham and Poached Eggs

Posted January 21, 2021 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

This year I have a special cooking goal. I want to delve into historical recipes and cooking methods, so I can create food from fiction that’s more accurate to the period in which the characters lived. Today’s recipe is inspired by a scene in JANE EYRE where Mr. Rochester is convinced Jane is a ghost or figment of his imagination. To prove herself, Jane promises to make him a breakfast of eggs and fried ham. Of course, there’s no harm in just throwing some eggs and ham in a hot skillet and calling it done. They’re good no matter how you make them! However, in this scene I saw the perfect opportunity to learn how people would have made such a breakfast in 1820’s England. Read More

Strega Nona’s Pasta Buffet

Posted August 6, 2020 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 2 Comments

Tomie dePaola, who passed away earlier this year, was one of my favorite author-illustrators. I loved how his sweet, seemingly simple stories were steeped in cleverness and culture. As a Catholic, I especially appreciated how he infused his Catholic upbringing into his work. I was naturally saddened to hear of his death, but it made me all the more determined that my children should be familiar with his stories. In the past few months, they’ve enjoyed a surplus of dePaola books from the library: The Art Lesson, Pancakes for Breakfast, and Quiet . . . but most especially Strega Nona.

One of dePaola’s most popular books, Strega Nonna is the story of a “grandmother witch” with a magical pasta pot. She hires an assistant, Big Anthony, to help out around the house. He sees Strega Nona perform part of a spell to make her pasta pot cook endless pasta, but he runs into trouble showing it off to the villagers (despite her warnings) because he never saw her perform the part of the spell that makes it STOP.

As with many of dePaola’s stories, the magic is in the details: the historically accurate clothing, the peacock perched on Strega Nona’s roof that soundlessly flies off (possibly to warn her) when the trouble starts, and the priest and nuns praying for deliverance from the deluge of endless pasta threatening to overtake their village. Quiet depth pervades the story, rewarding us for stopping to look and listen rather than just grab what we need from the plot and move on.

Violet Beauregarde’s Blueberry Pie with Chocolate Crust

Posted December 13, 2018 by Alison's Wonderland Recipes in Book of the Month Recipes / 0 Comments

Today we’re continuing our all-chocolate Charlie and the Chocolate Factory menu with a tribute to Violet Beauregarde. As most of you will remember from the book/movie, Violet snatches up an experimental chewing gum from a research room in Wonka’s factory and discovers that it’s designed to taste like an entire meal: tomato soup, roast beef, and blueberry pie. Unfortunately, when the gum starts to taste like the dessert course, Violet starts turning into a giant blueberry! It’s one of the most memorable parts of the whole story, so I knew it had to be in my menu…and like any Wonka recipe, it had to feature chocolate! 😉

This luscious blueberry pie is a combo of two recipes: the filling from Pioneer Woman’s blueberry pie and a chocolate version of the pie crust from my cookbook. Since I knew blueberry pies can be especially liquidy, I added a little lemon juice to the filling to help it thicken better. I also added a bit of salt, just because it seemed odd to me that the recipe didn’t call for it (most fruit pies do). I loved the final flavors. The filling was sweet and juicy with just a hint of tartness, and the crust had a deep, dark chocolaty taste that grounded all the bright notes in the filling. I couldn’t help but decorate the crust (after last month’s decorative pie, I think I’ve found a new hobby), but you can keep it simple you like. Enjoy!

NOTE: This recipe needs to set for at least 4 hours.