Medieval Cooking

I was looking for something else and found another interpretation of the same recipe. It was done by Christianne Muusers, who is a Dutch food historian, and one of my heroes. I was disappointed that I didn’t know that she’d done this recipe.
Go to: http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/03.4histrecept.htm
I am trying to get everything together for the [...]

I am doing some pre-cooking for the Queen’s Rapier Championship event that will be held at the end of the month. Many of the recipes are out of Traveling Dysshes by Siobhan Medhbh O’Roarke and Cordelia Toser. This feast is being cooked on a very strict deadline, so there is no time to [...]

This was originally written in October of 2009 and somehow never posted.  It was a stressful time of my life, so I am not surprised that I forgot to hit “publish”.  Enjoy.
The last two weeks have been stressful. The weekend before last, my daughter was hospitalized with an asthma “event” and we spent several days [...]

This past week was a week where I was not feeling it as far as blogging goes. The week before that took a lot out of me and I fell behind on basic house maintenance and self-care. Last week was more about making my environment comfortable than about food and food blogging, which is sometimes [...]

Eating responsibly should include some thought towards waste. What is more wasteful than only eating bits and pieces of an animal that has been slaughtered on our behalf? There is a new movement towards nose-to-tail eating that is gaining steam in the environment of American frugal-chic. It wastes nothing and offal [...]

In two weeks I will be cooking lunch for an event and have been playing around with redactions for it. The recipes are from all over Western Europe and some of the dishes are being specifically test-run for a feast I’m doing in October to see how they go over with the attendees. [...]

It has been a difficult week.
On Tuesday, my thirteen year old cat went in for a major lumpectomy. He wasn’t doing well after the surgery and they kept him for an additional night. There was nothing that indicated anything life-threatening, but more that he had undergone significant surgery and was thirteen years old. [...]

This was the main course for dinner this evening.
2 small yams, diced into 1/4″ cubes
3 small Idaho potatoes, diced into 1/4″ cubes
1 1/2 c fresh broccoli, cut into florets, cut small (spoon sized)
1 1/2 quarts vegetable broth
1 small onion, diced fine
a splash of canola oil
pepper to taste
optional ingredient: sour cream
optional ingredient: bacon, chopped fine
optional ingredient: [...]

I make bread fairly often. It’s something you can do during a day that doesn’t take up every waking moment and doesn’t even require that much supervision. You can mix up the sponge and the flour mixture at 9:00 a.m. and have bread for dinner at 5:00 p.m. It’s a beautiful thing.
Everything [...]

Yesterday I was contacted by a friend that is allergic to almonds, but not hazelnuts or pistachios, so I tried them out this morning. You’re not getting a lot of analysis here as I’m writing before running to get my house clean before I have guests in it.
Before assembling everything to actually make the [...]