Gourmet Home Cooking

Well, unfortunately I can't help you with financial matters; you'll have to book an appointment with the bank manager for that... or better yet, you could head on down to the employment agency and get yourself a job.

The point of this article is to help alleviate some of the guilt you're sure to have gained from constantly ignoring your pets' not-so-subtle hints about how amazing it would be to eat at the world renowned Kelp restaurant, and instead handing them a bowl of the Soup Faerie's dung ridden soup, or worse still, a prehistoric omelette.

So what can I do? Well, I can provide you with recipes for budget-busting Kelp-worthy meals, of course! Read on to find out how to make a full three course meal straight from the restaurant’s menu without having to sell your home.

This week we’ll be making the following:

Starter: Maraquan Cream Broth

Main course: Luxurious Vegetarian Star Pie

Dessert: Honeyed Horn Of Plenty

Maraquan Cream Broth (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• Carnapepper x 2
• Two Garlic Bulbs
• Bottle of Water (optional - another bottle if needed)
• Flask of Olive Oil
• Salt Mote
• Dried Chilli Peppers
• Extra Creamy Soup (optional)

To start, place your carnapeppers (seasoned with garlic and olive oil) into your fire faerie oven for approximately one hour, or until they begin to resemble your dried chilli peppers.

Now add your salt mote and some more garlic (that has of course been crushed) into a bowl along with half a crushed dried chilli pepper.

Add your cooked carnapeppers and your bottle of water (minus the bottle), and get a masher and mash it into a pulp. You may need to get a strong Grarrl to do this, as it needs to be thoroughly liquefied. If there are still lumps in it afterwards, you can merely sieve them out.

If at this point your broth resembles something that has already been eaten, don’t worry; just add a few tablespoons of the extra creamy soup to give it a better appearance.

Finally, place your mixture into a pan and heat on your stove for five minutes. If it is a bit thick, now is the time to add another bottle of water. Make sure you don’t let it boil.

If you wish, upon serving you can also add a kelp leaf or two to the bowl to give it that finishing touch!

Now wasn’t that a delightfully rich and spicy soup to tingle your pets taste buds!? Although it is a completely different recipe to the one used at Kelp, I’m sure your pets will be asking for seconds and thirds.

But before you give it to them, how about making them an equally delightful main course?

Luxurious Vegetarian Star Pie (serves 8)

Ingredients for pie crust:

• Exploding Bag of Wheat Flour
• Butterfish
• Bottle of Water

Place your wheat flour and butterfish (or other alternative butter/lard) into a bowl and mix until it resembles a crumbly breadcrumb texture. Now add a few spoons of your bottle of water and using your hands turn the flour into dough.

Split the dough into two pieces (one slightly larger than the other), and leave to rest in a fridge for a while (half an hour or so).

Next, sprinkle some of your wheat flour onto a dry clean surface. Get your larger dough ball out of the fridge, sprinkle it with the flour and grab your classic wooden rolling pin. Roll the dough into a circle (half a centimetre thick) and place it in your pie pan. If you don’t have one, get a dripping cream pie hat, clean it so the cream is gone, and use that instead.

Now we move on to the filling.

Ingredients:

• Grunion
• Zeevine
• Starberry x 3
• Salt Mote

First, de-core and chop up your starberries to equal sized chunks, place into a bowl and then do the same with your Zeevine.

Cut your grunion into very fine slices (or alternately you can crush it), and add that to your starberries and Zeevine along with a pinch of your salt mote and some more of your wheat flour. If you have an addiction to garlic and you have some left over from making your starter, now is the time to add it.

Mix up your filling and place into your pie crust.

Next get your other dough ball out of the fridge, add flour and roll it out into another circle, then place on top of your pie. If you wish, you can cut out a pattern using a plastic butter knife or add strips of dough on top to decorate it.

Finally, bake it in your oven for around 45 minutes or until it starts to brown.

Yummy! Your pets will find the delicious spicy seasoning of grunion really brings out the Starberry flavour in this pie, and they’ll soon be asking you to make one for them every night! But you’re not done yet, your pets are nearly full now, but to finish off a perfect meal, why not make them a perfect dessert?

Honeyed Horn Of Plenty (serves 4)

Ingredients:

• Kau Kau Farm Milk
• Bag of Sugar
• Cherry Juice
• Chocolate Honey
• Lemon
• Chocolate Seashell Sculpture
• Bar of Chocolate
• Cherries

First get your milk and pour into a bowl, then add three spoons of sugar.

Now melt your bar of chocolate and add that to your milk.

Mix for a few minutes, then place it in your fridge.

Now, get your cherry juice and pour into a bowl, add some sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice, mix and place in your fridge.

Leave both mixtures in your fridge for roughly two hours, then take them both out, give them a good stir and place in your freezer for a further two hours.

Take them out of your freezer, mix them and place them back in your freezer. Continue to do this until the chocolate milk has solidified into ice cream, and the cherry juice has solidified into cherry sorbet.

Alternatively, if you have an ice cream maker, you can simply use that instead of using the mentioned freezer method.

Take your chocolate seashell sculpture and remove the decorative chocolate on sticks. Scoop your chocolate ice cream into the shell and place your cherry sorbet scoop on top. Drizzle with chocolate honey, then place cherries on top.

There you have it! A simple to make but very delicious dessert!

So now you’ve silenced your pets’ pleas for gourmet food, I’m sure you wanting to know just how much your home cooking saved you? Well, I’ll tell you.

If you bought this three course meal for your four pets at Kelp, it would have cost you a total of 217,600 NP. You spent: 158,000 NP (based on half the price of 3 Starberries, 1 Salt Mote and inclusive of all optional ingredients). Now a saving of 60,000 NP may not sound like it is worth the effort, but I’m sure all you bargain hunters out there could make these recipes for a fraction of the price I listed.

Until next time, Happy Cooking!

(Please do not actually attempt to make these recipes as they are in no way accurate and are based off of Neopian items.)