...
Show More
One of my best friends from college got me this cookbook for Christmas, which was a super thoughtful move! Why? Well, you know how autistic kids stereotypically play by lining things up? I didn’t do that much, but I DID make lists. Of everything. This included extensive notes on my favorite book series. And a major feature of the Redwall books – which are basically like Arthurian medievalesque adventures with sword-wielding mice and hares and such – was their delicious-sounding mostly-vegetarian menus. I had been doing some organizing at my mom’s house and found at least 8 pages of notes I’d taken on the Redwall food…which I told my friend about, because her daughters had recently gotten into the series. And she discovered that there is actually an official Redwall cookbook!
This is actually far more of a picture book than the Redwall novels are, which means you get adorable illustrations of badgers in sun hats and apron-wearing rodents on every page, along with a frame story about young Sister Pansy learning the ropes of the abbey kitchen. The recipes themselves use kind of a basic set of repeating ingredients, but that sort of makes sense given the setting. All the ones I’ve tried are the kind of thing you could make for a normal meal (rather than elaborate concoctions meant to look like something else, as in many themed cookbooks).
n Recipes I’ve triedn
- Spiced gatehouse tea bread (This is a lightly sweetened whole wheat fruit bread, where the fruit is soaked in actual tea. Really good toasted for breakfast! I actually made this with my friend’s daughters, which was fun…though they were not as into eating it as making it. I think that may be because it is very strongly spiced – you could cut back a little if that’s not your cup of tea (ha!))
- Stuffed springtide mushrooms (I recommend using panko breadcrumbs for the texture, and parmesan for the ‘hard cheese’, and pairing with a lighter spring vegetable like snow peas or asparagus)
- Shrimp ‘n’ hotroot soup (Basically a chowder with leeks and potatoes. Good for a chilly day…but not actually spicy, so feel free to punch it up a bit if that’s what you were hoping for.)
- Outside ‘n’ inside cobbler riddle (Stonefruit cobbler flavored w/ orange zest with a topping made with almond flour and yoghurt. Made this with a mix of peaches, just-barely-ripe plums, and apricots, and the sweet-tart fruit with the biscuit-like almond topping was amazing. I imagine you could also use cherries as part of the mixture, or just one type of stonefruit, if that’s what you have available.)
- Squirrelmum’s blackberry & apple cake (Made this with fresh wild blackberries I foraged, but store-bought would be fine and the recipe says you can also use frozen berries – though I might add those last while still frozen and maybe toss them in a bit of extra flour to avoid sogginess. I was worried about the amount of baking powder making it taste weird, so I only used half (1.5 t vs. 1 T). The almond cake around the fruit seemed like it rose fine; it was a little flat overall, but that seemed more due to the batter:fruit ratio. Not a bad thing – just don’t expect it to look like the tall cake in the illustration! But DO check your cake at 30 min, because my was done at that time, which was 10-15 min “early”. Deliciously fruity and great with tea.)
This is actually far more of a picture book than the Redwall novels are, which means you get adorable illustrations of badgers in sun hats and apron-wearing rodents on every page, along with a frame story about young Sister Pansy learning the ropes of the abbey kitchen. The recipes themselves use kind of a basic set of repeating ingredients, but that sort of makes sense given the setting. All the ones I’ve tried are the kind of thing you could make for a normal meal (rather than elaborate concoctions meant to look like something else, as in many themed cookbooks).
n Recipes I’ve triedn
- Spiced gatehouse tea bread (This is a lightly sweetened whole wheat fruit bread, where the fruit is soaked in actual tea. Really good toasted for breakfast! I actually made this with my friend’s daughters, which was fun…though they were not as into eating it as making it. I think that may be because it is very strongly spiced – you could cut back a little if that’s not your cup of tea (ha!))
- Stuffed springtide mushrooms (I recommend using panko breadcrumbs for the texture, and parmesan for the ‘hard cheese’, and pairing with a lighter spring vegetable like snow peas or asparagus)
- Shrimp ‘n’ hotroot soup (Basically a chowder with leeks and potatoes. Good for a chilly day…but not actually spicy, so feel free to punch it up a bit if that’s what you were hoping for.)
- Outside ‘n’ inside cobbler riddle (Stonefruit cobbler flavored w/ orange zest with a topping made with almond flour and yoghurt. Made this with a mix of peaches, just-barely-ripe plums, and apricots, and the sweet-tart fruit with the biscuit-like almond topping was amazing. I imagine you could also use cherries as part of the mixture, or just one type of stonefruit, if that’s what you have available.)
- Squirrelmum’s blackberry & apple cake (Made this with fresh wild blackberries I foraged, but store-bought would be fine and the recipe says you can also use frozen berries – though I might add those last while still frozen and maybe toss them in a bit of extra flour to avoid sogginess. I was worried about the amount of baking powder making it taste weird, so I only used half (1.5 t vs. 1 T). The almond cake around the fruit seemed like it rose fine; it was a little flat overall, but that seemed more due to the batter:fruit ratio. Not a bad thing – just don’t expect it to look like the tall cake in the illustration! But DO check your cake at 30 min, because my was done at that time, which was 10-15 min “early”. Deliciously fruity and great with tea.)
