Eating like a Redwall Mouse for a day: The Recap
If you read this and think ‘huh what?’ please read my earlier post.
So after I thought ‘Hm I could do this maybe’ I went ‘OK I definitely want to do this’. Which meant I had to do it soon, because I’m a fast reader and would probably finish The Long Patrol by the end of the week.
So, I started planning the menu, searched for recipes, made the grocery list and then spent practically all of yesterday in the kitchen or eating. Which was… a lot of work, but also a lot of fun.
So. Here’s how it went:
The menu. As mentioned in my earlier post, the menu I made for the day was:
Breakfast: Hare’s Haversack Crumble with maple cream sauce
Lunch: Goody Stickle’s oat farls with honeyed goat cheese, green salad
Dinner: Leek/mushroom/cheese pasties and Shrimp’n’hotroot soup
Dessert: Cranachan
For snacks/elevensies/early lunch, I wanted to make Spiced Gatehouse Tea Bread and I also planned on getting some dried fruit and nuts to nibble on throughout the day.
For drinks, I went with mint tea, cordial and of course craft beer or cider. I am not a big alcohol drinker, so I hoped I could find some so called alcohol-free ‘abbey beer’ (abbey beer is a thing in my country and it’s very good but it’s also usually pretty strong at 6% to 10%, which. Woof. Too strong for me).
The planning. I don’t have the Redwall Cookbook (yet) so this was mostly scrounging websites (some really good recs in the comments of my earlier post!), making an Excel spreadsheet (love those) and then making a massive-ass grocery list.
And then forgetting to bring said grocery list when actually going grocery shopping. Whoops. Fortunately, I had gone over the spreadsheet so many times I still knew what I needed to get and I only forgot one (one!) non-essential item!
I also perhaps went a bit overboard in buying beer and cider, because I found this organic grocery store with some really cool (but pricey!) offerings. Oh well. It never hurts to have a little stock in your cellar, I guess.
What went right:
Hare’s Haversack Crumble with maple cream sauce. I mean, it’s a crumble. I regularly make crumble for breakfast, so this was something I could easily put together half-asleep. I used peaches instead of blackberries because, well, I like peaches and some other dishes I had planned were already quite red fruit heavy. I also used whole wheat flour to make it more nutritious.
The sauce – I think I used a little too much butter, but it still tasted amazing. And with the whole wheat flour, the nuts and the cream sauce, this was a very filling breakfast.
Hare's Haversack Crumble with peaches and maple cream sauce
This isn't coffee, it's uh. I'ts acorn juice.
Rambling. Like a good little Redwall creature I went for a walk in the… well, woods is maybe a strong word, but there’s trees and it’s green and it’s nice. Also I got lost (a little) and needed my magic rectangle to get back to civilization again. Thankfully it had a mystical map that showed me exactly where I was and where I needed to go!
I also found a friend! Only he could not keep up with me, so I had to leave him behind. Sadness.
Where I still knew I was going
The point I needed the magic rectangle to find my way home
Strawberries. After going a-rambling, I wanted to make strawberry fizz because that sounded amazing. However, it sounded amazing for a sweltering hot day, and today it was a whopping 12 degrees outside and I was cold and damp because I got rained on. So I decided nope, I ate the strawberries as they were and the ice cream will keep until the first heatwave we’re definitely going to have this summer.
Strawberries, elderflower cordial and a thief!
Goody Stickler’s Oat Farls with goat cheese, apple and honey. I’ve made soda bread before, and this was not too different. The recipe said to cook them in a skillet, however, I only have a small one and I also did not fancy setting off the fire alarm and pissing off all my roommates, so I just whacked them in the oven for half an hour.
I originally planned to eat this with a green salad, and then remembered… I don’t really like salads. So, I just sliced up an apple and put that on top, drizzled it with dark honey and called it lunch.
Oh, again, I used whole wheat flour. Got to get that fibre in, you know.
Oat farls with goat cheese, apple and honey
Shrimp’n’hotroot soup. Ooooh yeah this is going into my personal cookbook. I should have made this stuff years ago. Hot damn (literally)!
Although, next time I make this I might try blending the veggies before I add the shrimp and the milk. I like a thick soup you can stick your spoon into and have it stay upright on its own. Also I want to explore some vegetarian shrimp alternatives because, well, I am vegetarian and also shrimp are so expensive!
Mushroom/leek/cheese pastie. Also very good. This was already in my personal cookbook, although for some idiotic reason I never made them before. The puff pastry could have been crispier, but the filling was very good and it was a nice complement to the soup.
Mushroom'n'leek'n'cheese pastie
Cranachan. Yes, yes, I know. Technically this isn’t in the books and if I wanted to stay true to the books, I should have made trifle instead. However, I’m not a big fan of trifle, and I could see a Redwall abbot having himself a boozy little treat after everyone else has gone to bed. So. It’s the, uh, spirit that counts, right?
Also it was delicious. Definitely getting a spot in my cookbook, next to the hotroot soup.
And finally, the peppermint tea. I do not like peppermint candy, but for some reason I do like peppermint tea. I found a basic one at the organic goods store and it’s quickly becoming my go-to after dinner tea. Especially soothing and refreshing after a heavy meal!
Leftovers. So. Many. Leftovers. Honestly, I think I’ll be eating like a Redwall hare for at least another two days. Such a shame. Woe is me.
What went wrong:
Spiced Gatehouse Tea Bread. I don’t know if I did something wrong or if my oven refused to cooperate (it is a janky little thing, it usually works fine for pizza and casseroles, but it might not be precise enough for actual baking) but my first attempt came out reasonably OK looking but underbaked.
My second attempt was a brick. It did not rise, it did not bake and I have no idea why it flopped like that, but I took one bite and threw the whole thing in the trash.
I briefly considered trying a third time but decided not to. Instead, I switched gears and decided as I probably would have some puff pastry left from the pasties, I could make some simple apple and cinnamon snacks instead.
Also, this recipe raised some questions re: spices. How do the Redwall mice get their cinnamon, their allspice, their cardamom? Is there a mouse spice road? Mouse colonialism? A fascinating thought, and also a slightly worrying one.
The first attempt. It tasted OK, but I thought I could do better. I was wrong.
Dishes. So. Many dishes. I could really do with some dibbuns to help me clean up…
All in all, I had a lot of fun, spent a lot of money and at the end of the day, I was pretty exhausted. Not sure I will do this again, although it certainly added to the experience of reading a Redwall book!
