So we have been sucked in by the Game of Thrones.  It started a few years ago Halloween when I rented a DVD of the beginning of Season 1, and we were hooked.  We power watched the first 4 seasons and have been watching it since.  I just finished reading the books as well.

In the books, unlike the shows, there is an emphasis on food.  It was fascinating to read about, then I stumbled upon recipes for Pigeon Pie and Lemon Cakes online, and I was intrigued.  So I purchased “A Feast of Ice & Fire”, the official cookbook.  My thought was I could make some of the recipes, and we could eat them when the new season starts.  But after receiving the book 2 days ago I am thrilled.  There are quotes from actual recipes from the 14th century.  There are spices I have never heard about.  There are things I would never consider eating, but other things that sound wildly intriguing.  And many of the recipes I can make now with things we have available now on our farm.

So last night we got started with a couple of Winterfell recipes.  I made Aurochs Roasted with Leeks.  Now Aurochs are extinct so beef is substituted.  I managed to forget to make the Medieval Black Pepper sauce (I now just realized) so I will make that tonight to go with the leftovers.  Here it is just out of the oven.

And I made Buttered Beets to go with it.  These recipes meant I had to go out in the snow yesterday and harvest the carrots, beets, leeks, sage, thyme and parsley.  I ended up frozen so was worried it would not be worth it.  Here are the beets as they are finished sauteing.

So the food did not look as good as the photos in the cookbook, but man was it good!  It was a flavorful, warm, winter’s meal that I had with homemade plum wine (and Tom had with his cider).  Totally worth the effort.  And I felt just a little bit medieval.

PS  The next night we had the leftover beef with the Medieval Pepper Sauce which was quite spicy.

I paired it with Buttered Carrots from King’s Landing.

It made for a good meal.

So I decided that I am going to keep cooking dishes from this cookbook.  And rather than clog my farm blog with them, I will be posting them at different blog site https://feastsoficeandfire.wordpress.com/2017/02/05/first-blog-post/  So if you are interested, please follow along there.