Toy Soldier Saga

I am looking for some help from the fans of the Toy Soldier Saga who are also skilled in the kitchen.

I name a variety of dishes in the course of the books, and I would love to be able to add depth by posting recipes for the various dishes so mentioned on my website.  This also helps me because then I get a clearer idea of what they are eating and what they would need.to supply a ship with to make those things. In return for your submissions, I will of course credit you as you see fit, as well as send you free e-copies of the complete Toy Soldier Saga, including the short story "Survivor" if I choose to use any of your recipes.  My favourite submission will win a free copy of the audiobook when completed as well.

Rules:

1) You can submit as many recipes as you like, but you only get one copy of each book.  Only one person wins the audiobook and that's chosen purely by me and my discretion as I see fit.

2) The recipes must be your original work (no copying!)

3) You must have actually cooked and eaten said dish (and thought it was tasty or at least edible).

4) You give me permission to publish all such entries royalty-free as I see fit (for example, I might want to put together a book of Toy Soldier recipes to sell as a charity fundraiser later on.)  In return, I will credit you appropriately no matter where the recipe(s) appear(s) and include whatever contact information you designate.

5) Your recipes must be consistent with the descriptions given in the novels.

6) New recipes will be accepted if they are consistent with the elements that form the cuisine of the races in question.

7) Contest closes November 30, 2013, and winners will be announced in this blog on December 10, 2013.

How to Submit Entries:

1) You can post them to the Toy Soldier Saga Facebook page.

2) You can post a link in the Chat session of a live Toy Soldier Spreecast.

3) You can post them to the Comments section of the Toy Soldier Saga Book Trailer videos on YouTube.

4) You can post them in the Comments section of this blog or "Confessions of a Geek Queen" under this entry.

5) You can post them in the Comments anywhere this link appears (so likely my Facebook page and so forth.)

Elven Cuisine

Elves like things sweet.  They prefer light foods with natural ingredients and little animal protein.  Most of their dishes are vegetarian (but not necessarily vegan).  Their flavouring is subtle and their portions are reasonably small.  They often don't mind spending several hours creating something that is artistic and beautiful because they have the time to do it in (although that might not hold true on a spelljamming ship.)  Many elven cultures make food that is also easily portable to support a nomadic lifestyle.

Foods Mentioned:

Apple Scramble - For that reason, Narissa and Shaundar avoided it and headed to their favourite spot, the Leafy Bough . . .Their meals were fire-roasted skewers, honey nut berry pockets, apple scrambles, taperroot pies, and light native fowl in a variety of honey-and-citrus glazes. They also served taperroot crisps and dried berries and mixed nuts as snack foods.

Cornbread - First there came the dried provisions; waybread, dried fruits, peas and beans, pemmican and cornbread (innovations of the green elves borrowed by the Imperial Elven Navy,) and these in scores of enormous wooden crates.

Dawnfry - He returned the greeting, and then steaming nuts and fruit were being spooned on to their plates. OR Dawnfry was a plate of fresh fruit, which required no silverware and had lovely taste and texture.

Diskcakes - likely fruit and cream covered pancakes

Fire-Roasted Skewers

Honey-nut Berry Pockets

Native Fowl in Honey and Citrus Glaze - Hungry, Shaundar and Narissa shared a lime-glazed fowl and several skewers.

Pemmican

Preserves - Next were the preserves; fruit preserves, pickles of all sorts, magically-sealed and preserved citrus fruits to prevent Sailor’s Disease, these in scores of slightly smaller crates that were easier to carry.

Quinpah - The Golden Bough, a pub that catered to elven nobility and officers, offered an excellent variety of elven dishes, including quinpah, a flaky honey glazed dessert pastry that was one of a very limited number of creations that Shaundar’s mother baked regularly.  Originally came from Elaine Cunningham's book "The Radiant Dragon," in which it is described as a flaky, buttery pastry on the inside with a delightfully crusty shell.

Taperroot Crisps - potato (or any root vegetable) chips

Taperroot Pies - any root vegetable pie

Trail Mix - dried berries, nuts, etc.

Waybread - a Tolkienish sort of thing is what I pictured here, so if you want to adapt a Tolkien recipe, go ahead, just let me know you've done so.

Scro and Orcish Cuisine

The orcs like meat, and lots of it.  They think vegetables are best used as garnish but they do need the nutrition of veggies so they do eat them.  Their meals are high protein whenever possible and might or might not be cooked, depending on whim.

Scro eat very spicy foods that would blister the tongues of most other species. Their world's climate is either like Southeast Asia or Peru, so everything is spicy and full of various peppers, some of which are exceedingly hot.  Being so wet or so sparce, wheat, rye and other such plants don't grow there well.  Think spicy and mostly gluten free.  Their staple grains are rice and quinoa, and occasionally corn.  Noodles are likely rice noodles.  They cook with plantain as well.

Foods Mentioned:

Bacon (possibly with eggs)

Blood Gruel - Hunger eluded Shaundar most of the day, so at dinner he was able to consider the gruel they were being fed. He was reasonably certain that there was some kind of blood in it and bits of meat or meat-like substances of some variety, though Shaundar did not examine them too closely, figuring it best that he not know what kind. OR Shaundar poked dubiously at the blood gruel and finally managed to convince himself to put some in his mouth. He found that with the spicy taste of peppers added to it, it wasn’t bad at all. He still wasn’t fond of the texture but it didn’t taste like snot.

Chili

Cracked Peppercorn Steak and Tubers - Dinner was a slab of meat on a plate, marinated in some spicy sauce and covered on its outer edge with cracked peppercorns, next to some kind of tasteless tuber best inhaled between bites of steak. There were no vegetables except the tubers.

Coconut Curry and Rice - They were serving rice, a fierce green coconut curry, and some sort of bitter and spicy liquid concoction that Shaundar was unfamiliar with.

Curry-Spiced Omelet

Hargol -

Dinner looked promising but smelled as though there had been an explosion in the hold of a ship carrying peppercorns. It was some kind of noodle dish with strips of meat in it, and it was covered in a gritty dusting of cracked black pepper on some kind of oil-and-herb dressing. Durok was chuckling.

“What’s so funny?” Yathar wanted to know.

“It’s the hargol,” Durok snickered. “It’s a scro ‘subtle’ dish. Lana put too much pepper in it. That girl has got to be the world’s worst cook.” He speared a few noodles and meat strips on his tines, sniffed them dubiously and put them into his mouth. He chewed it almost reluctantly and with his nose wrinkled.

Yathar shrugged. He had already eaten about half of it. “It’s not bad,” he argued with a full mouth.

Shaundar picked up a meat strip and brushed some of the pepper bits off of it before he put it into his mouth. It actually wasn’t bad at all, in his opinion; though certainly, the sheer amount of pepper was more than a little overwhelming. He also thought he noticed green and red peppercorns and some cubebs as well.

Pork Skewers with Hot-and-Sour Soup (Pho) - He just about fell asleep over his dinner, which consisted of skewers of some promisingly spicy pork that was ruined by being salty enough to pucker his lips. He was almost too tired to eat, in fact, and contented himself to some of the hot-and-sour tripe soup that was served as a side dish. (Don't forget, this is a description of how *not* to do it.)

Pepper Salad - A much more appealing salad, full of green leaves and topped with a variety of peppers, was added to their plates . . . Shaundar tried the salad next. He bit into a pepper and chewed it enthusiastically. Immediately his mouth caught fire.

Potato Salad

Ryll - With perfect timing, Shaundar saw Lana hauling out a large egg and meat pie and adding it to the buffet. She was smiling. “You should try the ryll,” he recommended smoothly. “I understand it packs a punch.” (Contains mushrooms also.)

Sausage Rolls and Bitter Greens - The main course appeared to be some kind of sausage roll, accompanied by a pile of bitter greens covered in an unbelievably hot sweet pepper dressing. Shaundar bit into the sausage rolls to discover that they were equally hot, both in terms of temperature and spiciness. They didn’t cause blisters, though, so he did not let this stop him.

Shipwreck - whatever is available to cook in the leftovers of ship supplies and what you can catch or hunt.  Likely ground meat or fish, rice, dried peas, root veggies and a variety of dried peppery spices, cooked in broth for flavour.

Stew

Good luck, and thanks for your help!