Please post all chit-chat in the Discussion Topic. This topic is restricted to recipe nominations made by staff cookers.

All recipes that were posted in the Recipe Submission Topic that meet minimum participation requirements are eligible to be nominated by a staff cooker until Sunday, December 20th, 23:59 ST. A nomination means that staff member promises to, with the exception of overwhelming circumstances, create that dish — and immediately means that dish has been nominated to win the Gold Medallion. When a staff cooker has finished a dish, they will post picture proof that they have actually created the dish, optionally with or without a description of how the cooking process went and how they felt about the dish.

All nominated dishes will then be graded by staff cookers & gourmet experts based on two rubrics, being a) Appeal and b) Creativity. Additionally, staff that have cooked a dish will also grade the dish based on c) Taste. These individual staff member grades will be averaged, and then a weighted average over all staff members will be calculated (with the grades of the staff members that have cooked a dish slightly outweighing the grades of staff members that did not cook a dish). The highest overall average graded dish wins the Gold Medallion! (In the case of a tie, multiple Gold Medallions may be awarded.)

This also means multiple staff members may nominate and cook the same dish. However! Rest assured, this absolutely does not mean the dish has a higher chance of winning. It only means that multiple staff members were interested in cooking and tasting the dish, and that all cookers will be able to grade the dish based on taste in addition to the gourmet experts’ visual-only grades for appeal and creativity :)

All dishes that have met minimum participation requirements but are not nominated, and all nominees that did not win, will equally receive 1 gem.

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Oats! I like oats. Though I’m still trying to eat as little as sugar possible, I stuck pretty faithfully to the recipe after converting the units, with the exception that I only made about a third of the batter and used chocolate bits instead of butterscotch as we couldn’t find any in the store.

The batter was.. well, sweet, hah! And very (very) sticky?? I guess I must have mucked up some of the conversions somewhere, but no matter — the cookies are absolutely delicious! (And I certainly enjoyed all the bits I scraped off my hands & from the mixing bowl/whisk, too…) Not too sweet, super crunchy and a good size. Mom suggested trying them again with a little coconut & a little less sugar c:

...I have since had multiple people come back to me & ask for more cookies. I think that suffices to say this batch was a success.

This is a pretty straightforward recipe, and I can absolutely imagine this is a homey favourite <3! I’d never tried anything like it before, but I admit I’m a little in love with the dough *.* I should note I left out the mash because the portion size was already plenty for me without it, and.. well, I’m Dutch, so I already eat boiled potatoes half the week hah. /comfortfood >>

And, yeah. Uhm. One person portion, so my oven dish was too big. I should have taken a picture, but I ended up ..leaning it on two stacks of kitchen paper in the oven so it would lean over & keep the dough actually near the sausage ahah. Means the doomfrog was snoozing on a sofa instead of swimming in bread BD I definitely think I’ll be doing the dough thing again, but with more spices, and I’d probably bake the sausage in a pan instead of sticking it in an oven for the first ten minutes c:

I couldn’t pass up on a pancake recipe, of course! I admit I already made the pancakes a day early because I had the flour, milk and egg out, but that didn’t hurt the dish in any way (..and made it very quick the next night ahah).

Was very interesting to try pancakes with something savoury other than cheese, but I think I didn’t add enough spices (chili/pepper/etc.), and there are definitely some veggies I’d add in the future (paprika, mushrooms maybe) c: Nomnomnom!

I am not commonly known for my passionate like of minced meat, but I have to admit, I was very appreciative of the flavours here *.* If I’d made double the portion size (& with that, filled up my slightly larger oven dish), I’d probably have added a bit more potato. I’d also have paid a little more attention to my oven thermometer and given it the chance to sit a bit longer with the cheese on top, because due to the general unreliability of my oven’s temperature I took it out a little prematurely.

That said, it was varr tasty. And hot. ..but maybe I’m just a greedyface food-in-mouth-stuffer >>

I’ve had pumpkin before, a couple of times even, but as I’d never tasted raw/pure pumpkin, I was always wary. I wasn’t sure what part of the flavour of those dishes was pumpkin, and what was something else, so I could never really say if I liked pumpkin. Now that I’ve had it in my hands & tasted it both raw & in chunks, I think it’s a lot like ..melon. A very light variety. Pleased, but I can now also imagine why some say it’s a flavour that only goes with a limited amount of dishes.

Tasting the final result of this stew, I would probably add a little less stock, a few more beans (I used way less beans than the original recipe :P) and possibly try to season it with some salt & pepper after all (am always careful with salt and pepper, ahah). It wasn’t as quickly filling as I’d expected, though I ate a third of the pan in one go, but am pleased I’ll have leftovers to freeze in for my mom to try. Have to compare it to last edition’s Hinasoup, after all ;)!

I think apples must be way smaller where Miranda comes from: I used seven apples (Myla informs me that there are in fact eight apples photographed below… so yes I used 8 apples, not 7…) , and ended up needing both the 7x11 and the 9x13 trays!

OK so this recipe is awesome. First things first, since I had so much extra surface area to cover with my two trays, I doubled the topping. I would have tripled it but I only had two cups of brown sugar… but in the end it turned out to be the perfect apple-to-crunch ratio, so it all worked out pretty well. Also, for the record, I get excited about any recipe that starts with melt two whole sticks of butter. It just feels so rebellious. I also slightly upped the amount of cinnamon in the crunch part because after numerous taste testings, I got what seemed like an ideal (to me) flavor using about 2x the recommended ratio.

Next, the apples! I used two tart green apples, three fuji, two pink ladies, and one honeycrisp. Variety indeed! 4tsp of lemon juice seemed like a tiny amount next to all this apple, and anyway I don’t even know what i’d do with 3/4 of a lemon left over, so I just squeezed a whole lemon into it. I kept the vanilla at 1/2 tsp. I applied this mixture by just throwing everything into a giant bowl and mixing it around with my fingers, before re-separating it out into the two trays and then applying the crust on top. Then into the oven it went. With all the extra lemon juice it was pretty wet, so I left it in the oven for closer to an hour, until it stopped looking like apples in water and started looking like apples in goo. Delicious, tart, appley goo. I hereby name this technique “simmering in the oven”.

I ate a shameful amount of this. A+.

As soon as I saw this recipe, I knew it was calling to me and all the rumbling tummies at my house. Banana bread is one of my all time favorite things and a baked goodie often found in the home of the Wee Hushling of days past. How could I not make it? So, I answered that call with bananas (four instead of three. My bananas were a little small), love, and chocolate chips. 

And this banana bread absolutely hit the spot! It smelled wonderfully, had just the right density, and tasted like a little slice of nostalgia and warm, gooey love. It’s definitely a recipe I’m going to make again. And again. And probably again. It was just that tasty!

The short version of the tale of Hush and the Banana Bread is that myself, my husband, and my sister all ate way too much of it and we are all full of banana bread and happiness. The long version is under the spoiler!

I halved the recipe as best as possible. I’ve never deep-fried anything in a pan before, so this was exciting! As a fan of anything involving onions, garlic, paprika, potatoes, chives, and sour cream… this recipe looked like it was designed specifically for me. I also shredded the chicken up into tiny tiny pieces as recommended, and I think on the whole that was a good idea.

I wasn’t quite sure how to do the final step - when battering a ball I’d get batter all over my hands, and then it would be hard to roll the next one. I ended up settling on making 5 balls, then battering them, then frying them, then washing my hands, and repeating. The end result was pretty yummy :) I ended up eating them with ketchup and mustard.

It was trial by fire for this recipe because I decided to make this for our entire D&D group! :D I basically just hoped that it would a) taste great and b) I wouldn’t screw anything up.

Well!  It turned out amazingly and was a big hit!  I didn’t follow the recipe exactly — I used couple more spices (thyme, rosemary) and varied the vegetables some.  I chopped carrots, celery, onion, and used frozen peas and corn.  I also left off the gravy and used vegetable broth & a splash of red wine to cook the filling in.  I ran a bit short on time and should have boiled the liquid off more but it still turned out great!

I was in the mood for cookie dough recently and it was lovely timing that I got to try out this recipe. :)

I decided to halve the recipe since I didn’t want tooooo much cookie dough. But even halved, this recipe made more than I expected haha. Did a few tiny modifications to the recipe. I only used a stick of butter for the half recipe and since I did not have salted butter, I added a tiny bit of salt to it. I also did not have chocolate chips at home, but I had packets of M&Ms laying around. Slowly added in extra flour to give the dough a drier consistency. Additionally I do not own a mixer of any kind so, human muscle power activateeeeeeeeeeeee.

I was a little worried that the wet mixture (pre-flour) looked a little weird, but it all worked out when the flour got added in. ;)

The end result is quite good! Not quite as smooth if done via machine mixing, but I am very content! A little bit on the sweet side for me though. Will probably reduce the sugar next time and see if I can shrink the serving size again haha. I split the dough into a plain ball and a candied call. :3 But it is lovely cookie dough and I will slowly nom nom this over the next few days. *_* <333

Edit: Mother decided to try the plain cookie dough and gave it her seal of approval. :)

I already had 1.5 containers of rose sauce in the fridge… so that went in instead of the 2 cans of tomato sauce. No crushed red pepper either but I did have some garlic chilli paste which is delicious and spicy too… same thing right… <w<;;; I made this with my friend and we decided on having little weenies for our meat portion U v U and our “spaghetti” of choice was farfalle because bow ties are seriously cute *+*+

Started out by cooking the pasta first which turned out to be step #8…. :”> that’s why you read recipes before you make them!!! <w< we just strained it and ran it under some cold water so it didn’t matter too much. Chopped stuff, experienced a bit of trypopobia seeing the green bell pepper seeds *shudders*, got a bit sniffly with the onions, and googled “garlic clove”. For some reason I thought a clove was an entire garlic because I distinctly recall making a recipe that called for like 3 cloves… and I minced up and put 3 entire garlics in there…........................... :“D ...... crying

_{edit: I DID NOT PUT 3 GARLICS IN HERE… I put 1.5 cloves thanks to my friend’s knowledge of “clove” <w<;;}

Anyways, my cooking revelations aside, it was really fun to make this recipe! Cooking is definitely merrier with more.  More people and more food. Mmmm. We didn’t blanche or simmer it for 4+ hours (uuuuu sorry but this gramma ain’t got no time for dat! @w@) but we did cook it for an hour before serving, i.e., we couldn’t wait any longer to shovel food into our mouths. It was very flavourful although a bit on the acid side because of all the tomatoes (or possibly because of my sketchy substitutions), but we added melted cheese which really topped it off * __ * there’s also a lot of leftovers (I think there’s enough sauce for 6-8 servings? which is great because I want more now ^q^

Hahahahaha. The man at the Asian toko & my mom warned me about those peppers. Then I sliced a teensy bit, chewed. Then I decided not to use both peppers completely BD. Ahahahahah. Such a chicken, I’m sorry. In the actual resulting dish the spiceyness didn’t have that much impact with the quantity I ended up using, so I’d definitely be more daring next time — and my experiences with coriander (cilantro) have once again proven I need to be careful with how much I use, oops. I don’t like the flavour of it much, and of course I ..added more than I should have. D’oh.

Alsooo. I only noticed the note about lemongrass when I reached.. ..the bottom of the recipe after cooking it. -hangs head- ;3; Sorry!

Overall though, my mom & I were pleased to try/experiment with different flavours than we’re used to :D Also very interesting to, having handled & prepared the products myself, suddenly start recognising flavours and tastes from i.e. the dishes we order at our local Chinese restaurant! Hee~ Absolutely worth the experience c:

While I was waiting an hour for the spaghetti yesterday night, we made Hina’s cake recipe!!!! Today was my other friend’s birthday so we dedicated this one to her! We halved the recipe because I only bought 475g of Ricotta ... :“D oopsies… but it turned out to be a good amount because not a lot of us eat sweets. I also only had yellow-brown sugar. Having to math the ingredients did not help my already sketchy cooking habits <w<;; and there was serious amount of guesstimation involved (4/5ths of half a cup, anyone?) The original box of chocolate cake called for 3 eggs so naturally 1.5 eggs meant we had half an egg left over and that 0.5 egg may or may not have went into the spaghetti sauce n Q n;;;;;;

Taste wise we thought it was the perfect amount of sweetness because we’re not too big on sugar, which really surprised me because chocolate cakes are usually on the heavier side. I thought the whipped topping really complimented the layers of the cake which were all moist and delicious! Sadly, the ricotta’s texture was still lumpy T__T and the cheese layer kept crumbling off the cake so it didn’t hold together too well. Maybe it’s because I made some changes to the original recipe ;;;; *shakes fist at the math* still, I imagine this cake tastes and looks really good when it’s made perfectly ahhhh ; 3 ;

I knew I wanted to make these as soon as I saw the recipe come up. I’ve always wanted to try toad in a hole, and this seemed like a good reason to finally get up and give it a go.

I already had all of the ingredients on hand, with the exception of the sausages. After a bit of rooting about in the freezer, I came up with a pack of hot links, which I figured was close enough that it’d save me a trip to the grocery store. I remembered Jacq mentioning that the batter was a bit plain and that you could spice it up by adding some jalapenos to it, and I figured this would basically be the same thing.

This was not a good idea, haha.

I really like spicy food, but my tolerance for it is low. When my beautiful doomfrog came out of the oven, I snuck a bite of the dough before actually sitting down to lunch. It was a little bland, but I liked the chewiness of it and the hint of spices. I left out the gravy, because I didn’t want to make a packet of it just for myself, and decided the hot link would be enough to offset the relative mildness of the dough. Then I took a bite of the hot link and promptly could not taste anything except fire.

Overall, I did enjoy this! It’s a dense dish that is perfect for winter, and it’s easy enough to make that I can see myself doing it sometimes when I’m stuck on what to do for lunch or dinner. I definitely plan on trying it again later — this time with proper sausages and a bit more spices in the batter, and maybe some gravy on the side if I’m making it to share. Definitely a recipe to hang on to :)