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Hello! As it seems I make my guild-mates hungry with talk of my recipes and my meals, I thought I would share a few of my favorites here with all of you.

Sochi's Baked French "Fries"

You will need potatoes and olive oil. You can use your choice of seasonings. I prefer salt and dried parsley flakes. But I have seasoned these with ranch dressing mix, hot sauce, salt and vinegar, and just plain salt and pepper. Go crazy here.

1 to 4 decently sized potatoes

Oven preheated to 425 degrees, set rack to middle before heating oven

Baking sheet; Non-stick is awesome, but if not, lightly grease. Covering pan with tin foil is good too, but fries may stick a bit.

Mixing Bowl; Choose a bowl large enough to toss the cut fries around in.

You may need; a fork, a spatula, a set of tongs

Cut taters into sticks or into wedges. (You can either choose to leave the skins on or off, I don't bother peeling them) Try to keep things uniform to help it all cook evenly. Put cut potato into mixing bowl. Drizzle olive oil over potato pieces and toss, drizzle in more if needed, until all pieces are well coated. Add your seasoning of choice and toss to coat. (if need be, use a fork, a spoon, or a set of tongs to mix)

Spread oiled and seasoned "fries" onto baking sheet into one layer if at all possible-I have misjudged and few fries hanging out on top of the rest is fine. When oven is preheated, place baking sheet into oven and set a timer for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes has passed, check fries, you can turn them if you want to with a spatula and continue to cook them for another 20 to 30 minutes. Ovens do vary and I check them often to watch for color, they tend to be ready when they get golden brown. Once cooked, remove from oven and set them on a plate to serve-careful, they will be hot! Enjoy with your choice of condiment.

Enjoy you cooking skill-up!

Next time; Pie!

I will definately have to try this sometime.

*Note, these delicious french fries also appear when you kill the Time Lost Potato Drake.

(At least, Sochi promised me they would...)

~VelkynKarma

Oooh hungry now.
Going to have to try these sometime. They sound quite yummy!

Well, I got told that I had to stop making people drool in gchat and post here, so...

Mel's Nommy French Onion Soup!

Ingredients:
1 1/2 kilos onions (brown or white)
Garlic (at least 3 cloves)
Butter
Bay leaf
Thyme
2 litres beef stock
3/4 cup dry white wine (get the cheap stuff)
Bread (French stick or similar)
Cheese (Gruyere or Gouda or whatever floats your boat - don't get anything too sharp, and it needs to melt well)
Parmesan

Peel and slice onions, crush/mince garlic. Weep for the poor onions as they die. If you are feeling callous and do not want to weep too much, a food processor with a good slicing attachment is a good idea - do NOT blend 'em, and do NOT have your head over the top of the processor when you open the lid, or you'll weep all right.

Melt butter in HUGE saucepan over low heat.

Dump garlic and onions into saucepan. Cover, cook 15 mins, stir when the mood takes you.

Uncover, increase heat, cook for about 45 minutes until caramelised. Stir a lot during this phase, even if you don't really think you need to yet. You want to end up with the onions soft and brown and a lot less bulky than they started out, fairly dry once the juice cooks off, and a brown 'glaze' on the bottom of the saucepan. This is not the same as burning them.

Add wine. Stir well while cooking for a few minutes, scrubbing at the bottom of the pan to lift the glaze.

Add stock, bring to boil, dump in bay leaf and thyme and simmer 30 minutes.

About 5 mins before soup is done simmering, cut bread up into thick slices, smear a little crushed garlic on 'em, top with parmesan and cheese and grill until browned. Serve with bread at the bottom of the bowl, nomnomnom!

Also! Mel's Fairly Deadly Black Forest Cheesecake!

Ingredients:

500g Philly cream cheese. (Over here that's two of the stick-packet-things.)
425g can pitted black cherries.
250g packet plain biscuits (Milk Arrowroots work great but my hubby doesn't like 'em, dangit!) You can use chocolate bikkies if you want. Erm... I understand Americans call 'em cookies?
125g butter
300ml thickened cream
3/4 cup caster sugar (and 2 tablespoons more)
1 tablespoon rum (but why is the rum gone?!?! If you don't generally keep rum in the house, get a rum miniature - it costs practically nothing and has enough rum in it for a lot of cheesecakes. There is no point buying a whole bottle for this, but it does make a difference so is worth getting.)
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon gelatine
Chocolate for making chocolate curls. I normally don't bother, especially since I suck at making chocolate curls, but hubby likes 'em.

You need a food processor to do this right. Really. You can do it without a food processor but miGAWD it's a tiresome process...

Dissolve the gelatine in 1/2 cup boiling water and set aside to cool. Leave the spoon in it and stir every so often to make sure you aren't getting a gluggy layer at the bottom.

Mash the bikkies to powder. Go nuts. If you aren't sure whether they're crushed enough, they aren't.

Melt the butter and combine with the biscuit crumbs, press into the base and sides of an 8 inch springform cake tin. Stick it in the fridge for at least 15 minutes, which will give you time to do the rest of this.

Drain the cherries into a small saucepan, add 2 tablespoons sugar, rum, and cornflour. Bring to boil over fairly high heat, stirring like crazy; set aside to cool.

Whip cream (you sadist you).

Beat Philly and sugar together until smooth. This is why you need a food processor, or at least an electric mixer - this part sucks without them. Pour in gelatine and lemon juice and beat some more, then fold in the whipped cream.

Spoon some of the cream cheese mix into the base, add some cherries, and keep alternating until they're all in there - try to have the cream cheese mix be the top layer. Dribble the thickened cherry juice over the top in whatever pattern floats your boat; if it ends up too blobby-looking, use a fork to swirl it around through the mix and even it out.

Put chocolate curls on top if you really, really want them. Me, I'll just eat the chocolate.

Stick it in the fridge and exercise enough willpower to leave it alone for at least three hours, preferably overnight. Nomnomnom!

Sochi's Raspberry Pie

This pie balances sweet and tart nicely. Great with whipped topping, ice cream, both vanilla and chocolate, or by itself.

You will need:
A large mixing bowl
A spoon to mix with
A spoon to scoop with
Pie plate or tin-9inch
A flat pan covered in tin foil-pie does go through a minor reenactment of Vesuvius and will happily drip berry goo all over your oven's insides
Tinfoil to cover the pie
A sharp knife
An oven preheated to 400

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
2 to 3 heaping tablespoons of corn starch
2 12oz bags of frozen raspberries (do not thaw the berries. Add them frozen)
Pie crusts-I buy mine, they come in boxes, usually in the dairy section of your local grocery. If you can make the pie dough yourself, more power to you.

Bring your dough to almost room temp if using the boxed stuff (or if using a frozen version, follow the pie crust's instructions) so that if can rolled out without tearing all over the place. Roll bottom portion out into pie plate or tin and gently press into the sides.

Into the large mixing bowl, dump frozen raspberries and break up any large clumps of berries. (I have never seen any leaves in the bags, but check for and remove if you see any) Over the berries pour the cup of sugar and the 2 to 3 tablespoons of corn starch. The starch is the thickener, I normally add three heaping tablespoons. I like the filling not to run out everywhere after the first slice. Mix berries with the starch and sugar until well coated-there will be some at the bottom of the bowl.

With a spoon or ladle, fill the pie crust. Distribute any of the sugar/starch mix at the bottom over the berries. It's gonna be quite the mound of raspberries, but don't worry, they cook down. Cover with second round of dough and crimp together the edges of the crust. Cut slits into top with sharp knife for vents.

Place pie on foiled baking sheet and place into middle of oven. Bake for 20 minutes to 30 minutes and check on pie for browning. If browning too fast, cover with foil and keep baking. Continue to bake for another 30 to 40, checking the pie for browning, covering if needed.

Pie is ready when top crust is golden brown. Cooking time is an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. Remove from oven carefully as filling is very hot and liquid, and place pie to cool. Transfer to a cooling rack if you have one. Pie is ready to eat when cooled. I don't recommend slicing this one when hot.

Enjoy!

*note: If raspberries aren't your thing, frozen blueberries can be used in their stead.
**I have never attempted this recipe with fresh berries as they are expensive. If you are game to try it, be my guest and let me know how it comes out.