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Primrose vs Harrier - Troll Challenges

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Harrier88
Joined: 01.05.2012

Looks great. :f_thumbsup: This might be especially good as a summer treat.

I would love to give it a try some time.


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Harrier88
Joined: 01.05.2012

The Trolls are excited about the beginning of spring next week. :f_grin: We would have loved to do something special to welcome that season, but Primrose's workload got a lot bigger on relatively short notice, making any live meetups impossible for the remainder of the month. No worries, we will just do it in April then, and maybe do another standard meetup at my place too.

Also, we might do a different online challenge to fill in the current gap in our poker match-ups. We will also stay busy in the kitchen, though I don't know if I can present another burger version next week.

Troll Trivia of the Week

We previously established that video arcades may not always be the best place for a preschool kid to hang out at. This became especially clear during a later holiday on the Greek island of Kos in 1995, where in the hotel's arcade, little Harrier's not even 7-year-old mind got subjected to...

1) A fighting game with realistic blood and gore
2) A billiards game with stripping anime girls
3) A shooter game with a not-so-subtle political message


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VorpalF2F
Joined: 02.09.2010

I'm going with 2 just because its more fun to think about


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UPAY4DINNER
Joined: 27.09.2009

Because it was the 90s....

3) A shooter game with a not-so-subtle political message


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Harrier88
Joined: 01.05.2012

I had a spontaneous idea for a new burger version after all this morning, so let's pack our bags. :f_grin: We're going to Alsace, because the United States are not the only country that will get special regional versions on our burger world tour.

Our burgers will be inspired by tarte flambée, so I prepared four tablespoons of crème fraîche and mixed in some grated emmenthal cheese ("some" is as specific as I can get, as I literally just grabbed a bunch). I also stirred in a generous pinch of nutmeg and cayenne pepper, and some pepper and salt.

For the meat, I chose pork. I also cut up some onions and threw them in with the patties.

Meanwhile, I air-fried some diced bacon. When it was done, I added it in with the crème fraîche mixture, together with most of the onions that I had sautéed with the pork.

Building our burgers will be simple. We will just spread our crème fraîche mixture on the top bun and add the remaining onions on the bottom bun. I wish I would have had enough for a more generous bed of onions rather than those sparse few bits, but it's all I had.

Then simply add the patty and put it together. That's it, our Alsatian burger is ready.

Oh, and we were using the spelt buns from last week again. Might as well, and I also managed to use them up while we're at it.

I liked them. :f_grin: All of the pork-based burgers seem to score highly, maybe the meat is just tastier. I wonder how today's version would have turned out with beef or a beef/pork mix instead.

Primrose liked what she saw too. But where exactly do they rank? Tough... right below the German ones, maybe. Those were also pork-based, but a little tastier, if I remember correctly.

1st Switzerland
2nd Greece
3rd Denmark
4th Korea
5th Spain
6th Germany
7th Alsace
8th Italy
9th Texas
10th California
11th Mexico
12th England
13th France
14th Canada
15th Hungary
16th The Netherlands


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Harrier88
Joined: 01.05.2012

All right, time to make "my stupid nachos". :f_biggrin:

What's so stupid about them? Nothing really, it's just a new inside joke between Prim and me. We were playing Cook, Serve, Delicious 3 on Steam the other day, one of our inspirations for this blog series that even introduced us to some new dishes. Prim and I were preparing our virtual menu, and I suggested nachos, because I planned to make them for real this week. Primrose is not a fan of them (the in-game version), so she just said "Fine, make your stupid nachos!" with an irritated sigh. I gave her a "What's wrong with you?" look, and she immediately giggled at her needlessly defiant attitude. :f_biggrin:

So yeah, let's make my stupid nachos. Chicken nachos, that is. I didn't go beyond tortillas chips and cheese before, so let's get a little more ambitious this time - it's supposed to be a meal, not a snack.

Today's Dish: "Harrier's Stupid Nachos"
Cuisine: Mexican
Recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/74433/chicken-nachos/

We start with two chicken breast halves, combined in a bowl with two tablespoons of oil and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. A commenter commented about other commenters commenting that some taco seasoning would also be a good addition. I have some store-bought Fajita seasoning, so I added a tablespoon of it.

Sauté it until it is no longer pink. No need to fry the crap out of it, it will go in the oven later anyway. Probably best to make sure it won't get too dry.

Might as well preheat that oven already too, we need 165°C/325°F.

Luckily, tortilla chips were on sale this week - and I needed a bunch of them. We start with a thin layer of chips in a baking dish.

Add a layer of chicken, then jalapeños, then shredded cheese - I just used shredded Cheddar, the recipe calls for some "Mexican-style cheese blend".

Add another layer of tortilla chips...

...and then just keep repeating the process, ending with a layer of cheese.

Put it in the oven for 15-20 minutes (closer to 15 in my case). Looking good, isn't it?

How do you serve them, anyway? I just used a deep plate.

Some guacamole would be nice, but I didn't have any. I added some sour cream instead, which was also nice.

It was very good, and also a great way to use up mussgoes. It's pretty rare that I manage to use an entire beaker of sour cream, and the shredded cheese is well taken care of too.


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Primrose6789
Joined: 01.07.2016

There you go. Now you finally have your stupid nachos! :f_tongue::coolface:


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Primrose6789
Joined: 01.07.2016

I think I have to explain a little bit more details here: In the game "Cook, Serve, Delicious", you can choose which dishes you want to cook and serve. You are the owner of a food truck. There are dishes with different difficulty levels and Harrier always wants to do the MOST DIFFICULT ones. I would have preferred an easier dish than those nachos with difficulty 4 (out of 5 levels). The thing is, when your food truck stops and your customers come and order food, you have to be quick and with those nachos you must quickly serve, while you desperately seek the toppings they order. Every customer orders another combination of toppings and some order really super Banhauser combinations. :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly: The serving of those nachos can be a pain in the bum bum and it´s so easy to get it wrong, there are so many pitfalls there, so that´s why I did not want to make nachos, but Harrier insisted. :f_ugly::f_ugly:

And if I remember correctly I said something like: "Okay! Fine! But YOU will prepare those STUPID nachos for them!" :f_ugly::f_ugly::f_ugly:


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Harrier88
Joined: 01.05.2012

Originally posted by Primrose6789
I think I have to explain a little bit more details here: In the game "Cook, Serve, Delicious", you can choose which dishes you want to cook and serve. You are the owner of a food truck. There are dishes with different difficulty levels and Harrier always wants to do the MOST DIFFICULT ones. I would have preferred an easier dish than those nachos with difficulty 4 (out of 5 levels).

I think nachos were difficulty 3, not sure. The difficulty usually depends on the amount of variations for the dish in-game, or the amount of preparation that is required, both of which is a source for mistakes.

Easy dishes will just require one or two simple actions (e.g. chicken nuggets, just put them in a deep-fryer), medium dishes either have simple preparations but many variations (e.g. ice cream sundaes, you just need to add scoops, but there are loads of different flavors and you need to pick the right one under pressure), or more complicated preparations that are always the same (e.g. garden salad, which needs several ingredients, but they are always the same). Difficult dishes require both (e.g. cakes, which come in many variations that all require several steps).

Nachos, in this game, are one of those in-between dishes, which have a relatively simple preparation (you just cook the meat, much like I did today), but the orders for serving are all customized. Some of our virtual customers liked to have theirs with onions, beans, beef, chicken and shrimps, I believe. Prim may call "banhauser", but I'm curious about a real version. :f_grin:

And I'm not always insisting on picking the most difficult dishes, they just tend to be the more interesting ones, and I like to mix things up and introduce new stuff. :f_biggrin:


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Primrose6789
Joined: 01.07.2016

Those "difficult" dishes are the most BANHAUSER ones :mdr::f_ugly::f_ugly: and of course those with the most pitfalls.

And it´s usually me who does the serving while Harrier is cooking in the back of the truck, securing replenishment. :sifflote::sifflote:


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UPAY4DINNER
Joined: 27.09.2009

Resiting the urge to make a really bad Dad joke right about now.......


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Harrier88
Joined: 01.05.2012

Originally posted by UPAY4DINNER
Resiting the urge to make a really bad Dad joke right about now.......

The one about cheese that doesn't belong to you?

Spoiler

Nacho (not your) cheese. :f_ugly:


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UPAY4DINNER
Joined: 27.09.2009

Exactomundo


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Saffo7
Joined: 31.10.2020

Okroshka I like it, I will try to prepare it😋

Originally posted by Harrier88

Troll Trivia of the Week

We previously established that video arcades may not always be the best place for a preschool kid to hang out at. This became especially clear during a later holiday on the Greek island of Kos in 1995, where in the hotel's arcade, little Harrier's not even 7-year-old mind got subjected to...

1) A fighting game with realistic blood and gore
2) A billiards game with stripping anime girls
3) A shooter game with a not-so-subtle political message

1🤞


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Harrier88
Joined: 01.05.2012

Originally posted by Saffo7
Okroshka I like it, I will try to prepare it😋

Go for it, that's why we include those recipe links. :f_grin: I have yet to try Okroshka myself.

With two active cooking series on this blog and another I don't care one, a good part of each week's menu is centered around some forum project. Don't think that this puts me or Prim under any pressure, though, we are actually having a lot of fun with it, and it is a good way for me to finally get to making some of those recipes that I have been saving up since forever.

Most likely, there will still be no versus challenges for us this weekend, maybe we can get back to them next week.


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Harrier88
Joined: 01.05.2012

Originally posted by Harrier88
Troll Trivia of the Week

We previously established that video arcades may not always be the best place for a preschool kid to hang out at. This became especially clear during a later holiday on the Greek island of Kos in 1995, where in the hotel's arcade, little Harrier's not even 7-year-old mind got subjected to...

1) A fighting game with realistic blood and gore
2) A billiards game with stripping anime girls
3) A shooter game with a not-so-subtle political message

Solution:

Spoiler

2) A billiards game with stripping anime girls

The arcade section in that hotel was a bit more extensive, if I remember correctly. I believe it featured one of those Playchoice-10 machines, which comes with converted versions of NES titles. It also had several classics, like Popeye, Ms. Pac-Man once again... and also this.

The game was called Pocket Gal. It has you clearing pool tables under the watchful eyes of one of four different anime ladies. Each level has a target score, extra points are awarded for potting the balls in their numerical order, or for making consecutive shots without missing. Reach at least half of that target score, and your anime ladyfriend strips down to her lingerie. Beat that score, and she strips naked - clearly impressed by the way you handled your balls - and you move on to the next level and the next girl.

Here is some gameplay footage which appears to have all the nudie scenes removed, so we stay on the right side of the forum principles. :f_wink:

The inclusion of such a game in a family friendly hotel resort might be considered questionable. Did it turn me into a pervert? You tell me... :f_ugly: But I do remember that I liked to visit the ping pong and billiards room of that hotel a lot in the evenings, and loved to give billiards a try, even with my very limited abilities as a preschool kid. Maybe I was subconsciously hoping for some kind of reward...? :f_rolleyes:

Seriously, though, I remember having been interested in snooker on TV by that time already, clearly it wasn't just the game. Another game on that Playchoice-10 machine introduced me to the sport of baseball, and I went to re-enact that one in my backyard too when I got home - also with limited success, considering that I didn't yet have any equipment like the one we used when Prim and I played it last year.

Here's little Harrier during that 1995 holiday, giving pool billiards a shot in that room. Luckily, I was usually joined by my parents, or it wouldn't have been much of a game.

Billiards is pretty fun, I would like to play it some more and gain some skills. I once went to check it out at a club in a nearby town a few years ago, which was nice, but I couldn't get started for real due to lack of time. Also, it turned out that people usually keep their clothes on after the game... :f_frown:

Congrats to Vorpal, two in a row for you now. :f_drink:


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VorpalF2F
Joined: 02.09.2010

In my teens anyone in high school — ie age 13 to 18 could use the miner's lounge from 6pm to 9pm ever night.
They had a pool table — one of the big ones — a ping-pong table and and "lounge" which contained some couches, a jukebox and some pinball machines.

I got reasonably good at pool. I would live to play again, but I've no idea where to go to do so.

Originally posted by Harrier88
Congrats to Vorpal, two in a row for you now. :f_drink:
Will wonders never cease?


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Harrier88
Joined: 01.05.2012

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
In my teens anyone in high school — ie age 13 to 18 could use the miner's lounge from 6pm to 9pm ever night.
They had a pool table — one of the big ones — a ping-pong table and and "lounge" which contained some couches, a jukebox and some pinball machines.

That does sound great. :f_grin: Also seems like a very nice place to just socialize.

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
I got reasonably good at pool. I would live to play again, but I've no idea where to go to do so.

If I had the space at home, a decent billiards table would definitely be on my shopping list.

I'm sure there are some bars around here somewhere where I could try to find some strangers to battle at pool while wasting money on overpriced drinks... but I find that games like these are most enjoyable when you know what you are doing, so I would like to learn the proper technique and all at a real club first, with other players who are dedicated to the game.

At least I won that one practice game I played at that club back then near the end of my stay - because my opponent prematurely potted the 8-ball. :f_ugly:

It would also be nice to try other games like 9-ball pool and snooker some time, 8-ball pool seems like the NL Hold'em of billiards. A fine game, but just so common...


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VorpalF2F
Joined: 02.09.2010

Bar tables do exist, but they're small, and often poorly maintained.
I doubt that it would be profitable to run a proper pool hall these days.


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Harrier88
Joined: 01.05.2012

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
Bar tables do exist, but they're small, and often poorly maintained.
I doubt that it would be profitable to run a proper pool hall these days.

Yep, it's hard enough to run a profitable bar over here these days, for that matter.


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