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Hello and happy new year!

We’re kicking off the new year with a recipe from the upcoming Diablo III expansion: Reaper of Souls. I was fortunate enough to receive a beta key from Blizzard and I immediately wasted no time in doing very important things during the beta test! For example, I’ve only spent 15 minutes talking to Soulstone Sliver in Westmarch.

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I’m pretty sure we’re already bros

OK, I lied. I probably spent way more time talking to the Soulstone Sliver. I just enjoy watching it spin around to face me when I click on it.

I did play through part of the Act V campaign and it’s really creepy. It’s creepy in a good way though. I don’t want to give out any spoilers, but there are encounters that seem very nightmare worthy.

I’m still trying to figure out a decent build for my Demon Hunter in preparation for Westmarch. Currently, I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate the new skill “Vengeance” into my build.

blog_reapersofsoles_d3 EXPLOSIONS!!

I enjoy running into areas full of mobs just so I can pop Vengeance and run around… However, when I’m too over-zealous, this happens:

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Some things never change…

When I finished the Act V beta demo, I hopped straight into Adventure mode! I think it’s really refreshing because I can travel to any act and collect various bounties. Once you’ve completed all five bounties throughout the act, you’re rewarded with access to the Nephalem Rift.

The Nephalem Rift is full of delicious little mobs for you to kill and once you’ve destroyed enough of them, you get to fight a big baddie at the end.

blog_reaperofsoles_rift And after you’ve slaved away killing all of those darn monsters, you get rewarded with some sweet loot. Hooray!

Reaper of Souls is set to release at the end of March, but until then, I guess I’ll have to just make Diablo-themed recipes to combat my RoS cravings.

Today’s recipe is the Reaper of Soles, which pays homage to the reaper himself, Malthael.

From the Diablo III wallpaper page. Also, currently my desktop background.

Instead of being cloaked in dark robes, this fillet of sole is crusted in black sesame seeds and was quickly pan-fried on a hot skillet. The fish sits on a bed of souls — err, I mean, a bed of rice noodles.

This dish is simple and easy to make, so you won’t have to spend hours slaving away in your kitchen instead of fighting demons in Sanctuary.

Let’s start cooking, Nephalem!

UNIT COMPOSITION

blog_reapersofsoles_ingredients

salt
pepper
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons of olive oil
2 teaspoons of soy sauce
juice from 1/2 of a lime
4 tablespoons of black sesame seeds
1/2 of an onion, julienned (thin strips)
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1/4 lb of mushrooms, sliced
1/4 lb of rice noodles (I used these brown rice noodles)
~1/2 lb of dover sole (a fillet should be about ~1/4 lb)
OPTIONAL: 2 sprigs of green onion, chopped

BUILD ORDER

This dish takes about 10 minutes to prepare, and about 15 minutes to cook. This dish makes 2 servings.

Calories per serving: ~400 calories

OPENING

Place your sesame seeds in a shallow dish.
Season your sole with salt and pepper. Dredge the fish in the sesame seeds. Once the fish is fully coated, remove and set aside.
While you are dredging the fish, set a pot of water to boil for the rice noodles. You will want the noodles to cook while you’re cooking the fish.

MID GAME

Heat a large skillet on high heat and add in 1 teaspoon of olive oil. When the olive oil reaches a water-like viscosity, add in your garlic, red bell pepper, onions, and mushrooms.
Saute your vegetables until browned (about 4 minutes). Immediately remove vegetables and set aside.

LATE GAME

Add your remaining teaspoon of olive oil into the skillet. When the skillet comes up to temperature, add in your fish.
Allow fish to cook for about 4-5 minutes per side on medium-high heat.
While your fish is cooking, add your rice noodles to your boiling water. The rice noodles should take about 5 minutes to cook and should finish by the time your fish is done. Stir the noodles occasionally while they’re cooking in order to prevent them from sticking together.
When the noodles have finished cooking, immediately strain them and return them to the pot. Stir in your vegetables, lime juice, and soy sauce.
Plate your dish by placing your sesame-crusted fish over the noodle stir-fry.
(Optional) Garnish your dish with green onions.
Eat!

And ta-da, here’s the finished dish:

blog_reapersofsoles_done

GG WP, Nephalem!

I hope this dish will inspire you create your own healthy and delicious meals in the comfort of your own kitchen. Hopefully, your kitchen isn’t located in Westmarch because I hear the property value in that place is decreasing due to reapers.

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THESE DARN MAIDENS OF FLAME AIN’T NOTHIN’ BUT TROUBLE.

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About a month ago, I got into the Hearthstone beta and subsequently spent all the moneys on desperately trying to get amazing cards. At the time, I was building a rogue deck, and anything non-rogue was immediately disenchanted. NEVER GONNA PLAY A WARLOCK ANYWAY I GUESS.

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This is our town, scrub.

Eventually, I collected and crafted enough cards to build my rogue deck and jumped into ranked play. However, climbing the ladder to Masters 3 was increasingly difficult!

I started messing around with a combo spell deck that relied heavily on setting up your spell damage minions and using headcrack/eviscerate. However, the meta shifted and people on the ladder expected this, so they would kill my minions ASAP… Especially my ringleader. This was clearly not our town, scrub.

Since it was all about control, I decided to try a rogue control deck. All them weapons! It worked for a while, but I got stuck in Masters 2. Then, I tried the Miracle Rogue deck. When it worked, damn, it worked… But most of the time, I would basically die before I got a chance to set up anything.

So, I did some research and crosschecked my decklist with the winning decklists from the ManaGrind tournament. I decided to go with a deck that had a lot of draw power and value minions, such as the Argent Commander. Well, it worked and I broke into Masters 3. Yippie! Plus, I got to keep my Defias Ringleaders. Yeah, beat it.

After getting comfortable with the card attributes and some strategies, I decided to take a stab at Arena. I got my butt kicked so much. Losing definitely sucks, especially when you basically throw the game because you played the cards in the wrong order or because you miscalculated how much damage you could’ve done that turn. I’ve definitely lost a lot of games because I miscalculated the amount of mana I had. Yes, I can totally use 2 of these 6 mana cost cards this turn. Wait a minute…Crap.

People are frighteningly good in arena, too. So when you make mistakes, it hurts a lot!
The people who play arena know which cards to draft, which cards synergize, and when to use those cards. It’s like they KNOW when I have a flamestrike in my hand so they don’t play extra minions before my turn 7. But, what they don’t know is that I have 3 more flamestrikes in my hand. MY MAGIC WILL TEAR YOU APART.

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I wish I saw this more often…

The interesting thing about arena is that you also get a chance to test your skills with other classes. I don’t have enough cards to complete decks for all nine classes, but, it’s nice to take a break from rogue and mess around in arena with a mage or a druid.

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Plus, you might even get lucky and draft a fancy legendary like Ragnaros or Sylvanas Windrunner!

Because of my new-found ~~crippling addiction to~~ love of all that is Hearthstone, I’ve decided to immortalize it into baked goods. And thus, Hearthscones were created!

blog_hearthscones_done So, pull up a chair by the hearth, and let’s start baking!

WELL MET!

UNIT COMPOSITION

blog_hearthscones_ingredients

1 pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of baking powder
4 tablespoons of butter, cut into small pieces
1 ¾ cup of flour*
¾ cup of sugar
½ cup of whole milk
1 bartlett pear, chopped
½ cup of blueberry preserves
1 egg (this is for an egg wash)

*if the dough comes out too mushy during mixing, you may need to gently fold in additional flour just to fix the consistency. I recommend adding them in 1/4 cup intervals.

BUILD ORDER

Total prep time is roughly 30 minutes. Cook time is about 16 minutes. This will make 6 scones.

OPENING

Combine flour, baking powder, salt in a large bowl.
Add in your butter. Squish the butter between your fingers in the flour. Keep doing this until the flour has somewhat of a bread-crumb like consistency.
Add in your sugar and gently combine with the dough.
Slowly pour in your milk and making cutting motions through the dough with a spoon to combine. You do not want to over mix the dough at this point.
Add in your chopped pear. Gently fold the dough until the pears have all combined.

MID GAME

Pre-heat your oven to 375° F.
Put the dough on a clean, floured surface. You’ll want to use a rolling pin in order to get the dough to the same size (~1.5 inches). Cut the dough into circles using a cookie cutter.
Place the dough circles on a baking dish lined with parchment paper.
Create the Hearthstone squiggle using foil. Imprint the Hearthstone squiggle into the dough.

LATE GAME

Scramble your egg and gently brush the egg over each dough circle. This will help the scones brown.
Gently spoon blueberry preserves into each squiggle imprint.
Bake the scones for about 16 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.
Eat!

Puffy scones!

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HMM, WELL PLAYED.

And that’s GG! Now take your scones, scarf them down and go 9-1 in the arena.

Before BlizzCon, I actually sent a few batches of Hearthscones to Blizzard HQ!

blog_hearthscones_vaeflare I was incredibly worried that they would arrive in crumbles, but thankfully, they seemed to have made it in one piece! Vaeflare was kind enough to take care of the scones and distribute them to the teams.