dragon’s crown kraken cacciatore [octopus cacciatore]

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Recently, I’ve been spending a lot of time playing Dragon’s Crown on the PlayStation 3. Since I’m quite partial towards ranged classes, aka, shooty people, I opted to pick the Elf as my main character.

Most of the game is spent running through dungeons and completing objectives given to you by the various NPCs in town, however, on a few select dungeons, you have the opportunity to play the cooking game! Ok, it’s not called the cooking game, it’s called the camp, but it’s basically a silly, yet addicting, cooking game. The objective is to cook and eat as many dishes as possible within the time limit.

There’s a bunch of ingredients to choose from; varying from delicious and exotic meats such as Kraken Tentacles or Minotaur Tongue to common and simple vegetables such as shallots and peas. If you kill a boss, sometimes their meat appears in the ingredient piles. Om nom nom Harpy Eggs…

Of course, if you’re playing online or with friends, you’ll end up fighting for the best ingredients available. You do have the option to add seasonings such salt, pepper, or garlic to your dish as well and you are given extra points for flavor! However, if you don’t stir or flip your food, it will burn and it will taste horrible. I will admit I have burnt food in this game, and because of that, I now mash my X and L1 buttons in order to prevent future cooking mishaps.

The food always looks so delicious in-game, so I’ve decided to try taking on and bringing some Dragon’s Crown delicacies to life. This time, I’ve decided to take a stab at creating Kraken Cacciatore. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my hands on any kraken, so octopus is the best I could find.

Now, let’s gather around the campfire and start cooking!

Eat well, for you will need to be prepared for the day ahead. 😀

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pan seared shellder [scallops with roasted fennel]

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In 1998, I was in elementary school obsessing with my friends over the latest Pokémon game. It was the latest craze sweeping the nation — a Japanese RPG with super adorable pets. At the time, I had no idea how much depth these games had. I didn’t understand the stat rolls or the concept of optimizing your team; I just wanted to collect the cool looking animals.

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I had this card, but I don’t think I used it in my deck.

Rollin’ with Jolteon, Articuno, Blastoise, Mewtwo, and Pidgeot. I clearly had no idea what I was doing, but I was disillusioned into believing that I was truly a Pokémon Master. After all, I did beat that jerkface, BLUE, to earn that fancy title.

But one thing was always confusing about the entire series… How did any of the inhabitants of the Pokémon world ever get fish? Were those fish also Pokémon or are they just straight-up boring fish? Maybe we should just eat Pokémon…

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I mean, c’mon… Look at this Shellder… I’m pretty sure he’d be delicious if you pan seared him!

Plus, I don’t even think Shellder rolls decent stats! You can get much better water-type Pokémon than this mollusk.

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