Living the life of a farmer in Stardew Valley must be incredibly difficult. You started out working a 9 to 5 job at Joja Corp and suddenly, you ditch everything to start a brand new life in this quaint little town.

I personally struggled my first few days of being a fresh new farmer. I spent a lot of days chopping down trees in my yard and wandering aimlessly through the valley. I would pick up random things and eat them or throw them into my hastily made wooden chest. Eventually, I picked up enough random things to reach Forager level 2. At the time, I had no idea what the heck that meant, I just knew that I magically learned how to make a burger because of it. Hype! 

Once I got my farm going, I started making Survival Burgers all the time. It eventually replaced my old staple food of Fried Eggs.

HOORAY BURGER

I personally like to enjoy my delicious burger in the depths of the mines:

Hey skeleton bro, do you want a bite or nah?

Since the Survival Burger has become such a necessary part of my adventuring routine, I had to recreate it in real life.

The actual ingredients to the recipe are incredibly simple: “bread”, “cave carrot” and “eggplant”. Easy! …sort of. I didn’t know what the heck a cave carrot was, so I got the next best thing: Rainbow Carrots!

 UNIT COMPOSITION

1. salt
2. pepper
3. 3 – 4 sprigs of fresh tarragon (dried OK too!)
4. 3 cloves of garlic
5. 1 shallot, diced
6. 2 tablespoons of dijon mustard
7. 1/2 cup of mayonnaise
8. 1/2 eggplant, chopped
9. 2 rainbow carrots (preferably in purple or yellow), chopped
10. 1 tomato
11. green leaf lettuce
12. hamburger buns

BUILD ORDER

This recipe takes about 20 minutes to prep. Cook time is about 35 minutes. This makes 4 servings.

OPENING

1. In a food processor, combine your garlic, shallots and 2 chopped carrots.
2. Add in your chopped egg plant and process. Season with salt and pepper. Remove your mixture from the food processor. The mixture will be fairly watery due to the water content of the carrots and eggplant.
3. Line a baking dish with parchment paper. Divide your mixture into 4 sections. Form each section into a patty and place it on the baking dish. You may want to smooth out the patties with a butter knife.
   
4. Preheat your oven to 375°. Bake the patties for about 35 minutes or until golden brown.
   

MID GAME

1. While the patties are baking, create your tarragon mayonnaise. Remove the stems from the tarragon and roughly chop the leaves.
2. In a bowl, combine your dijon mustard with your mayonnaise.
   
3. Stir in your tarragon and season with a little salt.

LATE GAME

1. Assemble your burger! Place one lettuce leaf on the bottom portion of the hamburger bun.
2. Place your veggie patty on top of the lettuce leaf.
3. Place a generous amount of tarragon mayonnaise on top of the patty.
4. Top that with a tomato slice and then the top of the bun.
5. Eat!

Hooray, and now you’re done! GG WP, Farmer.

Now you have a tasty and nutritious meal that will keep you energized to forage all day long!

I’m sure its no surprise to anyone that I’m still freakishly obsessed with Stardew Valley. It’s such a peaceful relaxing game and it definitely helps cleanse the salt left by other games.

However, that doesn’t mean Stardew Valley has been without frustrating for me! When I first started, I could NOT for the life of me understand fishing… It was such a simple concept, but for whatever reason, my brain just went into full derp mode whenever I started fishing.

Eventually, after much struggling and rambling at my computer screen, it finally clicked in my head. That’s when I decided to become the fisher-woman of Pelican Town! Willy’s gonna be so proud!

Much to the dismay of my poor farm husband Sebastian, I began storing all of my catch in a storage chest in the kitchen because the fridge was full of important things such as wheat and quartz. This is also because I’m scared to accidentally turn any of my future legendary fish catches into sashimi again… RIP ANGLER, MARCH 8th 2016 – MARCH 8th 2016.

Why’s it smell so bad in here…? It’s totally not that un-refrigerated box of fish in the kitchen…

Since I’ve become the self-proclaimed fisher-woman of Pelican Town, I decided I just had to make another fish dish.

Image via the Official Stardew Valley Wiki

Dish o’ The Sea was a good start, but it was time to up my fish cooking skills by roasting a whole fish.

I’m a terrible fisher in real life, so I headed to my local fish monger. I’m not in an area of the US where Sunfish is a common, and fresh water Bream is difficult to get since it’s a fish native to Europe. However, I substituted it with its cousin-by-name, the Sea Bream!

 UNIT COMPOSITION

1. salt
2. pepper
3. 1 tablespoon of olive oil
4. 1/4 cup of flour
5. whole bream, gutted and fins removed
6. fresh parsley
7. fresh dill
8. 4 – 5 sprigs fresh majoram, stems removed
9. 3-5 cloves of garlic
10. 1 shallot
11. 1 lemon (2 if you plan on adding a lemon decoration for plating)
12. dandelion greens

BUILD ORDER

Total prep time for this dish is about 20 minutes. Cook time is ~35 minutes. This makes about 2 servings.

OPENING

1. Roughly chop your garlic and shallots.
   
2. Season your bream with salt and pepper. Make sure to rub the seasoning inside the empty cavity.
3. Stuff the bream with 1/2 of your dill, parsley and majoram. Add in your garlic and your shallots. Add in 2 lemon slices.
   
4. Coat your bream with a light dusting of flour.

MID GAME

1. Place your remaining herbs on in a large baking dish.
2. Place your bream on top of the herbs.
   
3. Carefully drizzle the olive oil over the bream.
4. OPTIONAL: Add two lemons on top of the bream.

LATE GAME

1. Preheat your oven to 375° F. Bake the fish for about 30 minutes.
2. Remove the lemons and broil for 5 minutes at broil at 500° F. This is to make the breading extra crispy!
3. While the bream is baking, steam or lightly boil your dandelion greens. Season with salt, pepper and lemon.
4. Plate the dandelion greens first. Then place your freshly baked bream on top of the greens. OPTIONAL: Add two lemon halves to replicate the in-game design.
5. Eat!

GG WP, Farmer!

Now you have this delightful fish that you can share!

Or you can just keep it to yourself… I mean, you need the energy right? The farm isn’t gonna take care of itself!

Take a break from the farm and relax with this healthy Stardew Valley-inspired meal: Red Plate!

I really wanted to make this recipe since it looked so adorable in-game. I even went out and got a purple-colored plate so I could make it as authentic as possible.

I won’t lie, it’s been really tough for me to set aside some time to plan out these recipes because I’m completely glued to this game. Thankfully, this recipe is incredibly simple to make so I didn’t lose too much game time. Must…go back to sitting in my house… doing nothing… 

Same.

UNIT COMPOSITION

1. salt
2. pepper
3. fresh thyme
4. 1 tablespoon of olive oil
5. 3 cloves of garlic
6. radishes
7. 1/2 red cabbage
8. 1/2 red onion

BUILD ORDER

Prep time for this dish is roughly 10 minutes. Cook time is about 45 minutes.This makes 3 servings.

OPENING

1. Remove the stems from the radishes and cut each radish in half.
2. Take you red cabbage and quarter it. Cut each quarter in half.
3. Chop your garlic.
4. Chop your 1/2 red onion.

MID GAME

1. Place your garlic, red cabbage, red onion and radish in a large baking dish.
   
2. Drizzle your olive oil over the vegetables and mix thoroughly.
3. Season with salt, pepper and thyme leaves.

LATE GAME

1. Preheat your oven to 375° F.
2. Roast your vegetables for about 45 minutes, or until the radish is soft.
   
3. Eat!

GG WP, Farmer.

With this dish, you’ll have the energy to power through your day.

Or the power to just stare at your TV all day… Err…

I really wish Queen of Sauce was on… I should’ve DVRed it.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, you would know that I am incredibly obsessed with Stardew Valley. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s basically an RPG where you farm to your heart’s content, stab monsters, and stalk romance your village love-interest.

The game has a lot of features, but I definitely enjoyed fishing and stalking romancing the most. I actually documented my whole spaghetti-based romance saga on Twitter because I’m not insane at all. But, I’ll save that entire story for another recipe…

WAKE UP NERD. I BROUGHT YOU SOME SPAGHETTI. #stardewvalley #seducehimwithspaghetti pic.twitter.com/Z4iM8UWTbE

— Kierstin (@kierpanda) March 9, 2016

This is completely normal behavior!

But honestly, the greatest thing to me is cooking. If a game has cooking in it, I get pretty hyped. One of the recipes that caught my eye was Dish O’ The Sea. It just sounded so tasty, so I just had to make it!

Are you staring at a TV again, Seb? It’s lunch time, dude.

The original recipe calls for just sardines and hash browns, however, the art seems to have more on the plate than just that. I assumed that this dish would also feature kale and tomatoes since both of those things are crops that can be grown on your farm.

I’ve gone ahead and made some slight adjustments to the original three-ingredient recipe for this real-world adaption.

UNIT COMPOSITION

1. salt
2. pepper
3. (optional) parsley
4. 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
5. 2 tablespoons of olive oil
6. juice from 1 lemon
7. cherry tomatoes
8. 4 sardines, gutted and de-boned (hopefully your fish prepping skills are better than mine!)
9. 1 potato, peeled
10. 4 leaves of kale, stem removed

BUILD ORDER

Prep time for this meal is about 30 minutes. Cook time is about 25 minutes. This makes 2 servings.

OPENING

1. Take your potato and grate it.
   
2. Fill a bowl with cold water and place the grated potato into the water. This will draw out some of the starch.
3. Let the potatoes sit in the water for about 15 minutes. Drain the water and squeeze any excess water out of the potatoes. Allow it to dry on a paper towel.

MID GAME

1. Heat a pan on medium heat. Add in 1 tablespoon of olive oil.
2. Take one half of your grated potatoes and place them in the pan. Squish down the pile of potatoes to form your hash browns. Season with salt and pepper. Let cook for ~5 minutes and then flip and cook for another 5 minutes, or until golden brown. Repeat this step for your remaining potatoes.
3. While your hash browns cook, steam your kale and cherry tomatoes. You can either do this over boiling water, or using a microwave steamer (which I used). Season your kale with salt, pepper and 1/2 juice of lemon once done.

LATE GAME

1. Using a damp towel, wipe away any access hash browns from the pan.
2. Set the pan on medium-high heat and add 1 tablespoon of oil.
3. When the pan comes to heat, add in your chopped garlic and saute.
4. Season your sardines with salt and pepper.
5. Add in your sardines. Allow them to cook for about 2.5 minutes on each side.
   
6. Add in the remaining 1/2 lemon juice to your pan.
7. Remove the sardines from the heat and begin plating your dish.
8. (OPTIONAL): Sprinkle chopped parsley over your fish.
9. Eat!

GG WP, farmer!

Now you have a delicious meal that will get you prepared for a day’s worth of fishing! Hooray!