This Is Everything I Need In Life

This is everything I need in life

Aaaaand this is where most of my concentration has gone for the past little while. Over on the Redwall re-read discord, we’ve (ok well probably mostly me) kind of developed an unofficial cast of characters. I’ve had a lot of fun designing them and forming their personalities.

Featured here:

Stonecrop: Current Badgerlord of Salamandastron. Extroverted and go-with-the-flow, likes to tease and joke, though doesn’t always realize how hurtful some of his words can be. Preferred weapon is a double-bladed polearm scimitar. Always down for a good fight.

Lilium: Current Badgermum of Redwall (and, jokingly, of the Discord server, which is how this all got started). Originally from a farm. Very practical creature, rather quiet and introverted. Was going to marry Stonecrop, but she found being in such a formal environment incredibly stifling and didn’t like the expectation to wait hand and foot on her soon-to-be husband while also being expected to never lift a finger to do anything by herself. 

Lilium and Stonecrop balanced each other out well–she would rein in him a little bit and convince him to think something through before saying/doing it, while he got her to come out of her shell and be more comfortable expressing herself instead of bottling it up. But when Lilium realized how unhappy she was living at the mountain, Stonecrop was too dedicated to his role as Badgerlord, so they broke up. They do genuinely miss each other and still have moments together the rare times that they see each other, but neither of them really want to admit it.

Marina: A mouse, and surprisingly the main antagonist of the story. Marina has spent most of her life working for/in close proximity to the Badgerlords. She was always very impulsive and scrappy, and she’s got killer aim with throwing weapons (literally and figuratively). I haven’t quite figured out exactly what triggers it, but she ultimately turns against Stonecrop and tries to attack him and the mountain, but fails, losing an eye in the process. She then drifted out to sea and was taken in by a passing ship (the Wavewar) and treated for her injuries. As soon as she was healed, though, she took over and made it her mission to go after Salamandastron.

Rulf and Brinna: A pair of stoats, and a very happy couple (aka fulfilling my desire for a healthy vermin relationship in the Redwall universe). Rulf is captain of the Wavewar, the ship that takes in Marina. Marina hits him in the head with a boat hook and severely injures him. His girlfriend, Brinna, manages to get them both off the ship and onto the shore near Salamandastron, where she meets Stonecrop and is able to convince him to give them sanctuary in the mountain, where they form a tentative truce to stop Marina and get their ship (and crew) back.

Some villain hordes have absolutely eaten small sentient animals before, and the Redwallers are always horrified if they find out. Redwallers would never eat thrush. In my mind, it’s not that the thrush aren’t sentient, it’s that Ascrod eats them anyway. I imagine the thrush is semi-sentient and keeps mostly to itself.

Hey redwall??? Why are owls sentient but thrush are still non-sentient??

HEYA FOLKS! Earlier I realized there’s only 7 more recipes for this season and with aiming for about 1 dish every week-ish I’m gonna need more, so if you have any good de-fictionalized recipes, feel free to send them my way! Now- Kick ya legs up on the back porch cus today were gonna be baking some badger-patented and badger-approved carrot cakes from the Redwall Cookbook!

(If you’d like to follow along, you will find the original recipe under the cut!)-

MY NAMES CROSS NOW LETS COOK LIKE ANIMALS

SO, “what goes in to a Brockhall Badger Carrot Cake?” YOU MIGHT ASK

1 Small potato, mashed

3 Eggs, beaten

1 Medium onion

3 Medium carrots

Fresh breadcrumbs

Fresh parsley

Salt

Pepper

Vegetable oil

You’ll want some sort of kitchen scale also, as the onion ‘n carrot are measured by weight.

For a recipe that uses breacrumbs, I’d strongly recommend leaving a slice of bread out the night before you cook, and then crumbling it by hand. You can use storebought but they have the texture and flavor of woodchips. A tad fucky wucky. In most contexts the breadcrumbs serve as a binder so you want it so have space to absorb the moisture in the food when you’re cooking!

AND, “what do Brockhall Badger Carrot Cakes taste like?” YOU MIGHT ASK Well! Kinda like latkes! Somewhat! (The ‘cake’ in ‘carrot cake’ must’ve been a shortening of pancake?)

Innards are tender, sorta fluffy

Carrots contribute a really nice crispy quality to the tops and bottoms of each

Like a less-oily more meaty-tasting latke

Speaking of, it somehow. Somehow. Tastes like meat. I don’t know. Its excellent.

I served it with a side of roasted garlic hummus and would 10/10 do it again, it adds a breezy quality to the otherwise stocky meal

Hard to think of a drink that’d pair well. I think it’d have to be some seltzer

I made a platter of these for a lunch-guest, hence the fancy dish, and in her words “Thats a good whatever it is”. Glowing 3/3 stars Michelin-Man your ass is mine

. Used carrot tops for plating . Added a dash of cayenne pepper dust to last cake while it was on the pan (would do this for every cake in the future)

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However; I dunno if I’d make these in the future!

You will need another set of hands to help you prep all the foodstuffs!! Which isn’t bad! But it is a factor. Theres simply not enough areas to multitask as one person during the prep stage. And the serving as is isn’t filling enough for it to stand on its own without some adjustments.

It’d fit in splendid at potlucks or holiday dinners, where theres both either people to help or other dishes (so you can make a smaller portion) to focus on, 6/10, with 1 being food that makes one physically sick and 10 being food that gives one a lust for life again.

Grating is what they make kindergartners do in hell. I spent 20 minutes trying to think of wordplay that used grating (to mean annoyance) and I give up.

🐁 ORIGINAL RESIPPY TEXT BELOW 🐁

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So great!

Matthias

Bella: You scored a 25/27 on your mental health questionnaire.

Martin: So that means I'm good at mental health, right?

Abbess Germaine, entering the room: Hello, I'm your crisis counselor

Martin: Ah, beans.

Swartt says shoulda woulda coulda

Integrating this in my vocabulary starting today