Games are something that are popular now more than ever. Many people enjoy playing them alone or with other people. There are games for every skill level, and for those who want a challenge it can be a great change of pace from daily life to play a game. but they almost all have the same limitation, usually the only true results are simple entertainment and an engaging way to pass time. But that seems to be changing as people look at ways to creatively combine world necessities with our inherent need to be entertained.
Which leads us to our unique experience,
Cooking with Dice: The Acid Test. This is a cookbook and game experience that is going to be live on kickstarter March 14th. You can find out specifics about the campaign on their website
www.cookingwithdice.com. You'll be able to get your very own copy to play through and enjoy! But I'm sure you're wondering about how it plays, or how it works. So let's have a look at how our experience here at home has gone.
So before I get too far into this, as someone who prefers tabletop games and board games to video games on the most part, I have to say I found this to be appealing. The Acid Test Cookbook is a fantastic example of creativity at it's finest offering unique kitchen experience. It includes a few different play mode recommendations, single player, group, or team based on what you feel up to attempting. But remember some of the recipes need time to 'cook' so they may not be ready for consumption immediately. I attempted to run it in group mode, but we felt intimidated, so I ended up testing it on my own in single player mode.
I must admit that my first few attempts at working through any of the recipes left me feeling a little out of my element. Partially because I'm not very good at following directions, but also due to the fact my kitchen lacks a majority of the ingredients listed on the roll tables. Which made it a little difficult to just play the book from home without purchasing the ingredients before hand. A mistake I initially made. I'm a gamer who doesn't frequent the kitchen so it never crossed my mind you need to go get your ingredients first. My bad.
So after reading through more and examining things more closely the solution I came up with, was to roll the dice and make a shopping list. Yeah I know, this is what everyone else would have done in the first place when they want to prepare a recipe. But I'm not a cook, so to me it seemed I had come up with a great solution. Less creative I suppose than I want it to sound, but by approaching the recipes and die rolls in this manner it was far easier to actually follow the recipes and continue game play.
I think my favorite part of the book is that it does not require the use of the oven. The microwave really is one of my favorite cooking centers, so a book that offers more creative and inventive recipes to be made there is highly appealing. It was surprising though that they were much easier in practice than I was expecting.
Not only were the recipes easy, the results were impressive. I'm looking forward to actually using some of them for future holiday get togethers. My favorite recipe in the whole book though is the buttermilk cheese critter. I never realized I could make a cheese ball so easily at home. I've always found them to be a rather intimidating product when the holidays come around. We often purchase them and then set them out as needed.
The recipe that I rolled up for my cheese critter wasn't extremely difficult. But I did alter my recipe slightly because I wanted to pretend that I was brave. I ended up using: 2 cups low-fat buttermilk,1/4 cup grated mozzarella cheese, 2 tablespoons diced Ham, and 2 tablespoons of bacon bits. Those components made up the majority of my "Buttermilk Cheese Critter". For the coating I ended up using 2 tablespoons of crushed round crackers.
Personally I like the buttery taste of the crackers, and it let the ham flavor stand out more. The bacon bits gave it a little more of a crunch, and I know they'll be safe if I repeat this with some of my friends around. I know they weren't really included in the plans, but I wanted to have a little bit of a crunch with the ham and I wasn't sure I wanted to add nuts. I think I'll call this variation porky.
I'm going to have to do it again soon though so I can make it cute and take a picture of the results. So don't be surprised if there's another post in the near future showing off my rather new found acid based cooking skills! I wasn't entirely brave in my preliminary creations because I was more interested in tasting the results and finding out how difficult it would be. But I am definitely going to have to show off some results as soon as possible.
So considering that I have actually had positive results, even though I have little skill, I recommend this cooking experience. Even for younger children, as long as you supervise them. If you're looking to make creative game based meals, or just to challenge your family to create food at home, this cookbook will be a wonderful addition to both your cookbook collection and your game collection. Check out their website for further information,
www.cookingwithdice.com and MAKE SURE to check into their kickstarter once it's live! You don't want to miss out on this.
