Feast!

I will admit it, once I get into a fandom, I really get into a fandom. In this case it's Game of Thrones, though more properly, I'm into the Song of Ice and Fire books, since I don't have HBO and I am waiting for the first season of GoT to be available from the library (yes, people can get movies from the library). Anyway, I've finished the third book, A Storm of Swords, have just started on the fourth, and to celebrate this fact, I decided that I needed to make a GoT themed dinner last night.   If you haven't read these books, or seen the TV shows, maybe you'll think I'm a bit crazy.  However, if you have, you'll notice there is a intense amount of time spent discussing what people are eating, or what people want to eat.  Luckily, I am not alone in recognizing all the food motifs in these books.
To aid me in my medieval munching I turned to the amazing blog The Inn at the Crossroads. The ladies who run this blog are not only devote GoT fans, but also exceptional scholars of old timey foods.  Taking the foods mentioned in the books, they offer an original medieval recipe and a modern one, both tried and tested by them. On top of this, they also wrote the official Game of Thrones cook book, sanctioned by George RR Martin, so they know what they're doing.

Last night's Feast of Instagrams.

To make it easy on myself, I chose three basic looking recipes: sweet biscuits, garlic butter roasted mushrooms, and a meat pie.  For the biscuits and mushrooms, I followed their recipe word for word, leaving out the capers for the mushrooms as I didn't have any on hand, but for the meat pie I changed things up a bit.  I used ground turkey instead of pork (it was on sale), and I added bacon, onions, and a good splash of red wine, omitting the dates because I forgot to purchase them.  The sweetness of the honey and currants played nicely with the tart wine taste, and the bacon masked the fact it was just turkey.  It all turned out wonderful and with the bit of pie crust I had leftover, I added a direwolf to the top (Team Stark!).

If you're wondering what I drank, don't worry, there's a recipe for that, too!

My husband bought us some mead for the evening and I also made some hot spiced wine, which turned out amazing, and insanely simple.  For mine, I did a very very basic, what I had around the house recipe: Red wine, honey, a cinnamon stick, a few cloves, and some of the remaining currants.

Additionally!  If you feel like totally nerding it up and making some Winterfell roasts, I would suggest the amazing book Fabulous Feasts.  While the first part of the book is all about the medieval dining customs and ceremony, the back half is all recipes, ranging from really simple stuffed dates to how actually make a bird pop out of a pie.  And don't worry, there's a couple spiced wine recipes in there for good measure.