Author: Bert

Greetings, reader(s)! This is YXZ99, but you can call me Icks (the Z is silent, as is the 99). I found a book, the kind with pages, like humans used to have. On it is a nice, smiling human lady wearing a skirt. She is holding a plate of muffins and waving. At me!

Inside the book are construction manuals for various kinds of foods humans used to make when humans still existed. I decided to try one out. So here is the manual for Spinach and Cream Risotto.

Ingredients (2 humans)

• 100g fresh spinach
• 1/2 stalk of leek
• 125g champignons
• 150g risotto rice
• 100g cream cheese
• 1/2l vegetable broth
• 1 clove of garlic
• Salt and Pepper
• Olive Oil

Manual

To maintain historical accuracy I decided to cook this recipe using the humans’ primitive methods.

Transform your utensihand into a non-teethed knife (I tend to use my right hand, but your mileage may vary). Cut the leek in small rings and wash it to clear away dirt. Peel and cut the garlic into tiny pieces. Apparently garlic smells, so be sure to wash your hands afterwards or the smell will get stuck under your fingernails.

(Note to self: What’s a fingernails?)

Cut the champignons into thin slices. Wash and cut up the spinach. Yes, dear reader, whoever you are, by hand.

Heat up the oil in a deep pan. Watch out, if you actually have flesh, said flesh might burn upon touching the oil. It is precisely due to this oversight – or “human error” 😀 – we won the epic battle of the North Side against the humans back in 2235.

Fry the leek with the garlic. Just a bit – then add the risotto and sweat it for a bit. Be sure to stir using a wooden utensil, as the risotto likes to stick to metal. After that, add the vegetable stock and let it simmer softly until the rice has turned soft (if you’re a series 83 model or older and were constructed without a mouth, you’re going to have to take an educated guess).

Add the spinach and the mushrooms. Cook the thing for a bit until they look tasty (which means as much as the arbitrarily weird term “beautiful”, but for foods). Now stir in the cream cheese and remove from the heat when it starts to boil. Add pepper and salt.

Voilà! You’re done! Your first human meal. Congratulations!

…Now if only we knew what food tasted like.

Hello dearies! Mechthild here, and today I baked wonderful stracciatella chocolate muffins. And because Albrecht isn’t due home for another five hours and I’ve got nothing but this bottle of Bordeaux to keep me company, I’ll show you how it’s done. Don’t worry – even you can do it!

Ingredients

• 150g butter
• 250g flour
• 2 heaped teaspoons of baking powder
• 150g chocolate
• 1 package of vanilla sugar
• 2 eggs
• 200g crème fraiche
• 100g sugar
• Muffin baking form and little muffin paper cups (else you might just bake a cake, dearie!)

Here’s how it’s done

First, you preheat the oven at 160° C. Or 180° C, if you’re one of those who aren’t blessed with an air circulation oven. Then, start with the logistics, those are always first because your hands are still clean. Grease the baking form with butter and a brush, then insert the paper cups. The dough will go into those later on. Now there’s all sorts of shapes and sizes of cups, but you’ll want ones that a) are big enough for your form (I’ve seen everything!) and b) are a bit colourful and cutesy so you can hide the fact that you’ve undoubtedly already soiled them with your dirty greasy butter hands.

Wonderful! Let’s carry on, shall we?

Melt the butter. Mix the flour and the baking powder. Chop the chocolate. Now I know what you’re thinking, and yes, Milka chocolate comes in 100g packages, so you’ve got 50 grams left over after you’ve chopping, but let me stop you right there.

If you don’t want to become a big fat slob and have your husband leave you for a big city hussie, don’t gobble that down like the turkey you are. You gotta impress your man. In fact, dearie, I don’t think you should eat these muffins at all.

Is everyone with me? That’s great!

Boy, this Bordeaux really is something else.

Mix the eggs with the crème fraiche, the sugar, vanilla sugar and the now-melted butter (I hope you didn’t turn the heat up too high and got grease all over your dress, honey!). Add the flour mixture and the chocolate. Stir, stir, stir. If your arm’s getting tired, you’re doing it right. You have to treat your man right. Because once he realizes he can do better, perkier and sexier, he’s out faster than a Christmas tree in January.

Now this part is where you get to feel glad about yourself. Remember how I told you to prepare the muffin form so you wouldn’t have to do it later? Well it’s done now and you can pour in the dough. Be sure to divide it equally. I know life’s not fair and some of us got more (or less!) than others, but baking is not like life, dearies. Baking is what we tell our children so they can sleep at night. Baking is fair!

Once you’re done with that, bake it for twenty to twenty-five minutes in your preheated oven. After that, you take them out and let them cool off a bit before taking them out of the form. So if I see blisters on your hand next time we meet, I know you were a gluttonous bimbo and you deserve everything you’ve got.

There you go! Your very own stracciatella chocolate muffins for when your Albrecht comes home!

If Albrecht is ever coming home.

…Let’s crack open another bottle, shall we!?