A Grimm Feast: Trubel's Scarf-It-Down Spaghetti (S3E20)

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Have we mentioned how much we love Trubel?  ‘Cause we love her.  We love Her Badassiness so very much—the dark, wandering loner who doesn’t have a chip on her shoulder so much as the whole bag of Doritos.  It would be so easy to slide into cliché territory with this role, but Jacqueline Toboni and the writers have done SO WELL with her at every turn that right from the start, she has felt completely honest and real.  Right down to how she eats.

It is extremely common for runaways, foster kids, and the like to eat the way Trubel does—inhaling as much food as possible, as fast as possible before it goes away.  When you don’t know what or when your next meal will be, you do what you have to do.  Even if these kids eventually end up in a safe home with plenty of food, they often continue eating this way for awhile out of habit.  That’s why it wasn’t surprising that when Trubel joined the rest of the Scooby Gang for a delicious spaghetti dinner, she went to town on that bowl of pasta like Shaggy on a pot-brownie buffet.

Of course, we’d also like to think that Juliette’s spaghetti is just THAT GOOD.  Or more accurately, her spaghetti sauce.

A Grimm Feast: Awkward Bratwurst (S3E12)

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Hello, Murderlings.  Guess what I did today?  I donated blood!  Yay!  Why am I sharing this?  Because while some people go through the donation process and shrug it off quite easily, I do not.  I take at least half an hour longer than normal before I can safely stand up, and for the rest of the day, I’m a bit…slow.  I was okay for most of the day but I’m especially punchy right now, because I’m tired and hungry and…I forget where I was going with this thought.

Anna: “So why did you decide to do a blog post and donate blood on the same day?”

Elle: “It happened to be a Wednesday.  I didn’t plan this.”

Anna: “Just checking.”

What are we doing today?  Oh right.  Awkward Bratwurst.  Awkwurst!  The entrée that Rosalee served to Monroe’s parents at the most awkward dinner party ever.  Oh, Monroe.  I’d like to make some snarky comment here about how you should’ve handled things differently when introducing your über-conservative Blutbad parents to your Fuchsbau fiancée, but to be honest…I think it went pretty well.  Eventually, anyway.

A Grimm Feast: Prodigal Green Beans (S3E11)

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Yay, awkward dinners!  In this episode, Rosalee brought Monroe with her as she was reunited with her mother and sister whom she hadn’t spoken to in seven years.  Mama Fuchsbau was more than happy to let bygones be bygones and embrace her returning daughter.  Sister DeEtta, on the other hand, was less thrilled—having been the one who sacrificed her career and social life to take care of their parents when Rosalee was struggling through her drug addiction.

Monroe did his best to make the family’s reunion dinner a positive occasion (even though he couldn’t eat the main course) by complimenting the green beans.  When he asked what marvelous ingredient they’d used to make them so delicious, DeEtta disdainfully replied: “Salt.”

“Oh honey,” thought I.  “We can do better than that.”

A Grimm Feast: Explosively Good Beef & Mushroom Tartlets (S3E3)

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This is the episode when Monroe and Rosalee went to a fine local establishment for a romantic dinner…only to discover later that the restaurant was run by vengeful Bauerschwein who were using their culinary know-how to murder Blutbaden.  Apparently there is a certain truffle from the Black Forest that is toxic to Blutbaden, for definitions of “toxic” that include “complete loss of faculties followed by exploding.”

This truffle was served up in an irresistible beef tartlet to all customers, though only the Blutbaden were affected.  Fortunately, Monroe brought along his trusty vegetarianism and an adorable Fuchsbau who was more than happy to eat his tartlet.  Remember, folks: if your significant other steals food off your plate in a restaurant, it’s because they love you and are trying to save your life.

A Grimm Feast: (Nick Loves) Juliette's Cilantro Lime Chicken (S2E06)

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Poor Juliette.  She goes into a magically-induced coma, wakes up in the hospital, and suddenly there’s this WEIRD GUY there who insists that he’s her boyfriend.  All his stuff is in her house, all her friends insist that she’s been dating him for years, there are pictures of the two of them together…what the hell’s going on?

Everyone hopes Juliette’s memories of Nick will come back.  When it looks like they won’t, she decides to try starting over instead.  She finds a recipe for Cilantro Lime Chicken that she once wrote down with the note “Nick loves!” next to it, so she makes it for dinner in the hopes that it’ll help them get to know each other again.

Say it with me: “Aww!”

A Grimm Feast: Juliette’s Honey Pineapple Salmon (S1E19)

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Juliette, meet Monroe!  This was the entrée she served when Nick’s “other” work partner finally came over for dinner.  They talked, they laughed…then everything got awkward when Monroe slipped up and Juliette started asking questions that the boys couldn’t answer.  Oh, boys.  If you knew then what you know now, you wouldn’t have kept it a secret from her for so long.

A Grimm Feast: Wu's Carpet Cupcakes (S1E17)

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Apologies for the delay on this post, everyone.  You see, Anna and I had to rescue a bus from a bunch of burning orphans and…well, we're back in town now and ready to serve up the next installment of baking shenanigans.

This recipe, you guys.  The research that went into this one nearly drove me insane.  And, as most writers find, the vast majority of that research doesn’t show up in the final product AT ALL.

While under the influence of a zaubertrank that was meant for Hank, poor Wu’s brain goes a bit haywire.  He starts eating everything without even realizing it, up to and including couch cushions, Chapstick, and carpeting.  I decided to make a cake and frost it to resemble carpet fibers.  Then I discovered that during the shooting of the episode, the couch cushion stuffing that Reggie Lee ate was made of pound cake.

“Perfect!” I thought.  “I wonder if I can make a replica of that.”

You guys.  If you are at all like me, don’t ever search Google Images for “couch cake.”  Google Images is a wild, dangerous place filled with novelty cake pans and fondant tutorials.  That way lies madness.

A Grimm Feast: Adalind’s Zaubertrank Cookies (S1E15)

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Ah, yes…the magical cookies that drove Hank to obsession and madness.  They’re a fairly basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, with a few diabolical additives.  For the sake of hygiene, we’re gonna skip using blood of the deceived and blood of the deceiver.

Instead?  Jam.

A Grimm Feast: Bud’s Cherry Pie (S1E15)

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Before he joined the Scooby Gang, our favorite refrigerator repairman—Bud the Eisbieber—ran screaming for the hills the second he laid eyes on Nick.  And by “hills,” I mean “local bar.”  There he proceeded to brag to his buddies about the Grimm he saw, then had to prove it by showing them Nick’s house.  Nick did not take kindly to these late-night tire-squealing visits, and made sure Bud spread the word that the Grimm’s house was to be left alone.  Bud, being the adorable nervous wreck that he is, apologized not by giving Nick and Juliette space, but by showering them with please-don’t-decapitate-me gifts.  One such gift was his wife’s cherry pie.

A Grimm Feast: Introduction

Greetings, Murderlings!

Welcome to “A Grimm Feast,” where we’ll be exploring the various culinary curiosities featured on Grimm over the seasons.  (What did Monroe and Rosalee serve at the Most Awkward Dinner Party Ever?  How about the dish that Juliette made for Nick when she was trying to recover from amnesia?)  These may not be the most perfect reproduction recipes, but they should be pretty tasty.

Now, a traditional food blog would be all shiny and professional and stuff.  (Seriously, do you have any idea how much work goes into a real cooking blog?  The resources, the practice, the presentation…it’s practically a full-time job for some people.)  At the very least, the pictures would be properly composed and the chef would probably have tested the recipe once or twice before documenting it in front of all of you.  Not so in my case.  While I tend to do a fair bit of research and planning, most of what you’ll see here will be my first attempts at these recipes.

Why such an unpolished approach?  Because this is not a traditional cooking blog; it’s a fan blog.  My posts are side dishes as opposed to the main course, so to speak.  Also, imperfection is fun.  I embrace the fun.  Let’s be honest, here: I am not some 6 foot tall French pin-up who can sculpt 40 dozen flawless pastries in a row and top it all off with a buttercream rose and a grosgrain ribbon.  Besides, that shit’s kinda scary.  I am here to geek out over recipes; I am NOT here to intimidate people with my massive macarons.

Anna, why are you laughing?

That said, I’ll also do my best to include links for those who want to cut the crap and just get to the recipe already.  Trust me, I know…there are few things more annoying on a cooking blog than when you just want to know what the ingredients are and the author spends 20 pages rambling about the inspiring roadtrip they took when they were 16.

First up: Bud’s Cherry Pie.  Coming next week!