Allison Dahl
Executive Director
My most excellent wife (she is the GREETEST), my inspiration, my co-author, Sous-Chef and taste-tester.
C$2,320
I have always liked food (as I assume most people do) and liked to watch my father cook.
I remember saying as a very young kid that I would love to be a Chef, and I was shot down with “That will take a lot of work, and you will have to go to school for a long time. You wont do that”
Great way to motivate and encourage a kid.
My Mom was not a great cook, though she did feed us well enough (except casseroles, because NO ONE LIKES THOSE EVER. Like really, when my Mom passed, we found her old casserole dish, and NONE of us wanted it, despite it being a GREAT piece of kitchenware. We all had nothing but bad memories from that dish.)
My Mom made us a “Family Cookbook” which she handwrote and photocopied and coil bound herself. It was a great gift, and we all, well, KINDA loved it. “so and so’s favourite” and it’s something we had never had, and certainly wouldn’t like. There were a lot of recipes marked as There were recipes that we looked at and said “Who the hell in their right mind would EVER eat this or even want to make it?” And a bunch were, well… missing steps. And ingredients. And procedures. (*cough cough* Yorkshire puddings *cough cough*)
So over time, everyone’s copy (including my Mom’s) got write in notes, and adjustments, and addendums.
Despite all this, I still like food, and as I got older, found I enjoyed cooking, and was decently good at it.
So I made my own things, because, quite frankly, the cookbooks I had were terrible.
They always wanted weird-as-heck ingredients, and they were overly complex and needed specialty cookware. (Pro tip: you don’t need wine or fennel for making SCRAMBLED EGGS. You need EGGS. That’s it. Also, don’t waste your money or time with a fancy double boiler. A good solid pot and a decent glass bowl will do you a world of good.)
I watched cooking shows, like Good Eats, and the Original Iron Chef, and Wok with Yan (who remembers that guy? He was (is?) great! Look him up on the you-toobs. Always a terrible joke, and a horrible pun on his apron, but a fun show).
I messed around with recipes and played the game of “I wonder what will happen if I add this?” and 90% of the time I made something good (or at least edible), and sometimes it was just bad, and I ordered a pizza!
This cookbook came out of my true joy of cooking, and cooking for my friends and family, as well as a bit of pandemic downtime. I found that I wanted to make a better book, with SIMPLE recipes, because everyone seems to want to out-do and out-fancify everyone else.
You don’t need super expensive fancy kitchen doodads (though some DO help – Stand Mixer A++, Instant Pot A+++ (in fact we have two!) and in the wise words of Alton Brown, “No Uni-taskers!” If a kitchen doodad can’t do more than one thing, then you don’t need it!
My original plan was to make a few cookbooks for gifts, and maybe sell a few to recover costs. My desire to do it once and do it right has lead me to this campaign to let me print a QUALITY cookbook that will last, and can be functionally used. I found a local Canadian publisher that specializes in printing cookbooks, and found that this was going to cost a few bucks to get done right.
So this funding campaign has come about to allow me to publish my book, and get it into the hands of everyone. I’m not in this to make a fortune (who gets rich off cookbooks?) but to get a quality book printed that can share good food, good times, stupid factiods, and cooking tips to everyone.
It may sound stupid, but like in Ratatouille, “Anyone can cook!” and I want to share my cookery with you!
So here I am making a cookbook to share with everyone. I have my friends happily helping. (i.e. eating all the test food), editing, and taking photos, and eating.
So far I have a number of recipes, tried and tested, and keep adding as I remember them, and figure out how to put my brain-things onto paper.
The Hangry Ogre's Bloody Good Bruschetta
The Hangry Ogre's Clam ChowDAH!
The Hangry Ogre's Split Skull Soup
The Hangry Ogres Garden Gnome Salad
The Hangry Ogres Tater Salad
The Hangry Ogre's Ass-Blaster Chili (Regular Mode)
The Hangry Ogre's B.L.T.C. (Basilisk, Leaves, Tomatoes, and Curdled Cow-Juice)
The Hangry Ogre's Big-Ass Beef Brisket
The Hangry Ogre's Cheezy Smashed Taters
The Hangry Ogre's Deep Dish Delight
The Hangry Ogre's Half-Assed X-Mas Meal
The Hangry Ogre's High Harvest-Tide Stuffed Diatryma
The Hangry Ogre's Quick Basic Meat Log
The Hangry Ogre's Slow Cooker Tasty Mess
The Hangry Ogre's Winter Solstice Morning Meal
The Hangry Ogres BALLS. Meat Balls
The Hangry Ogres Ghoul-ash
The Hangry Ogres Giant Meat Doughnut
The Hangry Ogre's Best Birthday Cake
The Hangry Ogre's F**k Up Fudge
The Hangry Ogre's Green Stuff
The Hangry Ogre's Troll House Cookies
The Hangry Ogres 100 Year Old Cupcakes
The Hangry Ogre's Holiday Chicken Milk
The Hangry Ogre's Mudders Milk-Shake
The Hangry Ogre's Murderously Easy Marinara
The Hangry Ogre's Perfect Pizza Dough
The Hangry Ogre's Punch! to the Face!
The Hangry Ogres Benny's Breakfast Butt Nuggets
The Hangry Ogres Salad Sauce Mix
** If you are a locale Edmonton Retailer or Business and would like to have this cookbook in your shop, PLEASE reach out to us, we would love to work with you **
Allison Dahl
Executive Director
My most excellent wife (she is the GREETEST), my inspiration, my co-author, Sous-Chef and taste-tester.
Caitlin Opdendries
Editor-In-Chief
Teacher, general wierdo, proof-reader, editor, and Taste-tester
Joel Opdendries
Photographer
Executive Potato-Hater, Chief Photographer, and food test subject
Geoff Dahl
The Hangry Ogre
Locksmith, geek, a fat guy who likes eating, who decided to start making my own recipes, because too many people over-complicate food, and pollute them with nasty things like cilantro and cucumbers.
Aug 20, 2021
The Cookbook is done! All 55 recipes are tested, TASTED, and in! Next step is photo setups and proofing!
Jul 28, 2021
And we're done! Credit cards have been processed and the next steps begin! Stay tuned on facebook for updates on the progress! Since we surpassed our goal, all the extra money will be going BACK INTO THE COOKBOOK. More pages, more photos, more recipes.
THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!
Jul 10, 2021
We made our funding goal and are almost at $2,000.00! This is AMAZING! Thank you so much!
We will have photos soon of a bunch of the food and test recipes, and all the money raised thats over our publishing costs is going directly back into the book! Full colour custom dividers, and MORE recpies!
Tell your friends and family!
and THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS HAPPEN!
Jun 24, 2021
Step one was collecting the old (and often incomplete) home recipes and siguring out what the heck was wrong and missing. Step one was typing them out as a LOT of them were just sorta 'in my brain'