Every questionable culinary empire needs a founding document.

This is it.

No mangoes. No black beans. No mysterious ingredient available only from a shop 90 kilometres away. Just the kind of fresh garden salsa Captain Moonboot could make after wandering outside, discovering that every tomato plant has simultaneously decided today is harvest day, and realizing something must be done before the kitchen disappears beneath tomatoes.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: Approximately 4–6
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: None required
Chilling Time: 30 minutes (recommended)
Total Time: 45 minutes

After yesterday's respectable garden salsa, Captain Moonboot requires something that qualifies as an actual supper. This one has the added advantage that most of the work consists of cutting things up, throwing them on a pan and leaving them alone—an approach to cooking that World HQ strongly endorses.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Baking Time: 35–40 minutes
Total Time: 50–55 minutes

Saturday at World HQ seems like an appropriate time to abandon yesterday's responsible vegetables and put cheese, bacon and jalapeños into a potato. This is technically cooking, although its primary nutritional objective is happiness.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Baking Time: 60–75 minutes
Cooling Time: 10 minutes (before scooping)
Total Time: Approximately 85–100 minutes

This is for mornings when oatmeal looks across the kitchen and realizes it has been given the day off. Warm apples, cinnamon and maple syrup make this feel considerably fancier than the amount of actual work involved.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 2
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 15–20 minutes
Total Time: 25–30 minutes

There are soups designed to make you feel virtuous. This is not one of them.

This is the soup you make when somebody looks at a baked potato covered in cheese, bacon and sour cream and says, “You know what would improve this? A bowl.” Captain Moonboot approves of this kind of forward thinking.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 4–6
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 30–35 minutes
Total Time: 45–50 minutes

Monday morning is no time to begin negotiating with a complicated recipe.

This is what happens when a grilled cheese sandwich and a bacon-and-egg breakfast meet in the kitchen and decide that separate plates are an unnecessary government regulation.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 2 Sandwiches
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 15–20 minutes
Total Time: 25–30 minutes

Some recipes require precision, specialized equipment and the quiet confidence of a classically trained chef.

This one requires a bowl, a baking dish and the ability to recognize a chicken thigh.

That puts it comfortably within World HQ's operational capabilities.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Baking Time: 25–30 minutes
Resting Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 40–45 minutes

There are desserts that require pastry bags, water baths, candy thermometers and an understanding of French vocabulary.

Then there's apple crisp.

Apple crisp understands that sometimes you want homemade dessert without having to qualify for a trade certificate first.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 6
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Baking Time: 35–40 minutes
Cooling Time: 10 minutes (recommended)
Total Time: 60–65 minutes

There comes a point every autumn when somebody looks outside, sees grey skies and decides that supper should be served from a pot large enough to survive a municipal emergency.

Chili is particularly useful because it's difficult to ruin, improves overnight, freezes well, and allows Captain Moonboot to claim he's cooking when he's mostly just opening cans.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 6 generous bowls
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 40–45 minutes
Total Time: 55–60 minutes

There are foods intended to be eaten politely with a knife and fork.

Then there is hot spinach and artichoke dip, which exists primarily so several adults can gather around one bubbling dish with pieces of bread and pretend that double-dipping is the greatest threat facing civilization.

This is also our first proper party dip, so World HQ is expanding into appetizers.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 6–8 appetizer portions
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Baking Time: 20–25 minutes
Resting Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 40–45 minutes

There are certain meals that don't need to be reinvented.

They need mashed potatoes.

Salisbury steak is one of them: seasoned beef patties browned in a skillet, then finished in a rich mushroom-and-onion gravy. It's inexpensive, practical comfort food and—most importantly—doesn't require Captain Moonboot to understand why a restaurant would put three decorative dots of sauce beside something and charge another $14 for it.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 4
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 25–30 minutes
Total Time: 40–45 minutes

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who make pastry from scratch, and people who look at the perfectly good frozen puff pastry in the grocery store and think:

“Technology has already solved this problem.”

World HQ belongs firmly to the second group.

This is a practical chicken pot pie with a creamy filling, plenty of vegetables and a golden pastry top. It also happens to be an excellent destination for leftover roast chicken.

⏱️ Recipe Information

Servings: 6
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 10–15 minutes (preparing the filling)
Baking Time: 25–30 minutes
Resting Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 65–75 minutes