Well I must say I'm feeling better and happier these days so hopefully this blog will not be quite so negative as the last! Being back pain free certainly makes a world of difference. So..enough personal stuff, on to the next recipe, a Summer Veg Lasagne with Tuscan Tomato Salad and Quick Frozen Yoghurt in Baby Cornets.
Now this meal looked like it would feed a small football team so I decided to invite over some friends who have two teenage boys to help us eat this meal. As the weather had already started to cool down to Autumn I was hoping for fine weather and a last chance to eat outside on our new outdoor furniture.
I did heaps of prep work including pre making the Mango Icecream, prepping the 4 bunches of Asparagus and picking all the herbs for the dish. I also pre made a tomato and feta topping for an entree' of Brushetta (my own creation).
The dish seemed really easy to make and quick although it was an hour before I had it on the table! I can only say that I was chatting to my friend while making the dish and I also cooked the lasagne longer as I wanted to have that lovely golden colour on the top of the dish. My oven doesn't really grill like modern ovens do, so it needed a good 15 to 20 minutes in the oven before I was satisfied that it would be cooked to perfection. I have to say it did look a treat when it came out.
Using the fresh lasagne sheets makes a big difference as the pasta is much thinner and lighter than the dry stuff. The dish didn't have that heavy feeling in your stomach either as there was no meat or heavy white sauce for the stomach to digest. I had plenty of food to feed all six of us and still had enough to feed the two of us the following day!
The tomato salad was nice but I did find it challenging finding different types of tomatoes for the salad. I went to several places including two green grocers and the supermarket to find different coloured tomatoes. I managed to find a black cherry tomato which tasted ok and gave a little colour variation to the salad. The croutons also added a nice crunch to the salad.
The Mango Icecream was delicious and was made almost the same as the berry icecream that I had made recently. Rather than serve it in cones however, I decided to go a little fancier and include some sliced peaches which I prepared earlier and some almonds which I caramelised in the oven when I made the croutons. This was a technique I learned when I made the Duck Salad 30 Minute Meal which included some stewed fruit with the nuts on top. All together it made a lovely dinner party style desert.
I have to admit that I am learning some great cooking techniques while cooking these dishes and I am definitely starting to think about food differently. Just this week I bought myself a pasta maker and made the most amazing pasta dish with pork meatballs which was a Jamie inspired dish from the Jamie At Home series. I am proud to say that I didn't use a recipe and just kept adding and adjusting as I went along.
Last night I made a Pumpkin and Spinach Pie, again without a recipe but using some of Jamie's techniques and ideas. The result was excellent again. Maybe I am just having a good week in the kitchen but there is certainly a difference in how I cook now to how I cooked six months ago. Well at least I think so...
Fish and More Fish!!
Sea Bass & Fish Tray Bake
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Monday, 21 March 2011
Fish and More Fish!!
Well it's been a while since I have found any motivation or time to sit and update my blog and although I still feel very unmotivated and tired, I thought it best to write about my last few meals before my memory completely fails me!
The next meal on my list was the Fish Tray-Bake with Jersey Royals (fancy name for boiled potatoes), Salsa Verde (much like a pesto), Simple Spinach Salad (spinach in a bowl with a standard dressing) and Cheat's Banoffee Pie (Banana Cream Caramel Pie). Maybe I come from a simple background, but geepers, what fancy names for some stock standard dishes!!
Anyho...I pre-made the desert to save time. Luckily I made this dish before the price of bananas went bananas..litterly. I was lucky enough to pay $4.99 a kilo at the time and considering the price is now $12.99 my bank balance is still in the black. I also purchased a mix of green prawns shell off, a few whole prawns and two pieces of salmon.
I followed the recipe and the meal was tasty however the whole prawns were drying out as I was unable to obtain whole green prawns and the double cooking made them dry and tough. I'm going to have to try harder next time to get raw ingredients from a fish shop rather than rely on my local Foodland fish department if I am to be serious about these dishes. It's funny, Jamie is always saying that you can get the ingredients at your local supermarket. I have heard the supermarkets in Britain are fantastic which is surprising as it seems many Brit's don't seem to know how to cook!! My local supermarket is pretty fantastic (Pasadena Foodland) but I still struggle to obtain many of the ingredients that I need for these "easy" recipes.
After finishing the meal, I was excited about the banana pie. Unfortunately I was disappointed as the pie tasted rather bland and unsweet - not at all what I was expecting. The cream had no sugar which Jamie said wasn't needed due to the sweetness of the caramel. Maybe I didn't cook the caramel enough, but it certainly wasn't very sweet at all. I think I would make the dish again, but with more sugar in the base and in the cream. Don't get me wrong, I don't like sickly sweet and I hate mud cakes for this reason, but us Aussie's like a sweet Banana Caramel Pie!! Maybe that's why he calls it a Banoffee Pie!!
Oh..I forgot to mention the other components of this dish! That's because there was nothing exciting to mention and I'm already falling asleep writing about this boring meal.
Next dish...Another Fish Dish...Hooray! (detecting any sarcasm yet?) Sea Bass & Crispy Pancetta with Sweet Potato Mash, Asian Greens, 1-Minute Berry Ice Cream and Sparkling Lemon Ginger Drink.
Firstly...what is Sea Bass and do we even have it in Australia or is it something they only have in Europe? I asked the Fish Monger at Foodland and he had "no idea"! Terrific...really need to find I good fish shop! I ended up buying Whiting as this was the only fish on offer that was around 180g each with the "skin on" which was important apparently. Again my purse took a hit with the cost of the ingredients but hey..I'm sure it will be worth it....surely!
I presented the meal "on the board" as Jamie always does and for the two of us it was just cumbersome to work with and I should have just plated it up like I normally do. However, I will say that the Sweet Potato Mash was out of this world. Wow, there was a party going on in my mouth and I couldn't get enough. Our 18 month old son loved it too and this was due to the Mango Chutney that was mixed through it. Total YUM and what an awesome way to serve this normally boring vegetable.
The fish was bordering on dry and very nearly spoilt. Yes the skin was crispy, but who cares when the taste of the fish is on the brink of ruined! What is so great about crispy skin anyway...totally not worth spoiling a nice piece of fish, that's for sure.
The other nice part of this dish was the desert of Berry Icecream. What a wonderful way of making healthy icecream and so quick and easy. A packet of frozen berries, a little lime juice and a tub of yoghurt. Blitz and freeze. Awesome...if only summer wasn't over already!!
As for the Lemon Ginger Drink!!! Jamie, I love you, but what were you thinking?? Did you have a little too much wine the night you invented this drink or maybe it was a hangover cure?? It was totally awful. I even added an extra can of lemonade to sweeten it up and it still tasted terrible. In all, a mix of good and bad for this meal!
Oh..nearly forgot..I Googled Sea Bass (probably should have done this BEFORE going out to buy the fish). It's another name for "many fish species of various families including, Barramundi, Black Sea Bass, European Sea Bass, Giant Sea Bass, Potato Cod, Suzuki and White Sea Bass. See, who said my Blog wasn't educational although I am not much wiser for the effort!!
The next meal on my list was the Fish Tray-Bake with Jersey Royals (fancy name for boiled potatoes), Salsa Verde (much like a pesto), Simple Spinach Salad (spinach in a bowl with a standard dressing) and Cheat's Banoffee Pie (Banana Cream Caramel Pie). Maybe I come from a simple background, but geepers, what fancy names for some stock standard dishes!!
Anyho...I pre-made the desert to save time. Luckily I made this dish before the price of bananas went bananas..litterly. I was lucky enough to pay $4.99 a kilo at the time and considering the price is now $12.99 my bank balance is still in the black. I also purchased a mix of green prawns shell off, a few whole prawns and two pieces of salmon.
I followed the recipe and the meal was tasty however the whole prawns were drying out as I was unable to obtain whole green prawns and the double cooking made them dry and tough. I'm going to have to try harder next time to get raw ingredients from a fish shop rather than rely on my local Foodland fish department if I am to be serious about these dishes. It's funny, Jamie is always saying that you can get the ingredients at your local supermarket. I have heard the supermarkets in Britain are fantastic which is surprising as it seems many Brit's don't seem to know how to cook!! My local supermarket is pretty fantastic (Pasadena Foodland) but I still struggle to obtain many of the ingredients that I need for these "easy" recipes.
After finishing the meal, I was excited about the banana pie. Unfortunately I was disappointed as the pie tasted rather bland and unsweet - not at all what I was expecting. The cream had no sugar which Jamie said wasn't needed due to the sweetness of the caramel. Maybe I didn't cook the caramel enough, but it certainly wasn't very sweet at all. I think I would make the dish again, but with more sugar in the base and in the cream. Don't get me wrong, I don't like sickly sweet and I hate mud cakes for this reason, but us Aussie's like a sweet Banana Caramel Pie!! Maybe that's why he calls it a Banoffee Pie!!
Oh..I forgot to mention the other components of this dish! That's because there was nothing exciting to mention and I'm already falling asleep writing about this boring meal.
Next dish...Another Fish Dish...Hooray! (detecting any sarcasm yet?) Sea Bass & Crispy Pancetta with Sweet Potato Mash, Asian Greens, 1-Minute Berry Ice Cream and Sparkling Lemon Ginger Drink.
Firstly...what is Sea Bass and do we even have it in Australia or is it something they only have in Europe? I asked the Fish Monger at Foodland and he had "no idea"! Terrific...really need to find I good fish shop! I ended up buying Whiting as this was the only fish on offer that was around 180g each with the "skin on" which was important apparently. Again my purse took a hit with the cost of the ingredients but hey..I'm sure it will be worth it....surely!
I presented the meal "on the board" as Jamie always does and for the two of us it was just cumbersome to work with and I should have just plated it up like I normally do. However, I will say that the Sweet Potato Mash was out of this world. Wow, there was a party going on in my mouth and I couldn't get enough. Our 18 month old son loved it too and this was due to the Mango Chutney that was mixed through it. Total YUM and what an awesome way to serve this normally boring vegetable.
The fish was bordering on dry and very nearly spoilt. Yes the skin was crispy, but who cares when the taste of the fish is on the brink of ruined! What is so great about crispy skin anyway...totally not worth spoiling a nice piece of fish, that's for sure.
The other nice part of this dish was the desert of Berry Icecream. What a wonderful way of making healthy icecream and so quick and easy. A packet of frozen berries, a little lime juice and a tub of yoghurt. Blitz and freeze. Awesome...if only summer wasn't over already!!
As for the Lemon Ginger Drink!!! Jamie, I love you, but what were you thinking?? Did you have a little too much wine the night you invented this drink or maybe it was a hangover cure?? It was totally awful. I even added an extra can of lemonade to sweeten it up and it still tasted terrible. In all, a mix of good and bad for this meal!
Oh..nearly forgot..I Googled Sea Bass (probably should have done this BEFORE going out to buy the fish). It's another name for "many fish species of various families including, Barramundi, Black Sea Bass, European Sea Bass, Giant Sea Bass, Potato Cod, Suzuki and White Sea Bass. See, who said my Blog wasn't educational although I am not much wiser for the effort!!
Thursday, 3 March 2011
Chicken Pie with French-Style Peas, Carrot Smash & Mixed Berries & Cream
Well today I delved in to my 10th 30 Minute Meal, Jamie's Chicken Pie and I have to say it was mighty delicious considering there were minimal ingredients in the pie. It must of been the English Mustard that gave all the flavour as I was a little heavy handed I must admit.
I cheated a little by doing a little preparation work while my little one was still having his afternoon nap. I figured I could do the food processor jobs and have that all cleaned up before I even started cooking. This proved to be a great idea and allowed me to get the pie in the oven somewhat quicker than if I had followed the steps in Jamie's book.
I watched the TV show a couple of hours before preparing the meal and found many inconsistencies with what he said and what he wrote which threw me off a bit during the cooking process. However, the pie tasted wonderful and with the correct size dish, it would have been even better! The Carrot Smash was nothing to get excited about and neither was the French Style Peas. I have to admit I didn't like the idea of cooking lettuce, so I used Savoy Cabbage instead which still looked the same and I'm sure didn't change the taste very much.
The Mixed Berries, Cream and Shortbread became mixed berries with yoghurt as both my husband and I are trying to loose weight and therefor shortbread biscuits were definitely not on the plate! As for Elderflower Cordial, well I looked but didn't find, so I just used a little Lime Cordial which gave it a nice tang.
All up a nice meal and one I'm sure I will make again. Next up, recipe number 11; Fish Tray Bake!
I cheated a little by doing a little preparation work while my little one was still having his afternoon nap. I figured I could do the food processor jobs and have that all cleaned up before I even started cooking. This proved to be a great idea and allowed me to get the pie in the oven somewhat quicker than if I had followed the steps in Jamie's book.
I watched the TV show a couple of hours before preparing the meal and found many inconsistencies with what he said and what he wrote which threw me off a bit during the cooking process. However, the pie tasted wonderful and with the correct size dish, it would have been even better! The Carrot Smash was nothing to get excited about and neither was the French Style Peas. I have to admit I didn't like the idea of cooking lettuce, so I used Savoy Cabbage instead which still looked the same and I'm sure didn't change the taste very much.
The Mixed Berries, Cream and Shortbread became mixed berries with yoghurt as both my husband and I are trying to loose weight and therefor shortbread biscuits were definitely not on the plate! As for Elderflower Cordial, well I looked but didn't find, so I just used a little Lime Cordial which gave it a nice tang.
All up a nice meal and one I'm sure I will make again. Next up, recipe number 11; Fish Tray Bake!
Saturday, 26 February 2011
The Steak Sarnie
It's Sunday afternoon and our guests have just left and the kitchen has finally been cleaned up after cooking the "Steak Sarnie with Crispy New Potatoes, Cheesy Mushrooms and Beetroot Salad". I'm so glad that I chose to cook this meal for lunch rather than for dinner as it was quite filling as expected.
Before cooking this meal, I asked around to find a really good butcher in the local area and this certainly made all the difference. Supermarket meat just isn't suitable for a meal such as this one. I purchased around 520g of top quality rump steak (0ne giant piece) and it was beautiful. Cooked to perfection, slightly blushing, tender and juicy, this meat was the hero of the dish. The beetroot salad was also really lovely and one that I will make again and again. I purchased a large tin of baby beets as this is all I could find and put them through the food processor. I cheated by making this before hand which took some of the stress out of the cooking process.
The mushrooms nearly burned under the grill, but I saved them just in time, phew. For the potatoes, I used some of our home grown kipfler potatoes and they always taste nice. Along with a few glasses of wine and some good company, this dish was a lovely Sunday lunch and I'm sure I will cook it again some time.
Our guests enjoyed the meal very much and they also endured watching the next episode which is the Chicken Pie recipe. When asked, why am I doing this, I reply...well, it's just a challenge and something else to think about. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love being a stay at home Mum and my spare time is short, but I can see how many Mums can get stuck in a rut and each day blends in to the next. My husband has stopped asking me what I did today as my replies are "the same as I do every day" with a bit of terse attitude thrown in for good measure. It's true, the days can be boring and long some times and one longs for something exciting or challenging to do. Cooking these 30 minute meals and then writing about it gives me a creative outlet and benefits everyone around me and my mood seems to be better, albeit not when I am actually cooking, but before and after (assuming the meal was successful)!
The chicken pie recipe looks delicious and seems a real homely winter style dish. As we are in the middle of Summer (albeit a mild one) I might have to wait for a cooler day to cook this one. The ingredient list looks pretty standard and I have most things on hand with the exception of "elderflower cordial" but I'm sure that's not a deal breaker and some nice liqueur out of the drinks cupboard will do the trick nicely.
Until next time....happy cooking!
Before cooking this meal, I asked around to find a really good butcher in the local area and this certainly made all the difference. Supermarket meat just isn't suitable for a meal such as this one. I purchased around 520g of top quality rump steak (0ne giant piece) and it was beautiful. Cooked to perfection, slightly blushing, tender and juicy, this meat was the hero of the dish. The beetroot salad was also really lovely and one that I will make again and again. I purchased a large tin of baby beets as this is all I could find and put them through the food processor. I cheated by making this before hand which took some of the stress out of the cooking process.
The mushrooms nearly burned under the grill, but I saved them just in time, phew. For the potatoes, I used some of our home grown kipfler potatoes and they always taste nice. Along with a few glasses of wine and some good company, this dish was a lovely Sunday lunch and I'm sure I will cook it again some time.
Our guests enjoyed the meal very much and they also endured watching the next episode which is the Chicken Pie recipe. When asked, why am I doing this, I reply...well, it's just a challenge and something else to think about. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love being a stay at home Mum and my spare time is short, but I can see how many Mums can get stuck in a rut and each day blends in to the next. My husband has stopped asking me what I did today as my replies are "the same as I do every day" with a bit of terse attitude thrown in for good measure. It's true, the days can be boring and long some times and one longs for something exciting or challenging to do. Cooking these 30 minute meals and then writing about it gives me a creative outlet and benefits everyone around me and my mood seems to be better, albeit not when I am actually cooking, but before and after (assuming the meal was successful)!
The chicken pie recipe looks delicious and seems a real homely winter style dish. As we are in the middle of Summer (albeit a mild one) I might have to wait for a cooler day to cook this one. The ingredient list looks pretty standard and I have most things on hand with the exception of "elderflower cordial" but I'm sure that's not a deal breaker and some nice liqueur out of the drinks cupboard will do the trick nicely.
Until next time....happy cooking!
Monday, 21 February 2011
Oozy Mushroon Risotto
A new week, a new "Jamie Oliver 30 Minute Meal"! I managed to find the key ingredient "dried porcini mushrooms" at a continental shop in a local shopping centre, excellent start. With these in hand I was excited at the prospect of cooking this meal tonight. Problem was, I didn't have the rest of my shopping list for this recipe and my memory, although never great, since having a child, has completely turned into a mushy mushroom risotto!
I did however remember that I needed a stick of celery, the fancy mushrooms and some lemon curd and I was sure that these few things would be all I needed to make this dish. I bought a variety of different fancy mushrooms that I had never dared to buy before and the price was one of the things that scared me off. A small pack of fancy mushrooms costing $6 each. Never the less, I purchased what I thought would be enough and after giving my toddler a ride on Thomas the Tank Engine we headed home.
My hubby came home early so I decided tonight was the night to make this special dish and I started prepping my kitchen and gathering my ingredients, herbs and spinach from the garden. I ended up being short on a few ingredients, but nothing that would change the recipe considerably so I decided to continue.
Check the clock and away we go. Flat out with everything going on at once. I burnt my hand but pressed on. My hubby ended up helping with the desert and I realised too late, that I had missed some important steps in prepping the cream cheese in all the chaos of the risotto starting to stick to the bottom of the pot and realising that the mushrooms needed to go under the grill after pan frying when I had already removed them so that I could reuse the pan for the desert. Ahhhhh!
But in the end, I managed to pull it all together and we sat down to "Oozy Mushroom Risotto with Spinach Salad and Quick Lemon & Raspberry Cheesecake". It was a lovely meal but not sure if I think it was worth hunting down the dried mushrooms or even using a bunch of fancy mushrooms. Nor do I think pan frying a bunch of mushrooms separately just to put on top, was really worth it. As I write this blog my stomach feels heavy, like I have just eaten a big steak and maybe this is due to the quantity of mushrooms used. The salad was a nice fresh accompaniment and I also added a couple of slices of grilled ciabatta bread on the side which added a nice crunch. The desert was also lovely. I good tip to place the glasses in the freezer first and then add the filling. The base was cold and hard even though it went in hot. I didn't have enough cream cheese so I used a little pre-made custard and mulberries instead of raspberries, but I don't think any of this mattered as it was a layered desert with plenty of flavour and not too heavy.
The kitchen looked like a tornado hit it and I felt guilty leaving it for my hubby to clean up as it was my turn to bath and put our son to bed. With him finally in bed, I eagerly turned on the tele to watch the next episode and what I would be cooking next.....Steak Sarnie, or sandwich as we call it. Oh...lovely, another heavy looking meal, cos it's not just the steak sandwich, but also potatoes, beetroot salad and stuffed mushrooms! My stomach hurts just thinking about it. Might need to wait until the weekend and invite a couple of friends over for lunch for this one. I think we have enough risotto to feed us all for several days!!
I did however remember that I needed a stick of celery, the fancy mushrooms and some lemon curd and I was sure that these few things would be all I needed to make this dish. I bought a variety of different fancy mushrooms that I had never dared to buy before and the price was one of the things that scared me off. A small pack of fancy mushrooms costing $6 each. Never the less, I purchased what I thought would be enough and after giving my toddler a ride on Thomas the Tank Engine we headed home.
My hubby came home early so I decided tonight was the night to make this special dish and I started prepping my kitchen and gathering my ingredients, herbs and spinach from the garden. I ended up being short on a few ingredients, but nothing that would change the recipe considerably so I decided to continue.
Check the clock and away we go. Flat out with everything going on at once. I burnt my hand but pressed on. My hubby ended up helping with the desert and I realised too late, that I had missed some important steps in prepping the cream cheese in all the chaos of the risotto starting to stick to the bottom of the pot and realising that the mushrooms needed to go under the grill after pan frying when I had already removed them so that I could reuse the pan for the desert. Ahhhhh!
But in the end, I managed to pull it all together and we sat down to "Oozy Mushroom Risotto with Spinach Salad and Quick Lemon & Raspberry Cheesecake". It was a lovely meal but not sure if I think it was worth hunting down the dried mushrooms or even using a bunch of fancy mushrooms. Nor do I think pan frying a bunch of mushrooms separately just to put on top, was really worth it. As I write this blog my stomach feels heavy, like I have just eaten a big steak and maybe this is due to the quantity of mushrooms used. The salad was a nice fresh accompaniment and I also added a couple of slices of grilled ciabatta bread on the side which added a nice crunch. The desert was also lovely. I good tip to place the glasses in the freezer first and then add the filling. The base was cold and hard even though it went in hot. I didn't have enough cream cheese so I used a little pre-made custard and mulberries instead of raspberries, but I don't think any of this mattered as it was a layered desert with plenty of flavour and not too heavy.
The kitchen looked like a tornado hit it and I felt guilty leaving it for my hubby to clean up as it was my turn to bath and put our son to bed. With him finally in bed, I eagerly turned on the tele to watch the next episode and what I would be cooking next.....Steak Sarnie, or sandwich as we call it. Oh...lovely, another heavy looking meal, cos it's not just the steak sandwich, but also potatoes, beetroot salad and stuffed mushrooms! My stomach hurts just thinking about it. Might need to wait until the weekend and invite a couple of friends over for lunch for this one. I think we have enough risotto to feed us all for several days!!
Friday, 18 February 2011
My first blog about Jamies 30 Minute Meals
Recently I received Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals book as a present. So what? I have heaps of recipe books including Jamie at Home, so why would this one be any different? I'm just an everyday person who is a stay at home mum for an 18 month old and I have many hobbies of which cooking is just one.
I started reading through the cookbook and then heard a TV ad for Jamie's 30 Minute Meals! I was excited to realise that I would not only be able to cook his recipes, but also watch them on TV first, much like the Jamie at Home series. The difference being, each episode is one night's meal.
I start recording the shows and I watch the first; Piri Piri Chicken with dressed potatoes, rocket salad and Portuguese Tarts. I watch, I reference the book, I buy the ingredients and I cook....I fall in love! Delicious! My husband is also quite impressed, so I think, I'll watch another.
I watch the next episode...Thai Red Prawn Curry, Jasmine Rice, Cucumber Salad and Papaya Platter. I gathered my ingredients, including some kaffir lime leaves from the neighbours garden (we were looking after their garden while they were away and I didn't think they would miss a couple of leaves). The ingredient list for the curry component was quite long but surprisingly I had most of the list already on hand. In the blender they all went, and I followed the recipe to the letter. OMG!!! What a taste sensation. This was by far the most amazing curry I and my husband had ever tasted, including any restaurant meal we had ever had.
It was about now that I made an unconscious decision to continue to work through the TV shows that I had recorded. Can I do each recipe in 30 minutes? Not a chance! Are they simple meals? I personally don't think so, but others may disagree. I can whip up a pasta, a risotto or a nice salad or fish dish quite easily without breaking a sweat, but when I cook these meals I need to be in the right frame of mind and my son needs to be happy to entertain himself while I spend the next 40 or so minutes intensely following Jamie's steps, cos if you miss a step, you could ruin the whole dish. So obviously, I don't do this every night, but maybe once or twice a week. If you have children, you will understand that the best laid plans can go down the toilet when your child didn't get enough sleep, is bored, teething or just outright having a shitty day. Not the day you want to cook 30 minute meals!
Next comes Spinach & Feta Filo Pie with Cucumber Salad, Tomato Salad and Coated Ice cream. Not a big fan of the Filo myself. I find it so fiddly and quite frankly, I'm not the most patient person in the world when it comes to cooking, but I figure I would give it a go. Again I try hard to complete the meal in 30 minutes and fail miserably, but the meal was nice. Not blown away like the first two recipes, but a very nice meal, especially when I could use some of our home grown spinach, tomatoes and chillies. Cool.
Roast Beef....Mmmmmm. We love a good roast and Jamie has some great ideas for roasts, especially the recipes in his Jamie at Home book. This is going to be a winner....or is it? The recipe is Roast Beef, Baby Yorkies, Little Carrots, Crispy Potatoes and super quick Gravy. I am excited about the prospect of using our home grown carrots and kipfler potatoes and I am sure this will be a big hit at dinner time. I watch the episode and I am a little sceptical as the beef fillet in sliced longways down the middle and cooked in a frypan! What the? Of course you can't cook a roast in 30 minutes so Jamie comes up with this idea of cooking it in the pan. As for yorksire puddings...I have never cooked them nor eaten them, so I have no idea of what they should taste like or what texture even they should be.
I complete the meal and we sit down to eat. Hmmm...not a fan of yorkies! They came out exactly as they should but I guess it's an English thing, cos they did nothing for me. That in combination with the heavy red meat made me feel quite uncomfortable and heavy and I think this recipe is better suited for Sunday lunch rather than a dinner meal. A nice meal but I'm not sure if I will pan fry a fillet of beef again any time soon.
Next is Pregnant Jool's Pasta with Crunchy Chicory & Watercress Salad and Little Frangipane Tarts. This one excites me cos I love pasta and I love deserts!! I decide that it's too hard to find chicory or watercress and just opt for simple mixed lettuce. This helps reduce the amount of work and I manage to make the meal in around 40 minutes! The pasta was "out of this world". The caramelising of the meat brought out a richness in flavour that I have never tasted before, not even in a restaurant. Total Yum. The tarts were nice, but I couldn't get deep enough shortcrust pastry cases, so I couldn't put enough filling in them to really make them special.
By now I'm feeling quite confident that every meal in this book is going to be pretty awesome, if not, at least really really good, so I decide to invite some friends over for a dinner party. We hadn't hosted a dinner party since our son was born, but I was feeling quite confident that I could pull it off without too much stress. I watched the next episode and decide, this is the meal I am going to cook...Curry Rogan Josh with fluffy rice, carrot salad, poppadoms and flatbread. I would prepare a few things before the guests arrive, include a simple entree using some of the carrot salad and make the ice cream rolled in hazelnut and chocolate from a previous 30 minute meal as the desert. If this curry is anything at all like the Thai Red Curry I had already cooked, I was really going to really "Wow" our guests.
The night came and I did as much preparation as I could including making the carrot salad, the topping for the ice cream, the poppadoms and preparing the flatbread. The rest I could do when the guests arrived as it was all done in one pan/pot. Well I won't say the meal was a disaster, but it definitely had No "Wow" factor at all! The samosas that I bought from the supermarket and heated in the oven were dry and awful, but the carrot accompaniment as pretty good. The curry itself was average. The recipe did not make the curry from scratch, but used a store bought Rogan Josh curry paste. I admit I did not use the exact brand that Jamie recommended and maybe this was my downfall, but I used what I thought to be a good quality curry paste and while the recipe only used half a jar, I ended up putting the entire jar in just to try to get some flavour and kick to the dish. As for Jamie's 5 minute lemon pickle which was suppose to make the rice a "kick out of the park", I'm still on the fence. Yes it was a taste sensation but I guess it was difficult to get my head around eating lemon peel, cooked or not!!
The desert was a hit, although not so much for our friends 13yo who didn't like the subtle taste of the ground coffee which was mixed with the toasted hazelnuts and dark chocolate. Overall, it was a great night and the food was nice, but I learnt my lesson and in future I will serve meals that I have cooked and taste tested before!
That brings me to now and I have well and truly committed to cooking every meal in this book - in order of their viewing on TV. The next recipe...Duck Salad with Giant Croutons and Cheat's Rice Pudding with Stewed fruit. This one makes me a little nervous as I have never cooked Duck before. It's expensive and as I find out, really difficult to get and can taste awful if it is overcooked. I watch the episode and the duck seems to be cooking away for ages. It takes me a couple of weeks to find Duck Breast. I try Coles and was looked at rather oddly when I ask "Do you sell Duck Breast?" The young girl looks at me like I have just asked for Kangaroo testicles so I decide to dumb it down and say "You know, not chicken breast, but duck breast". Again she gives me a look that says I must be a mad woman and just says "no". I'm already shaking my hand and saying "don't worry, I'll try somewhere else". I try a specialty continental shop who say they can get it in for me if I order it but of course they wouldn't stock such an item on the shelf, so to speak. I thank them and decide I will have to go to the central markets to get this specialty meat.
The following week I am at another small shopping centre and find a "specialty meat" shop and Duck is listed as one of their specialties. I'm in luck and I am able to purchase two duck breast that have been shrink wrapped and frozen. I almost fall over at the price for these small pieces of meat (180gms each), but if I am to be true to my commitment, I must purchase this meat and cook on.
Yet another week later and I am finally presented with an opportunity to cook this dish. I had taken the duck out of the freezer the night before, in hope that I would feel up to cooking this dish as I did not want to stuff this up after spending so much money on the meat. I was hosting a baby shower that morning which included 5 toddlers and 7 adults but it all went smoothly. My son spends this day of the week in childcare, so it was a perfect opportunity to give it a go.
I admit I took the duck out of the pan well before the instructions tell me too as I am sure that just one minute more and they would be so over cooked they would be inedible. Lucky I did and with some resting time they were barely blushing when sliced. But taste....YUM! It was a good one for sure. I think I overcooked the ciabatta loaf a bit as they were a little hard to say the least and they did not seem to soak up the juices like shown on TV, but hey...still Yum. As for the rice pudding, also Yum. I had never had rice pudding before and I wasn't really sure what to buy, so I bought the canned variety as well as the fresh variety branded "LeRice". I opted to use the fresh variety and it was good. My Father in law visited us with literally a bucket full of plums so we had plenty of fruit to cook up. Overall a very good meal.
Once I complete a meal I place a neat little tick in the book and am excited to watch the next episode. My next challenge...Mushroom Risotto. Well this has got to be an easy one cos I cook risottos all the time and I have made many a mushroom risotto. I watch and find that again Jamie has used a "special ingredient" which is dried procini mushrooms and these are used as the base of the risotto and an important ingredient. I was also shocked to see him use a stock cube and water. This baffles me and I'm not sure if I want to go that way or use chicken stock. Admittedly I would need to heat the stock up before adding it to the mixture, but surely this would give a better flavour than a stock cube. Hmmm..the mind boggles, but first I need to find these dried mushrooms...wish me luck!
I started reading through the cookbook and then heard a TV ad for Jamie's 30 Minute Meals! I was excited to realise that I would not only be able to cook his recipes, but also watch them on TV first, much like the Jamie at Home series. The difference being, each episode is one night's meal.
I start recording the shows and I watch the first; Piri Piri Chicken with dressed potatoes, rocket salad and Portuguese Tarts. I watch, I reference the book, I buy the ingredients and I cook....I fall in love! Delicious! My husband is also quite impressed, so I think, I'll watch another.
I watch the next episode...Thai Red Prawn Curry, Jasmine Rice, Cucumber Salad and Papaya Platter. I gathered my ingredients, including some kaffir lime leaves from the neighbours garden (we were looking after their garden while they were away and I didn't think they would miss a couple of leaves). The ingredient list for the curry component was quite long but surprisingly I had most of the list already on hand. In the blender they all went, and I followed the recipe to the letter. OMG!!! What a taste sensation. This was by far the most amazing curry I and my husband had ever tasted, including any restaurant meal we had ever had.
It was about now that I made an unconscious decision to continue to work through the TV shows that I had recorded. Can I do each recipe in 30 minutes? Not a chance! Are they simple meals? I personally don't think so, but others may disagree. I can whip up a pasta, a risotto or a nice salad or fish dish quite easily without breaking a sweat, but when I cook these meals I need to be in the right frame of mind and my son needs to be happy to entertain himself while I spend the next 40 or so minutes intensely following Jamie's steps, cos if you miss a step, you could ruin the whole dish. So obviously, I don't do this every night, but maybe once or twice a week. If you have children, you will understand that the best laid plans can go down the toilet when your child didn't get enough sleep, is bored, teething or just outright having a shitty day. Not the day you want to cook 30 minute meals!
Next comes Spinach & Feta Filo Pie with Cucumber Salad, Tomato Salad and Coated Ice cream. Not a big fan of the Filo myself. I find it so fiddly and quite frankly, I'm not the most patient person in the world when it comes to cooking, but I figure I would give it a go. Again I try hard to complete the meal in 30 minutes and fail miserably, but the meal was nice. Not blown away like the first two recipes, but a very nice meal, especially when I could use some of our home grown spinach, tomatoes and chillies. Cool.
Roast Beef....Mmmmmm. We love a good roast and Jamie has some great ideas for roasts, especially the recipes in his Jamie at Home book. This is going to be a winner....or is it? The recipe is Roast Beef, Baby Yorkies, Little Carrots, Crispy Potatoes and super quick Gravy. I am excited about the prospect of using our home grown carrots and kipfler potatoes and I am sure this will be a big hit at dinner time. I watch the episode and I am a little sceptical as the beef fillet in sliced longways down the middle and cooked in a frypan! What the? Of course you can't cook a roast in 30 minutes so Jamie comes up with this idea of cooking it in the pan. As for yorksire puddings...I have never cooked them nor eaten them, so I have no idea of what they should taste like or what texture even they should be.
I complete the meal and we sit down to eat. Hmmm...not a fan of yorkies! They came out exactly as they should but I guess it's an English thing, cos they did nothing for me. That in combination with the heavy red meat made me feel quite uncomfortable and heavy and I think this recipe is better suited for Sunday lunch rather than a dinner meal. A nice meal but I'm not sure if I will pan fry a fillet of beef again any time soon.
Next is Pregnant Jool's Pasta with Crunchy Chicory & Watercress Salad and Little Frangipane Tarts. This one excites me cos I love pasta and I love deserts!! I decide that it's too hard to find chicory or watercress and just opt for simple mixed lettuce. This helps reduce the amount of work and I manage to make the meal in around 40 minutes! The pasta was "out of this world". The caramelising of the meat brought out a richness in flavour that I have never tasted before, not even in a restaurant. Total Yum. The tarts were nice, but I couldn't get deep enough shortcrust pastry cases, so I couldn't put enough filling in them to really make them special.
By now I'm feeling quite confident that every meal in this book is going to be pretty awesome, if not, at least really really good, so I decide to invite some friends over for a dinner party. We hadn't hosted a dinner party since our son was born, but I was feeling quite confident that I could pull it off without too much stress. I watched the next episode and decide, this is the meal I am going to cook...Curry Rogan Josh with fluffy rice, carrot salad, poppadoms and flatbread. I would prepare a few things before the guests arrive, include a simple entree using some of the carrot salad and make the ice cream rolled in hazelnut and chocolate from a previous 30 minute meal as the desert. If this curry is anything at all like the Thai Red Curry I had already cooked, I was really going to really "Wow" our guests.
The night came and I did as much preparation as I could including making the carrot salad, the topping for the ice cream, the poppadoms and preparing the flatbread. The rest I could do when the guests arrived as it was all done in one pan/pot. Well I won't say the meal was a disaster, but it definitely had No "Wow" factor at all! The samosas that I bought from the supermarket and heated in the oven were dry and awful, but the carrot accompaniment as pretty good. The curry itself was average. The recipe did not make the curry from scratch, but used a store bought Rogan Josh curry paste. I admit I did not use the exact brand that Jamie recommended and maybe this was my downfall, but I used what I thought to be a good quality curry paste and while the recipe only used half a jar, I ended up putting the entire jar in just to try to get some flavour and kick to the dish. As for Jamie's 5 minute lemon pickle which was suppose to make the rice a "kick out of the park", I'm still on the fence. Yes it was a taste sensation but I guess it was difficult to get my head around eating lemon peel, cooked or not!!
The desert was a hit, although not so much for our friends 13yo who didn't like the subtle taste of the ground coffee which was mixed with the toasted hazelnuts and dark chocolate. Overall, it was a great night and the food was nice, but I learnt my lesson and in future I will serve meals that I have cooked and taste tested before!
That brings me to now and I have well and truly committed to cooking every meal in this book - in order of their viewing on TV. The next recipe...Duck Salad with Giant Croutons and Cheat's Rice Pudding with Stewed fruit. This one makes me a little nervous as I have never cooked Duck before. It's expensive and as I find out, really difficult to get and can taste awful if it is overcooked. I watch the episode and the duck seems to be cooking away for ages. It takes me a couple of weeks to find Duck Breast. I try Coles and was looked at rather oddly when I ask "Do you sell Duck Breast?" The young girl looks at me like I have just asked for Kangaroo testicles so I decide to dumb it down and say "You know, not chicken breast, but duck breast". Again she gives me a look that says I must be a mad woman and just says "no". I'm already shaking my hand and saying "don't worry, I'll try somewhere else". I try a specialty continental shop who say they can get it in for me if I order it but of course they wouldn't stock such an item on the shelf, so to speak. I thank them and decide I will have to go to the central markets to get this specialty meat.
The following week I am at another small shopping centre and find a "specialty meat" shop and Duck is listed as one of their specialties. I'm in luck and I am able to purchase two duck breast that have been shrink wrapped and frozen. I almost fall over at the price for these small pieces of meat (180gms each), but if I am to be true to my commitment, I must purchase this meat and cook on.
Yet another week later and I am finally presented with an opportunity to cook this dish. I had taken the duck out of the freezer the night before, in hope that I would feel up to cooking this dish as I did not want to stuff this up after spending so much money on the meat. I was hosting a baby shower that morning which included 5 toddlers and 7 adults but it all went smoothly. My son spends this day of the week in childcare, so it was a perfect opportunity to give it a go.
I admit I took the duck out of the pan well before the instructions tell me too as I am sure that just one minute more and they would be so over cooked they would be inedible. Lucky I did and with some resting time they were barely blushing when sliced. But taste....YUM! It was a good one for sure. I think I overcooked the ciabatta loaf a bit as they were a little hard to say the least and they did not seem to soak up the juices like shown on TV, but hey...still Yum. As for the rice pudding, also Yum. I had never had rice pudding before and I wasn't really sure what to buy, so I bought the canned variety as well as the fresh variety branded "LeRice". I opted to use the fresh variety and it was good. My Father in law visited us with literally a bucket full of plums so we had plenty of fruit to cook up. Overall a very good meal.
Once I complete a meal I place a neat little tick in the book and am excited to watch the next episode. My next challenge...Mushroom Risotto. Well this has got to be an easy one cos I cook risottos all the time and I have made many a mushroom risotto. I watch and find that again Jamie has used a "special ingredient" which is dried procini mushrooms and these are used as the base of the risotto and an important ingredient. I was also shocked to see him use a stock cube and water. This baffles me and I'm not sure if I want to go that way or use chicken stock. Admittedly I would need to heat the stock up before adding it to the mixture, but surely this would give a better flavour than a stock cube. Hmmm..the mind boggles, but first I need to find these dried mushrooms...wish me luck!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)