The Best Pasta Salad

As I mentioned in my last post, the weather here lately in New York has been resembling the West Coast, which is something we just weren't prepared for. It went from a steady 60•, to a scorching 92•!  Usually in preparation for that sort of weather you dig out your summer clothes, set up your air conditioners and prepare for a few meals you don't need the oven for, or at least that's what I do. But because of the sudden appearance of Mr. Sunshine, I was caught off guard and decided just not to cook at all for a bit. I finally decided that I could handle one day of turning on my oven and stove for an hour tops to make a pasta salad. The stove would only need to be on long enough to boil the pasta. 

I had recently made a trip to my favorite supermarket, Trader Joe's, and came across this new rainbow pasta! Well, anyone who knows me, knows that two major things about me are that A) I am a fan of all things rainbow and B) since marrying into an Italian family, who considers pasta to be a major food group, I have been looking for more fun & inventive ways to eat it, because a person can only eat spaghetti & meatballs so many times. This new pasta was called Trofie Colore and resembled a thinner, stretched out Rotini.

As I was putting this salad together, I realized that it was very similar to a Greek pasta salad, minus the red onions. I had never tried a pasta salad where the main dressing was vinegar before ... usually its coupled with mayonnaise. At first I thought there was too much vinegar, but after it had time to sit, it was actually quite perfect. I had made this dish with the intention of it being dinner for my wife during those few late work nights I have during the week, but because I was such a huge fan, it would up being my late night snack instead!

I added feta cheese and left out the chives

Party Cake

I would first like to begin by apologizing to everyone for pulling disappearing act on you the last couple of weeks. It was a combination of overworking myself, being extremely busy with other activities and events, and it just being too damn hot to even contemplate turning on my oven. I'm not sure where everybody is from, but here in Brooklyn, NY it basically went from winter time weather, to feeling as if it is right smack in the middle of August. We New Yorkers were definitely not prepared for the heat wave.

During my two week hiatus, Jamie Oliver's birthday past (May 27 Th) and so I thought it would be a nice gesture to make him a birthday cake. I know it sounds kind of strange, baking a birthday cake for someone you not only will not be seeing, but don't even know… It's not like he'll get a chance to eat it, but I thought that the sentiment was there. And I have a feeling that Mr. Oliver himself might actually agree with that because he recently liked my latest tweet about making a birthday cake for him.

 

At first this cake seemed like I might have bitten off more then I can chew (food pun!), with its multiple layers, more then one ingredient for the filling and chocolate ganache like frosting -- but it was actually pretty simple. I haven't made a cake from scratch since college, so I followed the recipe step-by-step. I did wind up leaving out the pieces of shaved almonds though -- I'm not the biggest fan and I knew they wouldn't be missed by my wife. Once the cakes had cooled off, I "whipped" up some whip cream (added a dash of vanilla extract), spread it onto the face of one of them and threw on a handful each of strawberries and raspberries. I'm guessing that Jamie's handfuls are a bit larger then mine though because where his cake had a decent red layer on it, mine seemed to have s few bald spots. Then came the frosting! I've never been good a the drip frosting look. I could never figure out if you're supposed to pour the entirety of the mixture onto the center of the cake and pray that it drips off of the sides evenly, or help it along by spreading the mixture as close to the edge of the cake as possible. So I did a combination of both. It worked for the most part. It's definitely not as pretty as the one in the cookbook, but it's not as bad as some others I've made.

After working so hard to make this beautiful cake, I actually had to rush off to work and never actually got a chance to try it. In my haste, I also forgot the because it contains whipped cream, and it was a mere 85 degrees outside, I should have made room for it in my refrigerator. Alas, I completely forgot and had to throw the whole thing out last night! :-( COOKING FAIL! 

English Roast Dinner

"It is widely believed that the English people’s love of beef began during the reign of King Henry the VII in 1485. His Yeomen Warders – the royal guard – would dine on fresh roasted beef every Sunday after church, and this became such a ritual that the guards were affectionately referred to as “'beefeaters'."

I'm going to take a page out of Jamie's (cook) book this time around and give you more of the story, instead of a recipe/how to guide. Sunday dinners. We all know about them and most of us have been involved with one at least once or twice. I personally, don't remember having big family Sunday dinners together as a child, but I have definitely been a part of many different types since then. The tradition of a Sunday dinner started because families wanted to spend more time together after church, and so making a huge feast and sitting down to eat it seemed to fill that requirement. Although the idea behind the Sunday dinner is the same in most cultures, the types of food made vary. If you grew up in a German household, you probably ate something like  Spaetzle or Beef Roulanden. Or if you grew up in the Deep South, it could have been something along the lines of Creole Pan Seared Meatloaf with Tomato Gravy. And I know from personal experience that if you are having a Sunday family dinner in an Italian household, you are more then likely having pasta & sauce. In England however, a Sunday Roast dinner consists of some sort of roasted meat (usually beef, but can sometimes be chicken, lamb or pork), lots of roasted vegetables, some sort of potato, gravy and something called Yorkshire pudding. Its basically a  fluffier version of a biscuit or a pop over. 

I would like to start off by saying that although I have made this dinner many times before, it is all about timing and often will come out differently each time I do it. The roast & veggies can cook together, but they both take a lot of prep beforehand. In Jamie's version of a roast dinner, the veg consisted of carrots, potatoes, parsnips, onion and celery. This is the first time I've seen celery involved. Usually the hint of green is made by brussels sprouts or peas. Which I prefer. The celery skin came out tough & stringy. 

Roasted Veg

I was surprised at how off Jamie was on his timing for the roast this time around. With the other recipes I've made lately, he's been pretty spot on with how long the meat has to cook for. This time around, he said to only cook the roast for 50 minutes for it to be medium-rare. 15 minutes less for rare. Now I know I've mentioned my struggle before, to find a balance in which to cook meat for this household. I like mine rare, and my wife would rather it be medium-well (bordering on burned). What I've decided to do for that is to take it out  when it's rare, slice some for myself, and put it back in for a little longer for my wife. This time around however, the slices I made for myself were not rare, they were still mooing! I knew that 45 minutes didn't seem like anywhere near enough time, but I placed all my faith in Jamie's words. In the end, I had to make us plates and then individually microwave them. 

Way Undercooked Roast

Yorkshire pudding is a finicky thing. I've made them many times before and they're almost impossible to master. They consist of a lot of milk, many eggs and not a lot of flour. The end result is something mimicking a pop-over, only slighting puffier. It's a nice, lighter substitute to a hunk of bread. The trick to these bad boys is to pour a splash of olive oil into each cup of the muffin tin, and to place it in the oven until it's scalding. Once you pour the batter in and place the tin back into the oven, shut the door and do not open it again! Something about the movement and the slight difference in the temperature will cause your Yorkshire puddings to act out. And boy did they ever! Because of my already temperamental, half raw cow I had cooking in the oven, I was constantly checking on it, willing it to cook faster. While in the mean time, the tops of the Yorkshire puddings were crisping up, but staying rather soggy, almost custard like in the middle. 

Ruined Yorkshire Puddings

End Result -- Not Too Pretty

I started cooking dinner around 6 pm and we didn't actually sit down to eat until after 9. Because my wife loves me, saw how hard I worked in order to salvage this meal and hates all of the take-out options in our neighborhood, she ate everything on her plate without complaint. Nothing actually tasted bad, and was surprisingly edible after a few tweaks, but I was extremely disappointed with this meal over all. 

Just to show you that I have made this meal before, and conquered it, I added a picture. Don't mind the pink tinge of the filter, this roast was actually cooked correctly! I'd like to leave you guys with one last thing. I am so appreciative of all those who continue to read about my crazy cooking adventures, and would love to hear your thoughts, comments or questions on anything. Please don't forget to comment in the section below and tell your friends!! Thanks!! :-)

Midnight Pan-Cooked Breakfast

This weeks recipe had to be something super quick, easy, and it would be helpful if I had already made it before. We had yet another busy weekend, a family wedding in Pennsylvania, and so Sunday night's dinner had to be pushed to Monday night. I then had to work a 10 hour day and didn't have time to eat breakfast that morning. So I decided to make breakfast for dinner. 

One of my favorite British meals, besides a Sunday roast dinner (which I definitely need to make soon), is a Full English breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, baked beans, mushrooms, tomatoes and fried bread/toast. I have never been a fan of fried beans though, to me, beans are not supposed to be sweet. So because of this, I opt to exclude them from my Full English whenever I have one. Jamie's version of a full English breakfast is more of a late night snack after you've had a few drinks out. He even tells the story of how he concocted this recipe as a young boy, drunk and just throwing things into a pan for him and his friends. He decided to go the story route this time around yet again, instead of actually writing down the recipe.

As I said earlier, I have actually made this recipe before. Back when my "obsession" first began, not only did I watch every episode of The Naked Chef, but I taped them all on VHS and watched them over and over again. One episode was basically the exact story he mentioned in his cookbook. Except there was no underage drinking going on. He went out with a bunch of his friends and when they came back to his house, he made them all the Midnight Pan-Cooked Breakfast. All you do is throw bacon, sausage, mushrooms and tomatoes into a hot pan, cook them up a bit and then crack a few eggs into the empty spaces between all the ingredients. Once it's finished cooking, it'll look like a giant omelette Frisbee. As a child myself, this was obviously one of the easier recipes to make and so I became pretty fond of it and have been making versions of it my whole life.

Roast Loin of Pork with Peaches

Last Sunday was a very exciting night for all Game of Thrones fans out there. It was the night we had been waiting an entire year for. We were finally going to learn the fate of our beloved Jon Snow. So of course this night had to be celebrated properly, we had a mild Game of Thrones party. My sister-in-law came over with her boyfriend for dinner and the much anticipated premiere. Because of this, I decided I wanted to make something that would look Game of Thrones-y and rustic. I thought that a roast loin of pork, complete with bones and all looked appropriate. And of course, plenty of red wine.

Pork is one of those things that I always enjoy but don't experiment too much with, plus I am the only one in our house who eats it. I am an avid pork chop maker, and I recently learned how to make an AMAZING pulled pork using my crock pot, but my pork cooking skills don't go far beyond that. So because of this, I put all of my trust into Jamie Oliver and followed his directions precisely. Fans of Jamie all know that he is a big fan of not only making flavorful butters, but of putting said butters under the skin of whatever meat he is cooking. That is exactly what this recipe called for as well. Softened butter which has been flavored with pepper and lots of thyme, and then placed underneath the skin and between the bones of the pork, along with sliced peaches. Sounds a bit odd, I know. But at this point, most of Jamie Oliver's recipes have been pretty odd, and they have all come out rather delicious. Once it was cooked, the peaches no longer tasted like peaches, they took on an interesting combination flavor of peach and pork.

The last time we had my sister-in-law over for dinner, I made Jamie's Parmesan & Truffle mashed potatoes and an artichoke side dish. Since the main course was new for me and my wife had been asking for those potatoes again nonstop, I figured I would make side dishes that I knew were a hit. This time I made much more though. Jamie's recipe is pretty simple. Potatoes, butter, Parmesan cheese and truffle oil. All to taste. Although the flavor is amazing, they are a bit dry for my liking, so I decided to add butter and quite a bit of half-and-half. I probably would've added cream, but I didn't have it in the fridge.

Entire meal -- pork, potatoes & artichokes

This artichoke recipe I went with was the first one I made when I started this project, Pan-Cooked Artichokes with Lemon, Thyme & Garlic. I think that the lemon, butter and garlic combination is always the way to go with artichokes. I decided to make more of these as well, since they were also such a big hit last time, and because I am known for messing up an artichoke or two.

Let's talk about that for a minute. I am absolutely in love with this recipe! It is probably one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted, and I have been pretty much obsessed with artichokes recently. However, the preparation of these artichokes is absolutely ridiculous. Jamie insists that the more you do it, the easier it will become. Well I have said this before, and I'm going to say it again, I call bulls***! Not only is it terribly hard, but I really believe that it's a waste as well. After cutting off all of the outer leaves, and scraping out all of the fuzzy bit inside, all you're left with is the heart. I knew that it supposed to be the best part of an artichoke, but it's not the only part of the vegetable. I have to be doing this wrong.  The coloring seems to finally be in my favor, but the result looks nothing like the picture in the cookbook. 

End result

Tagliatelle with Tomato Sauce, Spinach & Crumbled Ricotta

I had a crazy busy couple of days last weekend, so I wanted to make something fairly easy. I remembered how much I loved the pappardelle pasta the last time I made it, and wanted to use the other bag I had waiting for me in the cabinet. Unfortunately, the only other pappardelle recipes I could find in all three of The Naked Chef cookbooks were full of items either Danielle or I wouldn't eat -- rabbit, spicy sausage, leeks. Which is why I opted for this recipe and just switched the tagliatelle for the pappardelle. As far as I can tell the only difference is an inch in the width (pappardelle is 1  1/2 inches wide, where the tagliatelle in only 1/2 inch wide).

I should have used two cans of tomatoes though like Jamie said to, but after pouring in the first can I thought it looked like more than enough. Again, I was wrong and should have listened. It does cook down a lot and I would have liked a little more sauce in the end.

After I finished the meal, I realized that I think I was supposed to just place the cooked spinach on top of the finished pasta dish, and then the cheese on top of that. My colander was too small to securely put on top of the pasta pot, so I wound up throwing the spinach into the sauce. It worked out well because the spinach wound up cooking in the sauce, but I don't think it's what Jamie had in mind.

One thing I have to add is that ricotta cheese does not crumble! I am not sure what kind of ricotta cheese they have in England, but the kind we have here is almost like a paste. I tried putting a small amount on some paper towels and tried smashing it together to try to get some of the water out. In the end, it didn't do much. I tried ripping it up and "crumbling" it to the best of my ability. 

Squashed Cherry Tomato & Smashed Olive Salad

I had the day off from work on Monday and decided to take advantage of being home, so I made myself a Jamie Oliver salad for lunch. It was basically just cherry tomatoes, olives red wine vinegar, olive oil & pepper. You can also throw in a little of arugula at the end to fill it out a bit, which is exactly what I did. Jamie was not kidding, when he warned me to place my hand over the cherry tomato before squishing them -- those suckers squirt out juice and seeds like crazy! It went absolutely everywhere! I probably should have heeded his warning.

One thing I was not very happy about was again, the layout of this recipe. It was written more like a short story or a letter to a friend, rather than a recipe. There was no list of ingredients you would need, I guess maybe because there were so few, he figured he didn't need to actually spell it out for you. It would have been nice to be told exactly which types of olives to use though. I just wound up getting a Mediterranean mix and used a few of each. 

That's my only complaint with this recipe however. Everything else was very tasty, and it was very quick!

I did want to add in one more thing and let you all know that it looks like Jamie and I am well on our way to becoming fast friends! Ha ha! Okay, not really. But he did respond to another tweet of mine! I let him know that I completed his highly coveted Chicken in Milk recipe last week and got a response back!! 

Add caption

Gordon Ramsay

I wanted to take a quick detour from the usual post and talk about another well known British chef that I am a fan of. Gordon Ramsay. Many of you probably know him as the blond, foul mouthed head chef  and owner of Hell's Kitchen. His other shows include Master Chef, Master Chef Jr., & Kitchen Nightmares. Also, something that I always thought was pretty cool and random is that he has a daughter named Megan. My maiden name is Ramsey. Get it? Megan Ramsey?? 

I've got a process to this whole blog writing thing I do, which is that I obviously find a Jamie Oliver recipe, cook it, write about it for all you lovely people and then I post the pictures Ive taken and a little blurb about the particular post, along with the link to this blog, up on as many social media accounts as I have. Its the best way to get this bad boy out into the world, and is how, I am sure, many of you have come across it. Lately, I have also been following many chefs and food related sites on Twitter, and asking them to check out this blog. If I'm being honest, I never really expected much to come from that. I just figured that because all of those sites had so many followers, those followers would see my blog as well. Well, it did more then that. Friday morning I was checking out any new notifications I had and lo and behold I had a new follower! Gordon Ramsay himself! So because of this, I decided to write a special post dedicated to him, in which I could do one of his recipes.

As I've mentioned many times now, it's hard for me to cook dinner during the week because I get home so late from work. I do however, get to cook a little bit during the day for my lunch. I am a nanny, so when the child I watch takes her nap, I have a good two hours and I would much rather eat a hot meal, then a sandwich or a salad every day. I have tried to find a simple recipe of Jamie Oliver's that I can do at work, but unfortunately I have yet to find something that is simple enough and doesn't include a bunch of ingredients that I would have to bring with me from home So I usually wind up making up my own quick version of a chicken thigh or spinach & shrimp dish. Coincidentally, the other day I happened to do a quick steak recipe that belongs to Gordon Ramsay himself. I'm sure you've seen the viral video online somewhere. It was actually put onto my Facebook wall by a friend a few weeks ago.

All you basically do is season the steak, put it in a very hot pan with oil, add some fresh thyme, garlic cloves and butter, baste the steak with the butter and constantly keep turning it so that it cooks from both sides. It's very fast, extremely delicious, and for me a bit messy! As I have also mentioned many times before, fresh thyme in oil pops! There is definitely a little bit of cleanup to do afterward, but it is so totally worth it!!

I would like to finish this post by thanking everyone who has been reading since I started writing. I am 11 posts down, and I'm sure tons to go! It would be really great to see how many of you there actually are though, and I would love to know your opinions -- what am I doing wrong, doing right, what would you like more of, less of. Let me know in the comments section everyone!!

Chicken in Milk

This recipe has been all over the Internet lately. I've seen it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and JamieOliver.com. I was super excited to learn that it was not only a Jamie Oliver recipe, but that it is also a recipe in one of his Naked Chef cookbooks. Which means everybody, that it was destined to be my next dish!

Now I know what your all thinking, chicken cooked in milk?? That has to be one of the weirdest combinations I have ever heard of. A stomachache waiting to happen. Especially since it also involves lemon zest and Jamie actually mentions something about curds. Blech! But quite the contrary, not only was this recipe ridiculously easy, but it was probably one of the most juicy chickens I have ever had in my life! I think the only thing that I might do differently next time is season the milk in the bottom of the pot, instead of only seasoning the chicken. Although the gravy that the milk and the chicken juices make was delicious, it could have used a little bit of salt. It is probably one of my favorite chicken recipes to date.

One thing I absolutely loved about this recipe was how it was cocked. Because it is sitting in all of that liquid, the chicken stays ridiculously tender and juicy. But also because you never put the lid on the pot while it's in the oven, the top layer of skin gets all golden and crispy. Drying chicken out is something that's really easy to do for me -- finding that delicate balance between a juicy chicken and an undercooked chicken has always been quite the conundrum -- so once I discovered the amazing invention known as a crock pot, I thought that it would be my new best friend. The biggest problem with cooking an entire chicken in a crock pot though, is the fact that it gets so tender, that even the bones become mush. You always end up with a stew like concoction where you're picking bones out of your teeth. This recipe really figured out the best of both worlds. 

Chicken in Milk

I just wanted to share some happy news with you all. As you probably know, after I complete a recipe/blog post, I post it up on all sorts of social media (Facebook, Instagram & Twitter), and then I tag Jamie Oliver in all of my posts. Well last week, he liked my post! Now, this doesn't mean that he is actually reading anything I write, but it does mean that I am one step closer to that goal!!

Chicken Breast Baked in a Bag with Mushrooms, Butter, White Wine and Thyme & The World's Best Baked Onions

Chicken Breast Baked in a Bag with Mushrooms, Butter, White          Wine and Thyme & The World's Best Baked Onions

As I have mentioned many times before, my wife is an extremely picky eater and when it comes to which parts of the chicken she'll eat, it comes down to the breasts (haha!). She will only eat thin cut chicken breasts. I tend to find the light meat to be way too dry for me, so I prefer dark meat, and usually go for thighs. I originally planned on using a thin chicken breast for my wife and a thigh for myself, but had forgotten to take the thigh out of the freezer in time, and so I ended up just throwing in four thin chicken breasts. Big mistake on my part.

I am going to be completely honest. This was not my favorite dish. Although everything sounded amazing --chicken, mushrooms, garlic, wine, and butter, all of my favorite things, the reality of it was not so. Jamie instructed that I use one large glass of white wine in this recipe. Now when I cook with wine, I tend to use Pinot Grigio. Mainly because I refuse to drink it. One large wine glass though, is a lot of wine. Especially for a type of wine I'm not particularly fond of. In the end, the mushrooms looked delicious, but all I could taste was the tart Pinot Grigio-ness of the wine. In the end, I wound up chucking more butter and salt in with them and I was then able to eat it.

Something about cooking in a bag of foil. I'm pretty sure Jamie Oliver taught me this amazing trick many years ago, when I first started buying his cookbooks. It was also a trick I learned in culinary school -- although I think that was mainly with fish. 

Chicken baked in foil bag with mushrooms

This onion dish called for sweet white onions, pancetta/bacon, garlic & thyme. I couldn't find whole slices of pancetta that didn't rob me blind, so I wound up using Black Forrest Uncured bacon I found at Trader Joes. 

The whole thing was extremely easy. Boil onions for about 10 minutes, until tender. Scoop out innards of onions and sauté them with garlic, butter and thyme. Once the kitchen smells amazing, pour in some heavy cream and Parmesan cheese. This ends up being a completely decadent creamy sauce that you then pour on top of the onions. And in my option (and that of my wife's), was the best part of the entire meal. You then bake them all together.

I wound up eating pieces of the onion, chicken and mushroom all together.  I don't know if you've ever done it, but  its hard to just devour an entire onion. Even though it is baked and has a pieces of bacon wrapped around it, in the end, it is just an onion.  My wife wound up mixing everything together -- the chicken dish, baked onions, bacon and some leftover rice from night before -- and made it into some sort of chicken/mushroom/onions/bacon gumbo. In the end, she had 3 helpings and said it was absolutely delicious. 

Baked onions wrapped in bacon

Parsnip and Pancetta Pasta w Parmesan & Butter

Disclaimer: Thyme pops! Something I very quickly learned after throwing a few leaves into a pan of hot oil. Toss it in, and run away people! 

With this dish, Jamie brought yet another new kind of pasta to my attention, Tagliatelle. I'm not gonna lie, it is kind of embarrassing since I not only went to culinary school (and I am now realizing that I did not know as much about food as I thought I did), but because I am also now married to an Italian and I feel like I should definitely up my pasta knowledge. According to the photo in the cookbook, tagliatelle looks like a wider version of linguine, but not as wide as pappardelle. So because I couldn't actually find it, I wound up using linguine instead. Bonus points however for the fact that it was garlic and basil linguine!

This recipe was a pretty a straightforward one. Boil water and cook the pasta in that. Sauté pancetta & parsnip in butter and garlic. I might have had my flame up a little too high though, because I over cooked the pancetta a bit,and was experiencing some pancetta shrinkage, so I decided to add a little bacon. My Wife is probably the biggest bacon fan around, so she definitely didn't mind. 

Jamie was right about parsnips and pancetta seeming like a strange mix, but it sure as hell was a tasty one! I'm sure I mentioned before that I am not the biggest pasta fan. For some reason, and makes me feel extremely full, extremely fast. Not a fun feeling. So even though I found this incredibly delicious, I only had one small portion. Which, turns out was a good thing because we had more than enough left over for my wife's  dinner the following night.

Delicious pasta!

I wanted to add one more thing. I happily found the second picture from my day of meeting Jamie Oliver all those many years ago. I was really excited to share it with you all!

Jamie Oliver 2003

Lemon Lime Cream Tart

This is actually one of the very first Jamie Oliver recipes that I have ever made. Back when my childhood obsession first started, and after I ran out to buy the cookbook, I decided I had to make something right away and this recipe not only looked delicious, but seemed simple enough for one of my first ventures into the world of Chefdom. I remember meticulously following every step of the recipe, along with two of my friends. We couldn't have been more than 15 or 16 years old, and although I hate to admit it, I didn't know that big tart shells existed. I thought tarts were those mini pie type things you saw in fancy bakeries, filled with cream and had decorative fruit designs on them. So because of this, we bought regular pie crusts. Fast forward quite a few years to present day, where although I now know that larger tart shells are actually a thing, I still have no idea where to purchase one in my neighborhood. So I went with my 15-year-old instincts and bought pie crusts yet again. Hey, if it ain't broke... 

One major thing I noticed was that this recipe just have been produced way before Jamie Oliver went on his whole Healthy Food Kick. All it called for was sugar, eggs (8!!!), cream and TONS of lemon and lime juice. I'm not a fan of that pre-packaged, bottled lime juice you can buy at the supermarket, I think it tastes really fake. So I deiced to go with actual lime juice, which meant that I had to squeeze the limes myself. Not a big deal right? Wrong! I originally bought about 10 limes, thinking that would be more then enough for the 1 1/2 cups I needed for this tart. WRONG WRONG WRONG!! I had to go back out and get 20 more. I must be squeezing limes incorrectly. 

The end result, although quite delicious, was not quite as pretty as Jamie's. Because I opted for the regular pie crusts again, the crust part itself became a bit top heavy and broke away from the cream filling. If you look closely in the picture, you can see my finger holding it up! Top heavy crust not withstanding, this tart got many compliments at Easter dinner. 

Lemon Lime Cream Tart w homemade Whipped Cream & raspberries 

Roast Leg of Lamb, Parmesan & Truffle Mash and Slow Cooked Artichokes w Sweet Cherry Tomatoes

Before I discuss this weeks recipes, I wanted to let you know about a decision I made. I know I've mentioned in past posts that most of Jamie's recipes in his first cookbook, The Naked Chef, are a bit hard to follow. I don't think that he quite figured out exactly how to explain recipes just yet. A few of them are not very detailed and some of them don't give exact cooking temperatures or times (do you all remember the bread baking fiasco?!). I've also been thinking a lot about just how picky an eater my wife is and how there are a few foods that I will not touch with a 10 foot pole, so because of these facts, it definitely makes it hard to do every one of the recipes in this book. In the end, I have decided to pick and choose recipes throughout his first three cookbooks. The Naked Chef, The Naked Chef Takes Off and Happy Days with The Naked Chef. To me, all three of them represent his humble beginnings, back when he was still known as The Naked Chef. So although this is not my original plan, I think that it will not only make it a bit easier for me to find foods that we will eat, but it might possibly keep this experiment going even longer! 

 

This past weekend was Easter, and although we had dinner plans for that Sunday night, I still had to figure out which recipes I wanted to delve into for Saturday. My wife and I planned a movie & wine night with my sister-in-law, so I decided to take advantage of the fact that someone with a much less picky palate was going be around and make something other than chicken or pasta. I figured that lamb was fitting, it being so close to Easter and all. I've never actually made lamb. I've eaten it a ton of times, and I am definitely a fan, but the thought of cooking it myself was a bit daunting. Jamie recommended a 4 or 5 lb leg, but because it was only going to be my sister-in-law and I (with leftovers for my mother-in-law of course), my wife got the butcher to cut one down until it was almost 3 lbs.  

I have to say, that all of the fear was definitely in my head. And this recipe was written out pretty matter factly. Slice holes randomly into meat, stuff the holes with garlic and other seasonings, tie rosemary (although I substituted with thyme… I was really just getting sick of rosemary) onto the lamb using kitchen string, and then bake for 10 minutes per pound plus an extra 20 minutes. Easy peasy! It was probably the most delicious cut of meat I have ever made, and cannot wait for an excuse to do it again.

Roast Leg of Lamb with Garlic & Thyme

The last time I made artichokes, The process of cutting them down and removing all of the leaves was probably one of the more difficult food tasks I've had to do. The end result was amazing though, so I really wanted to try again. And Jamie Oliver did promise that the more often you made artichokes, the easier the process became. Well I am here to say, that is absolutely not true!! Once again, I started off with four artichokes, and ended with only three. And no matter how much lemon juice I rubbed on them, the first one, once again, turned a lovely shade of brown. They truly are delicious though, so I am really going to have to conquer this process!

This time around, instead of saturating the artichokes with lemon and butter, they were just sautéed in olive oil & garlic, and then tossed in with some roasted cherry tomatoes. Very, very yummy. They were the first recipe I tackled though and I think because I still had Lamb anxiety at that point, I got a little distracted and burnt them a bit. According to my sister in law though, it added texture and made them even more delicious. Thanks Sis!

Slow Cooked Artichokes with Sweet Cherry Tomatoes

 

This entire meal was actually far out of my comfort zone. Not only had I never made lamb before, but I've only ever tried making mashed potatoes once before, and let's just say that there was a blender involved.  This time around I tried to pay very close attention to the recipes and kept my fingers crossed that Jamie's words made sense. Making them into truffle mashed potatoes just happened to work out. I made an impulse buy of a $22 bottle of truffle oil a few weeks before and desperately wanted to use it. Luckily it worked out that Jamie had the perfect recipe for me, hidden within the pages of the vegetable section.

In the end, I have to say that I am very proud of myself. This was the best pre Easter meal ever!

Roasted Fillet of Beef rolled in Herbs and Porcini and wrapped in Prosciutto & Spinach w Procini, Rosemary and Lemon

I couldn't find anywhere in my neighborhood to buy dried porcini mushrooms, so I decided to use shiitake mushrooms instead. Jamie told me to saute the mushrooms with a pat of butter and a bit of water. Once that cooked down, I had to add some lemon juice and more butter. And let me tell you, I could eat nothing but those mushrooms for the rest of my life and die happy. Luckily, needed to be used for both the meat and spinach dishes! Towards the end of the recipe, Jamie casually mentions that you could add some fresh greens and roasted potatoes to this dish. Without actually telling you how to cook them.  Which is why I took it upon myself to find one of his spinach recipes, and use that. As for the potatoes, seeing as I didn't know I was going to need them for this recipe, I decided to use a can of Shop Rite sliced white potatoes. I usually make them saluted with onions and butter....usually as a breakfast potato. My wife is a sucker for them! 

The idea of this meal just seemed so lovely. Rare, seasoned beef, surrounded by the most deliciously buttered mushrooms, rolled up in something resembling bacon. I'm drooling just thinking about it. The reality of it however did not live up to my expectations. This was definitely all of my fault though. My ability to cook beef to its correct temperature is always a little tricky for me. My wife prefers her steak medium, but really closer to well done, Whereas I prefer mine to still be mooing. She always tells me to take it out when it is the right temperature for me, and if anything, she could always put hers back into the oven for a bit. But when I cook, I have this overwhelming sense of needing everything to be perfect.Which, lets face it, is completely ridiculous because that almost never happens. But if I am purposely serving my wife under cooked steak, it makes me feel really bad. Which is why making steak usually causes me a bit of anxiety. And this case was no different. I wound up keeping the meat in the oven for little longer then necessary and of course I overcooked it! Because of this though, the end result was definitely not as pretty as Jamie's. And I'm not gonna lie, I wound up having a bit of a panic attack while trying to take a picture for you all! 

In the end, although it was not cooked to perfection, it was still pretty tasty! My wife would;t stop telling me just how flavorful it was and how she definitely would not mind me cooking it again. So that's a win in my book! 

I wanted you to see what it looked like still wrapped in the proscuitto 

Jamie's Minestrone Soup & Basic Bread

Firstly I would like to fill everyone in on why it has been so long since my last post. I know I mentioned wanting to do one of Jamie's recipes at least twice a week, meaning I would mainly be doing my cooking on the weekends. These last few weeks have been pretty exhausting to say the least. I worked six days in a row, and decided that I really needed to take the seventh day to rest. We ordered pizza for dinner. Not my favorite thing to do, but it was definitely easier then sweating over the stove. 

The following weekend, I realized I really had to get my act together and make up for not cooking before, which is why I decided to GO BIG OR GO HOME and try to bake bread from scratch!I am pretty sure that I have done this before in Culinary school, although for some reason, most of the things I made back then have escaped my mind. I will defiantly remember it this time around. I have to say, that kneading bread dough truly requires some crazy upper body strength, which is something that I don't have much of. After about 30 seconds of mushing and punching and kneading the dough, my arms felt as if they were going to fall off. Luckily, arm strength is something my wife is not lacking in. All those years of being a personal trainer have definitely paid off. Thanks babe!

I have to say, for being a basic bread recipe, it was kind of confusing. Actually, if I'm being completely honest, a lot of Jamie's recipes in this first cookbook tend to confuse me. I feel as if he hadn't quite learned out how to explain a recipe properly just yet. I decided to take a look at the bread chapter in another one of his Naked Chef cookbooks, Happy Days with the Naked Chef. This recipe seemed pretty much the same, except that it excluded the use of honey and semolina flour and that it was actually written out in layman's terms... I didn't have to decipher what he meant.  For my bread, I did wind up adding a spoonful of honey, because I thought the sweetness would add a little something extra. And although I did buy that special semolina flour, I didn't end up using it. 

Another thing with this bread recipe that I was not too fond of, was that at the point where he is supposed to tell us how long to bake the bread for and on what temperature, instead he tells us to turn the page and find the correct bread recipe we would like to use. The only problem with that is I did not want to make Focaccia bread or honey & banana bread... I just wanted to make a plain basic bread. So because of this, I was forced to decide on my own temperature and timing by comparing the basic bread recipe to the most similar one I could find. Honey & banana it was! 425 degrees for 20-25 minutes. By the end of the 25 minutes, the crust of my bread was starting to become very brown, but by sticking my finger into the center of the roll, I found out that it was still completely raw on the inside. After lowering the temperature to 350 degrees and continuing to cook it for 10 more minutes, ripping it apart, adding butter to the top of it and then cooking it for another 10 minutes, I promptly gave up. Betty Crocker I am not!

Basic Bead Fail

The soup was a lot easier. I left the leek out of this recipe. As I mentioned earlier, I will try any type of food once, but if I learn that its not for me, I stay away from it. Leeks are one of those foods.  Jamie's method of making soup differed in mine by the order in which he "threw things into the pot." I usually make sure that my broth is good and cooked before adding in all of the vegetables. In the end, the entire soup tastes like the broth. Jamie's method though was to salute all of the vegetables  in the pot first and then add the broth. Thus making the broth taste like the veggies and not the other way around. Its so simple, yet totally brilliant! 

Minestrone Soup

One thing I do have to say though about Mr. Oliver, is he seemed to have a slight obsession with rosemary in this first cookbook. Just about every recipe I've done so far asks for it. My wife and I were already not the biggest fans, and after giving it a fair shot I have decided to stop using it as much, Its way too over powering. 

Pappardelle w Mixed Mushroom Pasta & The Real Tomato Salad

Full disclosure, I am not actually a pasta eater. I like it enough, and if it has something good in it (seafood, mushrooms, etc) I might pick it off the menu at a restaurant, but it is hardly ever my first choice. I'm not sure what it is, I think it has something to do with how heavy it feels in my stomach and gives me the really full, really fast feeling. I am not a fan of that feeling. My wife however, is part Italian, which means that she could live off of pasta if need be. Once in a  while, if I'm feeling selfless, or have run out of ideas for dinner, there is one particular pasta dish that I will make --  Mushrooms, asparagus, garlic and lots of Parmesan cheese. That is why I decided to go for this particular Jamie Oliver recipe first. It reminded me a bit of that, minus the asparagus. And not as heavy on the Parmesan cheese.

Although I'm not a pasta fan per-se, I have one very strong memory of myself as a child sneaking into my mom's bowl of discarded and broken lasagna noodles and eating as many as I could. Something about the fact that they're always 10 times the size of a normal noodle made them just seem so delicious to me. Pappardelle remind me of just that, a discarded slice of a lasagna noodle. I didn't know that they made pasta that wide, but I think I am a little bit in love. One thing I do have to admit to though is that even though the directions specifically called for "flash frying" the mushrooms, I may have cooked them a little longer then that. OK, I definitely cooked them longer then that. I'm kind of particular about my mushrooms, the texture of them when raw weirds me out a bit, so I tend to over cook them in order to avoid that.  Because of this, I ended up with some wilted, sad looking & un-photogenic, although very tasty mushrooms. 

Pappardelle with Mixed wild Mushrooms

The tomato salad was basically a milder version of a caprice salad my wife makes sometimes. Jamie's version  used a lot less of everything. A sprinkle of chopped up garlic, a scattering of finely chopped up red onion, a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil & balsamic vinegar. In our home, we are flavor junkies. We pile on the herbs and spices, garlic usually being at the top of that list. Jamie's tomato salad made me realize that there is no need to be so heavy handed… It was definitely a much lighter taste then we are used to, but we gobbled up every single one of those tomatoes.

Tomato Salad

That weekend also happened to be our dog, Mamachita's 9 th birthday. So like every year, I made a dog friendly birthday cake of Jiffy's blueberry muffin mix & dog food, with a cream cheese "frosting." I figured since this was a food blog, I would share it with you as well!

Blueberry Doggie Cake

Happy Birthday Mamachita!!