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!! 

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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!