Poultry = Pain-Free Cooking

Schoolwork has interfered with my adventures with Jamie. (The last JO dish I attempted was two weekends ago!) I have cooked recently, it's just all been large quantities of simple dishes to last me a week's worth of lunches. Although it seems like ages ago, here is the write-up of Esther cooking Chicken & Leek Stroganoff *...








How did it go?

- First of all, I would like to point out that, for maybe the very first time, I used every single ingredient listed in the cookbook. No omissions or substitutions.
- The recipe itself was pretty easy to follow and was pulled off without a hitch. (Thanks mom for remembering to turn on the rice cooker!)
- The sauce was a little watery initially and needed some flour to thicken it up. After that, it tasted delicious!
-There were no complaints about this dish. It's therefore safe to say that Jamie Oliver's "Chicken & Leek Stroganoff" is a nonoffensive dish... FOR EVERYONE.
- Although quite tasty at the time, it didn't keep well. I thought I could enjoy the leftovers for lunch the following day, instead I was greeted with lumpy sauce and soggy chicken. Yum.


*Note: I couldn't find an official recipe for this dish on Jamie Oliver's website, so I linked a member one. It's not true to the cookbook, but I am too tired (and sick) to copy the recipe out.

My New Fave

Surprise surprise, it's chocolate-related. Well, enough with the sarcasm. What's ACTUALLY surprising is the fact that my new treat of choice has NOTHING to do with Jamie! In fact, it's nearly the exact opposite... there's no cooking involved!

Yes, Lindt has stolen my heart. Specifically when it's touched with a spritz of sea salt. I enjoyed my first taste so much that I bought a bar as a "present" for my mom!


Note: Goes well with end-of-day-exhaustion.

Birthday Bests

Happy (almost) Birthday to me! To help ring in my 21st, one of the many, lovely gifts my friend Julz gave me was this adorable apron:


Thanks, friend! It'll be put to good use Pest(h)ering Jamie. To be regularly featured...

A Quick Salmon Tikka for a Light Summer Meal

Not too long ago (but long enough for this blog post to be way overdue) I went down to a friend's cabin for the weekend. It was lovely; two days full of swimming, shopping, playing bananagrams, and, of course, eating. Being that we were three girls with a kitchen that only fit one person comfortably, we decided to each create something for the others to enjoy. Naturally I chose Jamie.

Quick Salmon Tikka With Cucumber Yogurt

It was a super simple, but nevertheless perfect summer dish. It was made even easier by my decision to use smoked salmon instead salmon filets. It was a bit of a cop out, but both my wallet & my laziness thanked me. Here's to summer livin'!

PS local Washington cucumber & swapping regular yogurt for the Greek variety were two other excellent choices.

Guest Posting: The Final Installment

Make your way over to Can't Stop, Craft Till We Drop to see...


... what I wore today!

What I Wore Wednesday, Pt. II

To see how cute I did not look yesterday morning, head over to Can't Stop, Craft Till We Drop for part two of my guest post series.

A cracking good burger indeed!

After offering to cook dinner tonight, I was having trouble deciding on what to make. Flipping through "Jamie's Food Revolution," nothing jumped out at me as "the perfect summer meal." That is, until I stumbled upon JO's burger recipe...

A Cracking Burger




...aside from not using parsley in the patty recipe (trying to avoid a revolt from the troops), I followed Jamie's instructions to the T. And, for once, my entire family was satisfied. Not a complaint was heard. Huzzah!

Hope you're having a good weekend! Cheers!

Jamie In The AM

To spice things up a bit, this week's Jamie Endeavour was an AM thing. Additionally, it was a one serving kind of ordeal - breakfast for my mom! A Jamie Oliver Mushroom Omelette.





After a sunny, sweaty hike Saturday morning, I popped over to Superstore (I know, neither the freshest nor the best produce. It was for convenience's sake.) for some mushrooms. $45 worth of clearance Joe Fresh clothing and one paper bag of mushrooms later, I returned home and got down to business. It was a super simple recipe (perhaps chosen on purpose,weekend laziness...) Despite my lack of effort and creativity with this week's choice, my mom enjoyed it! Here's to only having to please one palette!

Guest Post Numero Uno

If you're interested in seeing what I wore for my first What I Wore Wednesday, please make your way over to "Can't Stop, Craft Till We Drop."

Cheers!

Guest Posts: Expanding My Repertoire...

... To fashion!

Over the month of August, I will be guest posting for my friend Julz of Can't Stop, Craft Till We Drop. She's coming back home for the rest of the summer (yay!) and, between visits to various cabins and such, won't have time for her weekly feature "What I Wore Wednesday." I offered to step in...let's see what I come up with!

Chicken Fajitas

Everyone loves Mexican, right?! Thursday night's answer was Yes. Even my picky siblings dug in without a complaint. Now, before I get too ahead of myself with the reception Jamie Oliver's Chicken Fajitas received, let's return to the method...

Thankfully I found this recipe on his website, thus cutting down the word count of this blog post. Simply click on the above link to find out how to make a meal that even Esther's siblings could not find a thing wrong with.


The assemblage wasn't too tricky, reading over the recipe a few times beforehand ensured chaos-free cooking. I followed Jamie's advice and prepped everything before turning on the stove. Aside from the following substitutions, everything turned out the way it was supposed to!

What I Did Differently:

• Lack of a grill pan meant frying the chicken and veggies. Although it worked, it leaves me wondering... Wikipedia defines Fajitas as "any grilled meat served on a flour or corn tortilla." Does this mean I'm in the wrong calling the dish a "Chicken Fajita"?
• I omitted the chile in the salsa for fear of a sibling revolt. Spicy food does NOT equal happy campers.
  
• That's it!

Everyone had seconds. Sign of enjoyment.

Three's (Not) A Crowd

I went to Victoria over the weekend to visit my friend Julz of Can't Stop... Craft Til We Drop!. In true Esther & Julz fashion, our weekend was full of heartwarming activities. One of them happened to be cooking dinner Saturday night. A Jamie Oliver dinner.

Shrimp & Avocado With an Old-School Marie Rose Sauce

(I thought the addition of ingredients & directions would make it easier for anyone who doesn't own Jamie's Food Revolution & wants to try this recipe at home. Everything is directly copied from the cookbook.)

Ingredients:

• 1 or 2 ripe avocados
• 1 or 2 large handfuls of sprouted cress or alfalfa
  
• all-purpose flour
• 1/2 lb (250 g) peeled, large shrimp
• olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 heaping tsp (7 mL) paprika
• 1/4 cup (50 mL) mayonnaise
• 2 tsp (10mL) tomato ketchup (as opposed to the other kind...)
  
• 1 tsp (5 mL) Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp (5 mL) whisky
• 1 lemon
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. Carefully cut your avocado until you hit the pit, then run the knife around it to halve it. Gently twist the two halves and pull them apart. Carefully remove the stone and discard, then peel the skin off and discard that too. Cut the cress. Put a handful or two of flour into a bowl. Drop your shrimp into the bowl of flour and toss until they're completely coated. To make your sauce, put your mayonnaise into a bowl with the ketchup, a small splash of Worcestershire sauce and the booze. Halve the lemon and squeeze in the juice from one of the halves. Cut the remaining half into wedges for serving. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and mix well. Give it a taste and add a touch more salt, pepper and lemon juice if you think it needs it.
2. Get yourself a large frying pan and place it on high heat. When the pan is hot, pour in 2 good lugs of olive oil. Bash and break up your garlic cloves with your hand and add these to the pan, immediately followed by your flour-dusted shrimp. Toss them well to coat them in the hot oil. Count to ten, then add a pinch of salt and pepper, and the paprika for flavour and colour. Keep tossing your prawns, trying to keep them in a single layer in the pan so they cook evenly, for about 3 to 4 minutes, until crisp and golden.
3. Divide your avocado halves between your plates. Divide the cress or alfalfa over the avocados and place the shrimp next to them. Drizzle a few good spoonfuls of your Marie Rose sauce over the avocados. Finish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of paprika. Serve with wedges of lemon for squeezing over. Fantastic!

Notes on a "Twenty-Minute Meal"...

• It took longer than twenty minutes. Realizing halfway through that we didn't have enough shrimp for three people meant we had to run to the grocery store. Thankfully it was only across the street.
• We used prawns instead of shrimp. I think this was a good move.
• Although there was plenty of alcohol in the house, whisky was scarce. Thus, the sauce was whisky-free and perhaps a little blander...
• I'd recommend frying the shrimp/prawns on medium heat. By the time we put the second batch in the pan, it was too hot (hence the slightly-burnt prawns in the photo).
• Despite the last-minute grocery run, forgetting to put the rice on in time, burning a few of the prawns, and not having any whisky, it turned out well! Everybody enjoyed it & the prawns didn't even taste burnt! Cooking for three is much easier than satisfying my family of six.
  

Jamie's Food Revolution

I did experiment with a Jamie Oliver recipe this past weekend, but unfortunately do not quite yet have the photographic proof. So, Coming Soon...

In the meantime, I thought I'd share the trailer for Jamie Oliver's new TV show. Not simply to advertise (which I am nevertheless doing...), but to draw your attention to something my brother told me about - children who couldn't recognize a tomato.



Although I'm sure some of the children of Huntington, West Virginia did/could, this video shocked me. It shows the dominance of processed food in so many children's/adults' lives. I'm not going to go on about how unhealthy North America is today; I simply wanted to share something that made me think recently.

Super-Quick Salmon Stir-Fry

When I said I was back to working my way through Jamie's Food Revolution, I actually wasn't joking! After a LONG hiatus from pesthering, I returned to the kitchen today to whip up Jamie's "Super-Quick Salmon Stir-Fry" for my family. As always, it received mixed reviews...

(Note: My camera is still broken, thus photo credit goes to EverythingMom)

The actually recipe was pretty easy to make. I tripled it (it originally served two), substituted garden peas for snow peas (we didn't have the latter in the house), and omitted the chile. Despite toning down the spice, my sister spent the entire meal complaining that it was too hot for her...

A: "I hate spicy food"
Mom: "Why don't you drink some milk or put a bit of yogurt on it?"
A: "No! I'd rather spend the entire meal grumbling about having to eat this garbage."
(She didn't actually say the last bit, but it sure felt like it...)

Nevertheless, all things considered, four-fifths of my family were satisfied.

That's nearly an "A"!

33 Trains, 10 Planes, 2 Ferries & 9 Countries Later...

So, you may be wondering what happened to Pesthering Jamie...

...A little thing called travel. My exchange and the subsequent trip to Germany to visit family kept me busy having fun and frolicking in the Scottish countryside.



However, in addition to all of the sight-seeing and adventures, I was living on a student budget in Dundee. This meant that my grocery budget was spent on simple foods (and the occasional beverage... well, maybe that's an understatement...) to get me through the week instead of ingredients for tasty Jamie Oliver meals.




However, gone are the days of enjoying a baguette in front of the Eiffel Tower or a midday harbour cruise through Copenhagen...




... I'm home now and have plenty of time this summer for pesthering!

(Note: all four photos were taken by friends. My camera was stolen on the trip & I do not yet have a new one.)

Jamie in England

On the last (well, second last) night of my time chez Catherine's in London, we decided to cook a dinner for twelve. Wait, let's emphasize that - DINNER FOR TWELVE! This was made even more difficult by various food allergies & sensitivities - gluten intolerance, lactose intolerance, and some aversion to cheese. My earlier complaints about cooking for my family of six soon seemed childlike...

However, with some careful planning by two masterminds, a recipe was chosen - Jamie's Asparagus, Mint & Lemon Risotto. This worked well as rice is naturally gluten-free! Hoorah! As always, some substitutions & additions were made:

- the recipe was nearly doubled to satisfy a quantity greater than eight

- chicken was incorporated for the meat-conscious

- parmesan was left on the side (see previous note about the lactose intolerant/sensitive)

The Results:

Everyone seemed to enjoy it and no one's allergies were set off by the risotto! A happy ending...

On another note, am now in Scotland! Arrived here on the 31st of December - enjoyed a lavish Scottish Hogmanay for forty and have since been settling down to the student life in Dundee.