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.)