Saturday, March 26, 2011

My Final Exam


Saturday, March 5
Day 365 in my Food Revolution

On the Menu for the day:

For Lunch:


#168: Kedegree (pg. 288)


For Dinner:

#169: Roast Beef (pg. 192)
#170: Bread Sauce (pg. 210)
#171: Cauliflower Cheese (pg. 225)
#172: Yorkshire Puddings (pg. 209)

#173: Vanilla Cheesecake with Raspberry Topping (pg. 325)

It's my last day of cooking. I really can't believe it. I had focused so much on getting the recipes done this week that yesterday I realized that I hadn't invited anyone to my final exam dinner. I called my parents in a bit of a panic, "Wanna come over for my last dinner?" Despite the fact that they live two hours away, my awesome mom and dad dropped everything and drove over to my house the next morning to stay for the day.

When they arrived I was already working on lunch, Jamie's Kedegree on page 288. This is another recipe I've obviously put off until the end. Kedegree is a dish made of rice, fish, boiled eggs and its made with a curry paste. So you don't have to keep reading until this time next week, know that I made it in a flash, every morsel was eaten and raved about and I'd definitely make it again. There's a great youtube video of Jamie making a version of this and as he says, Kedegree is really great to make after a few days of lots of eating like Christmas or New Years so it turned out to be the perfect thing to make after our marathon week of cooking (and therefore eating).
Check out the video and let me know if you give it a try too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wPgabUBAuQ

In preparing for my final exam, I have read and reread these recipes several times. I got out an index card and planned out my timing just like my mom does the week of Thanksgiving. I had everything prepped, planned and ready to go and I worked through my plan like I had been training for this for like 365 days or something. I remained calm in a crisis ("Crap! The Roast Beef isn't done when its suppose to be!") and uncertainty (hmmm….how do I keep Dish A warm while Dish B & C cook) consulting my support system as they entertained the kids and checked on my progress throughout the day. It was a well executed "event" and I think if Jamie had been there to grade me I would have gotten an A.

The Roast Beef turned out great with lots of flavor and the bread sauce was a great topping in lieu of gravy. It was different than the other Roast Beef dinners that both my mom and dad have coached me through in the past and the fact that they were there meant the world to me. They have been so excited for me and I know they are two people that can honestly appreciate how far I've come this past year.

The Cauliflower Cheese wasn't my favorite of Jamie's side dishes but it was easy, everyone "tried something new" and seemed to like it quite a bit. It made me think about what good sports my kids have been along the way (especially the Kid) and that I hope the "revolution" not only taught them something about trying new things and taking on challenges but also that when you set a goal its important to finish it, even when the goal is just your own and not a school or work deadline.

The Yorkshire Puddings seemed to be the bonus question on this exam and if you've ever tried to make them you'll know what I mean. You need to be on your toes and be ready for anything, as they are very delicate little suckers that need constant attention. There are times when you need to leave them alone and times when they need very quick action on your part. Honestly, the yorkshire puddings are probably a bit like me during this whole experience and I imagine my husband was like the careful baker that knew just what to say and when to say it. He knew when to swoop in and help as well as when I just needed to be left alone. He didn't sign up for this yet he prepped and chopped and washed more dishes than he has in his entire life not to mention all of the editing, tech support and being my staff photographer. He was the best solider in my Food Revolution and had my back every step of the way.

Sitting around the table and looking at what I had made, toasting to a Food Revolution that I started on a whim made me think about the rest of my friends and family that encouraged me, cheered me on and especially the ones that said, "You should do this! Its going to be great!" They believed in my idea more than I did and I'm so glad I listened to them.

I found myself thinking back to a lunch of yummy egg salad with a dear friend and co-worker a year ago. He was the very first one to hear my idea and his enthusiasm made me move forward and actually do it. Another friend and co-worker seemed to be one of the first to read every blog and would call or email me to let me know that she was reading and listening. She also surprised me and showed up at my cooking class. I am so lucky to work with them and it means the world to me that they are both such Amy fans.

My sister was one of my favorite guinea pigs who so many mornings called and asked, "What are you making today?" She softly egged me on even on days when I just didn't think I had time for my Food Revolution. She also did her share of chopping and baby-watching while I threw together a recipe for our lunch or dinner. I gave her a copy of Food Revolution for her anniversary and she calls and tells me which recipes she's trying and what she thought of them.

My Friday walking buddy talked strategy and ideas and really helped me figure out my vision for the blog and how I wanted it to reflect me and what I was doing. She has been such an awesome sounding board and I couldn't have done this without her either.

My gardening neighbor supplied endless amount of fresh stuff from her little garden last summer and answered tons of "Do you have….?" runs down to my house. She even endured all of my cooking chatter even while battling morning sickness when the last thing she wanted to talk about was what I was having for dinner that night.

My college friends who don't live close-by anymore shouted and cheered from the rooftops so loud I could hear them hundreds of miles away. J…always the first to read my blog posts and my huge support in the Indian cooking department! K….my gentle editor and awesome cheerleader. S…one of my first followers and loyal readers.

The Vanilla Cheesecake with Raspberry Topping I started the day before by making the crust and finished Final Exam morning by making the filling with my trusty KitchenAid Mixer. This cheesecake was going to be the last recipe eaten and written about. #173. And while I mushed the raspberries for the topping I kept thinking about this last blog post and everyone that has been reading about my journey. I thought about the readers that were friends I had lost touch with and reconnected with through my stories, readers that I didn't know well that became my biggest fans, ones that did a little PR for me and got their friends to read and the loyal strangers, some of whom I still don't even know their real names.

Friends like P…we met on our honeymoons 10 years ago and really had just exchanged Christmas cards and an occasional anniversary card. I found out that she was just like me! She didn't cook either and really wanted to. One of my highest moments of this journey was getting an email from her saying that I had inspired her to cook!

Or E…another one of my followers, married to my post-college roomy, who seems to read all of my posts and comment. We have never had the chance to spend a lot of time together and having him follow so closely and let me know he was reading was a great chance to get to know him better.

Or M….a neighbor and one of my most frequent commenters who always kept me in check and asked great questions about the recipes, substitutions, and where to get ingredients. She was always a good reminder that ultimately it was about the cooking.

Luckiest1…another blogger in Canada, who is also cooking through Jamie's cookbooks. She has been a great support and I don't even know her real name!

Danny…Jamie's web editor who shocked me with his email when he actually wrote back and has been such an awesome cheerleader all year. Having him validate what I was doing and send his "You Go Girl!" support was a huge motivator that got me through this year.

Cindy….the reporter who did a story on me and quickly became a good friend. During the last few weeks when I was having trouble getting the rest of the writing done her "So did you make it?" messages kept me going.

There's like 50+ more of you I need to thank for reading but I'm afraid if I keep writing the 'thank yous!' you'll stop reading! So…I'll continue.

We sat down to eat the cheesecake and I was so happy that I had done it, so sad that it was over and for the VERY first time since it had began 365 days ago I thought….

"I wonder what Jamie Oliver thinks."

And then I thought….

I need to thank him.

So now the recipes are cooked but I feel like I'm not done yet. Did I do what I set out to do? Can I cook better? People all year have been asking me if I thought Jamie Oliver was reading my blog and I always thought that I didn't care. I wasn't really writing it for him but now that I realize how much he's taught me, I feel like I need to know. So I hope you'll keep reading. After 173 recipes and 365 days I still feel like there is a bit more to do and I hope you'll see what happens next.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Fish Pie Gets a Public Relations Makeover

2 Days Left….

March 4, 2011: I have today and tomorrow. That's it. Today I am tackling Fish Pie (pg. 285)and also the first part of Jamie's Vanilla Cheesecake which will be the dessert for my final meal tomorrow night. I'll tell you all about the cheesecake tomorrow. Let's talk about Fish Pie.

Fish Pie. This is one I have NOT been looking forward to making. Pie is for sweet. Pie is for apples or berries. It is not for fish. My last meal tomorrow is made up of recipes that I have “saved” for the last meal, the fish pie recipe has been "put off until the end."  It just didn't sound good to me. I have even put it off for a night when I know I'm not going to be eating it. My plan is to make it for Husband and walk right out the door for a fundraiser. I will not be eating this Fish Pie thing.

I start putting it together. I peel and boil some potatoes for the topping. I grate some carrot, celery and cheese into the bottom of a casserole dish. As I'm mixing in the shrimp and the white cod I'm starting to get a better sense of what this fish pie is all about and now it is starting to actually sound good. I can hear Jamie laughing at me again! It is now that I realize the real problem with Fish Pie, its name. It really just needs a good PR person. Have I mentioned before that I'm a Public Relations professional? So, this Fish Pie is in luck. Let's rename it Seafood Casserole. There. Doesn't that sound better? Its a yummy seafood casserole with veggies, cheese, shrimp and nice white flaky fish topped with mashed potatoes. How could anyone not want to eat that? I ended up stealing a few bites before I left and I loved it. I know my family will be enjoying SEAFOOD CASSEROLE for many years to come.

Recipes cooked: 166
Recipes left: 7
Days left: 2

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/fish-pie?clicked_from_search_results=true&query=fish%20pie

Saturday, March 19, 2011

3 Days Left…

Wednesday, March 2….Recipe #165: Aloo Gobhi.

Aloo Gobhi (pg. 88) is a vegetarian curry dish, made with cauliflower and potatoes. This was the second vegetarian curry dish in the book and Husband and I were once again really surprised at how filling it was. I'm really trying hard not to think about the fact that I still have eight recipes left to make and just 3 days to do it. Its Wednesday, I have to leave for an appointment as soon as Husband gets home and I'm cursing myself for not clearing my calendar during this last week of cooking. I'm also thinking of all of those summer nights, weeks even, where I skipped cooking. Summer procrastination has left me with lots of recipes to make and very little time before my deadline. I'm getting emails and phone calls from people asking, "What are you going to do next?" "Will you keep blogging?" At this point, I try to answer their questions but honestly, I can't even think about how I'll make it through the next three days. I start daydreaming about what the answer might be but pull myself back to reality. There is too much to be done before that happens. For once in my life, I'm having a hard time thinking ahead! So, I get started on my aloo gobhi.

Opening my Food Revolution cookbook I notice that it is starting to show a bit of wear and tear. I've taken this book everywhere and when it isn't in a coffee shop with me, on vacation, or in the car while I run into the grocery store, it sits on the kitchen counter. There are a few stains, the spine is getting pretty "bendy" and it really is well-loved. I've never had a well-loved cookbook! It feels good. The picture of the Aloo Gobhi is quite pretty and Jamie even writes in his introduction, "It's a really delicious combination of potato and cauliflower with spices, and it gets its gorgeous yellow color from the turmeric that is used to flavor it." On day 362, I agree with him! It is gorgeous! I'm not sure a year ago I would have said that a curry was pretty but I look at the picture (and eventually what gets to my kitchen table) and I think, "That's some good-lookin' food." In addition to being pretty, its not too hard to make either, once you get passed all of the potato peeling. One interesting thing about this recipe is that it ends up going in the oven for the last 20 minutes of cooking. So, with it doing its thing in the oven, I leave instructions for Husband to take it out when the buzzer goes off and I run out the door to my appointment. And now we officially have just two days to go….

Recipes cooked: 165
Recipes left: 8
Days left: 3

Friday, March 18, 2011

New Beginning Soup

I distinctly remember last March when I started my Food Revolution looking at this recipe, Spring Vegetable and Bean Soup (pg. 128), on the first day of spring and thinking that I should make it. But, making soup seemed like it would be so hard then and I decided to skip it. Now, its March 1, just 361 days later, and spring is just around the corner. I have just four days left in my adventure and soup doesn't phase me one bit. "They" say that spring is a time of rebirth, renewal, new beginnings and I definitely am looking at a new beginning as this spring approaches. What a great year I've had! I'm excited for spring this year. Even though this adventure is coming to an end, I know the new beginning of something else is just around the corner.

Happy Spring!

Recipes cooked: 164
Recipes left: 9
Days left: 4

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

#163 is all me

Monday, February 28, 5 days to go….Mondays are so busy. I knew I wouldn't be able to get a lot done but I HAD to do one recipe. So, I picked the last salsa recipe in the book: Black Olive, Sun-Dried Tomato & Celery Salsa (pg. 275). I made a small batch just for myself at lunch time to go with some yummy crackers but I think this would be great with fish or chicken. After the last Olive Mutiny, I didn't even ask the family if they would like some. I just whipped it up quietly and ate it. If you love black olives and sun-dried tomatoes as much as I do, this is worth a try!

Recipes cooked: 163
Recipes left: 10
Days left: 5

Monday, March 14, 2011

Holy Mackerel! Its Fancy Tunafish!

(Sorry for the radio silence…back to your regularly scheduled blog entry….)

February, 27, 2011, Oscar Night…6 Days Left

To send good vibes to our favorite for Best Picture, The King's Speech, I decided to make Beef & Onion Pie (pg.177), a traditional English dish that I'm sure Colin Firth eats. But, before I started working on dinner, we needed to deal with lunch. Actually, it was going to be a very big cooking day. I guess you could say it was my Oscars of cooking days. Since it was my last whole weekend of cooking I really needed to crank out at least three recipes today. So, for lunch I made the family Jamie's Sweet and Sour Pork on page 65. It cooks really fast and you need to be completely ready before starting to cook. While I started my marathon of cooking, Husband started his marathon day of dish-washing. He already seemed to be dragging a bit from keeping up with me yesterday and I felt kind of bad that it was starting again already. I also hadn't broken the news to him at how many recipes I was going to do that day.

After lunch was cooked, eaten and cleaned up, I got going on the beef & onion pie. The pie filling was a cinch to make and I felt like I could almost guess what Jamie was going to say next, it followed similar techniques as some of his other recipes. The one thing that threw me was that I didn't do a good job reading through the recipe beforehand to gauge how much time I would need. I just saw "40 minutes" under the "To make your pie" section and totally missed the hour that the beef filling had to cook in the "To make your beef filling" section. Once I realized it, I sent Husband, Kid and the Baby out to eat. They have been good soldiers and there was no reason for them to starve on my account. Also, after eating our crazy menu for the week, I think they were quite excited to get out of there!

After I got the pie filling bubbling away on the stove, and the family was out of the house, it was time to prepare the recipe I was least excited about. Now the other bumps in my food revolution have all been about not being brave enough to prepare the recipe, but in all of these cases I knew once I could get the courage to do the cooking, the food would get eaten. For Recipe #161 I wasn't sure anyone, including me, would eat it. Yes, we're talking about Smoked Mackerel Pate on page 282. So, I decided making half of the recipe was the way to go. To get me through this I kept thinking of all of those Oscar Starlets that would be dining on some sort of fancy pate that night at all of their big Oscar parties. I turned to page 282 and read through Jamie's recipe.

Jamie writes, "This is such a lovely thing to eat. There's loads of goodness in the skin of the mackerel, so try to leave it on when you make this -- you won't really notice it once the fish is all chopped up."

I next skimmed over the ingredients: 10 ounces smoked mackerel, 4 scallions, 2 lemons, one 8 ounce bar of Philadelphia cream cheese, 2 tablespoons of horseradish, salt and pepper, ciabatta bread, 2 large handfuls of sprouts (for garnish). Then I read over the method and like a big, large brick, it hit me over the head. Its just fancy tunafish salad! Instead of tuna you are using the mackerel, cream cheese instead of mayo, etc. etc. Well, then, that doesn't seem so bad! I made it in no time and you know, once again, Jamie was right. It was pretty good. Husband got home with the kids and I was completely shocked when he tried some and liked it too. You know, at the end of a long cooking day, it was almost as good as winning an Oscar.

Recipes cooked: 162
Recipes left: 11
Days left: 6

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

FREAKOUT


7 Days left.
I'm stressed. Its Saturday, February 26. I have just one week left and still have 16 recipes to make. In addition to that, tomorrow is the Oscars and our efforts to see some of the nominees hasn't gone well. To add insult to injury it is my parents 39th wedding anniversary and I didn't get a card in the mail. I have just spent a fortune at the grocery store getting most of the ingredients for the next 7 days and my fridge is moaning at me to please stop shoving things into it. Looking back now I don't even remember really talking to my family on this particular day. Lunch, Chicken Chow Mein (pg. 60) was made in a fog (very yummy and easy but I should have added more chile). It was as if the magnitude of what I had taken on, how much I wanted to finish and just how hard that would be, had come crashing down on me and all I wanted to do was run and hide in a movie theater and hang out with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon for a couple of hours. So, that's what I did. Knowing I had to make Salmon en Croute when I got home I still went to see True Grit, all by myself. After hiding from my self-inflicted assignment for a few hours on the western frontier I went home feeling a tad guilty that I had abandoned my family for the afternoon. Husband says, "If you don't finish EXACTLY on time, it would be okay. No one would know." I yell, "I would know! Don't say that anymore." As the words leave my mouth I think, I'm really losing it. Just like Julie Powell, I'm losing it. Only days before, I had just read the part in her book where she and HER husband have this same conversation. I hope he hasn't noticed that I just yelled at him and I carry on making Salmon en Croute, otherwise known as the recipe that got me back my mojo. Salmon en Croute ( pg. 291) is a ridiculously easy dish with results that make you look good, real good! Even though en croute has this lovely fancy french sounding name, Jamie's is very italian in flavor. Now I have nothing to compare this to, I'd never heard of en croute but doesn't it sound hard to make? It wasn't! First you roll out two sheets of puff pastry. Flour a cooking sheet and lay the rectangle of puff pastry on it. Drizzle olive oil, salt and pepper over a big piece of salmon and lay it, skin side down, on the pastry. Spoon some olive tapenade paste over top the salmon and then layer basil leaves, tomato slices and pieces of fresh mozzarella over top. Sprinkle again with salt and pepper and a drizzle of olive oil. Gather up the sides of the pastry and pinch and push them together and then brush some egg overtop. You pop it in the oven and just 35 minutes later you have a very impressive looking dinner. Mine looked better than the picture in the book and I gave myself a good pep talk, "See Amy, you can do this!"


Recipes cooked: 159
Recipes left: 14
Days left: 7

Recipe #157

Parsnip & Ginger Soup (pg. 139)

smelled great. strong taste. maybe a little too strong.

The fact that I had no idea what a parsnip looked like a year ago, much less what it tasted like, I'm proud that I threw this together like it was nothing.

I found the recipe online at the Denver Post...

http://www.denverpost.com/food/ci_13651791

Recipes cooked: 157
Recipes left: 16
Days left: 9

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Kicking and Screaming Curry Pastes

The most dreaded page for me in Jamie's Food Revolution has always been "Easy Homemade Curry Pastes" on page 99. So, please imagine me being dragged to the kitchen kicking and screaming while you read this. I have looked at this page at least one hundred times in the last 346 days and each time I looked at it I first heard the sound "cha-ching" because I was sure the ingredients would empty my kids college savings accounts. The second thing I heard was my own voice saying, "Why would I want to do this when I can find a perfectly good jar of curry paste on the shelf at the grocery store?" Just like the Roast Dinner chapter, this was one part of the adventure that was very intimidating. But since we have just 9 days left, it was time to stop the kicking and screaming and get on with it.

To help the "cha-ching" problem I headed to Whole Foods with my gift card that I got for teaching my class in January. I did a little research about freezing curry pastes and I decided I would take a day and just crank them all out, freeze them and actually have things in my freezer besides frozen waffles, peas and ice cream.

Like my first roast dinner, it turned out to be just as easy as Jamie said it would be and I was dead wrong. I don't know what I made all of that fuss about and I could hear Jamie having a good laugh over my drama. It was still a bit pricey to buy things like almond flower and lots of unusual spices but, once I got the ingredients home, the pastes were easy and quick to make. All of the pastes are made with the same method: you toast some seeds in a dry pan, mash them up with a pestle and mortar, put them and the rest of the ingredients into a food processor and whiz them around until they form a paste.

It really didn't take to long to make them all and then I used the Rogan Josh paste to make the Rogan Josh Lamb curry (pg. 81) for that night and it was really good. Another recipe in the same chapter is Vegatable Bhajis (pg.92 )which are kind of like a Indian veggie hash brown. I also took a portion of the rice and used it to make spicy chile rice (pg. 96). I'm way too much of a spice wimp to ever make this again. I feel like the rice helps to cool down your mouth so making the rice spicy too felt counter intuitive.

So, in one afternoon and evening I was able to make five paste recipes, one curry recipe, the last of the rice recipes and the Bhajis for a grand total of 8 recipes for the day! I popped the rest of the pastes into the freezer to use another time and let out a big "phew." I was super proud of myself!

Wow! I was shocked to find the whole page of curry pastes on Jamie's website! Very cool…check it out…
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/curry-recipes/easy-homemade-curry-pastes?clicked_from_search_results=true&query=curry%20pastes

149: Rogan Josh paste
150: Rogan Josh curry
151: Vegatable Bhajis
152: Korma paste
153: Jalfrezi paste
154: tikka paste
155:vindaloo paste
156: spicy rice

Recipes cooked: 156
Recipes left: 17
Days left: 9

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Crunchy Pasta

Pasta al Pangrattato (pg. 50) is an easy and different way to prepare pasta. I substituted tuna for the anchovies and it was a yummy, crunchy, protein filled dinner. The only downside was it did not get rave reviews from the peanut gallery. Maybe you'll like it better than they did, if you do, let me know and we'll have it for lunch one day….

Pasta Al Pangrattato
Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution pg. 49


Serves 4-6

2 cloves of garlic

1-2 dried chiles, to your taste

4 sprigs of fresh thyme

4 slices of stale bread

sea salt

1 pound dried fusilli

8 anchovies in oil (I subbed a can of tuna)

1 lemon
To prepare you pasta
. Peel and finely slice the garlic. Finely chop your chiles. Pick the thyme leaves off the stalks. Slice the crusts off the bread and discard. If they’re dry enough, finely grate your slices of bread if not, break them up into small breadcrumbs with your fingers or give them a quick whiz in a food processor.
To cook your pasta
Bring a large pan of salted water to a boil. Add the fusilli and cook according to the package instructions. Halfway through the cooking time, put a large frying pan on medium heat and let it get hot. Pour about 2 tablespoons of the oil from the tin of anchovies into the pan, let it get hot, then stir in your breadcrumbs. Add the garlic, chile, thyme leaves and anchovies (but not the remaining oil in the tin) and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring every so often, until the breadcrumbs are golden brown. Drain the fusilli in a colander over a bowl, reserving some of the cooking water in case you want to add a splash to loosen up the pasta. Add to the frying pan and stir well. Squeeze the juice of half the lemon over the pasta. Give the pan a shake. Have a taste, and if you think it needs a little more lemon, squeeze the other half over too.

Recipes cooked: 148
Recipes left: 25
Days left: 12

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Scary Banana

One of my last desserts is Banana Tarte Tatin (pg. 334). Jamie has a great video online (see the link below) of him making this dessert. The same night I made the Roast Lamb dinner I also decided to make this easy dessert. After the fire incident the week before, I was a bit reluctant and honestly, scared, to give this a try but we had the ingredients and I really needed to do some catching up. We are less than two weeks from my deadline and I still have quite a lot of cooking to do. So, I got my wits about me as Jamie might say, and I just got in there and did it. I watched the video again while I was stirring the scalding caramel on the stovetop and kept in mind all of his safety tips as I went along. It did turn out quite good and I was really proud of myself that I was able to flip it over just like Jamie does. VICTORY!! So, the only problem really is that Kid doesn't like bananas, Husband doesn't like Caramel and I ended up eating a lot of it myself. Oh, well. Calories don't count if they are for a good cause, right?

Recipes cooked: 147
Recipes left: 26
Days left: 13

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFjzLMb_36k

And here's the recipe on his website….

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/banana-tarte-tatin?clicked_from_search_results=true&query=banana%20tarte%20tatin