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