Sunday, May 30, 2010

The King of Burgers

My dad's cheeseburgers are famous. They are rumored to have magical powers. One friend "wooed" a guy by inviting him to my house for my dad's amazing hamburgers. They are delicious and I've never been able to duplicate them. When tackling Jamie's Cracking Burger recipe (pg. 146) this week I was hoping they would be different enough as to not compete with the Master!
I made them ahead of time while the baby was napping and the kid was still at school. They were so easy and everyone loved them! Now I'm not sure they possess magical powers like my dad's burgers but just like I'd hoped, they were different enough from my dad's that I didn't feel guilty liking them too!

Check out the link below and give them a try tomorrow for your Memorial Day BBQ.
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef-recipes/a-cracking-burger

Recipes cooked: 29
Recipes left: 144
Days left: 284

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Me & Oatmeal

Last week was not a good week for Amy's Food Revolution. It was super busy and I barely had time to think let alone figure out a recipe. I definitely regressed to my old ways and dinners were pretty lame. So, after my unplanned hiatus, I thought I needed a good boost to get things rolling again and decided to make one of Jamie's oatmeal recipes, Banana and Cinnamon Oatmeal (pg. 300).

Now, oatmeal and I have a complicated past. I am sure that I ate it when I was a baby but by the time I was school age I couldn't stand the stuff. I think I was a pretty good eater as a kid and fairly easy going. There were only three things that I refused to eat and oatmeal was one of them.

When I was nine, I went to Ranger Rick camp. There was a rule in the mess hall that you had to eat everything they gave you and gave an epic "starving children in China" speech every day and if that didn't work, they weighed all of the leftover food. It was pretty ruthless. Well, wouldn't you know it, one day they served oatmeal. Sitting there for an hour not eating it after everyone had left was probably one of my only acts of defiance as a kid.

It took me about 20 years to get over that experience and by then oatmeal was the "in" thing. All the food gurus talked about it and you hear about it everywhere. Steel Cut Oats of course are suppose to be the best and with all of this talk I honestly did want to like the stuff.

What brought me and oatmeal to our new relationship was a yoga retreat to an awesome B&B where they made oatmeal in a crock pot overnight. The next morning, it smelled so good I just had to try it. It was piping hot and amazing and after that I couldn't get enough of the stuff.

Still, I was making instant oatmeal in the microwave. The one or two times I tried to make oatmeal on the stove it kind of turned out like my rice. A big pile of glop and a mess all over the stove. Also, no one else in the house will eat it so the little packets of instant have been working fine for me.

So, this was a big deal. I followed Jamie's directions, putting the oats, a pinch of sea salt and water on the stove and put it on medium heat. I stirred often and kept a close eye on it. In just 5 minutes I had great, perfect oatmeal that seemed to taste better than the microwaved stuff. No boil overs! No sticky mess! No leftovers! No "starving kid in China" speech!

Recipes cooked: 28
Recipes left: 145
Days left: 285

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Mother's Day Chili Con Carne

Mother's Day was great this year. I got a beautiful apron from my husband and kids, complete with breakfast in bed, handmade cards and lots of hugs and kisses. Husband asked what I wanted to do for the rest of the day. "Plant flowers with my mom and the kids." And I think my next request put him into a bit of shock. "Cook dinner," I said. This obviously is not the woman he was married to two months ago! This is not something that I would have requested any other Mother's Day!

I picked Jamie's "Good Old Chili Con Carne" (pg. 172) to make for Mother's Day dinner. The great thing about this chili recipe is that there are LOADS of veggies in it. Its got onions, carrots, celery, red peppers, diced tomatoes and two kinds of beans. As far spices, here's the shocker. Jamie calls for equal amounts of chili powder, ground cumin and ground cinnamon. I was a bit skeptical about the cinnamon and did put just a little less in than the rest.

Now there is a lot of chopping and dicing. Its good to have some help or even just someone else to keep you company while you do it. I had lots of help between my husband and my mini chopping gadget. After lots of chopping and dicing it really is just a matter of throwing everything in the pan and letting it simmer on the stove. If I can do it, anyone can!

The chili turned out great and it tasted even better the second night as leftovers. We had it over pasta although Jamie suggests rice with some plain yogurt and guacamole on the side. The cinnamon was interesting and we ended up agreeing that it worked in there better than we thought it would.

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef-recipes/good-old-chilli-con-carne

Recipes cooked: 27
Recipes left: 146
Days left: 300

Friday, May 14, 2010

Lovin' Salads Part 3: The Salad Spinner

A long time ago (ha!) when I wasn't cooking and before I picked up Jamie's book I used to buy those very convenient bags of lettuce all the time. Our family was just big enough to need more than a half a bag, leaving left overs that couldn't quite be used the next night. I have thrown away more of those half bags of slimy green lettuce leaves then I'd like to count. At the same time, I've bought countless salad spinners…for other people. In the front of Jamie's book he has an "Essentials" section where he lists all of the must-have items in your kitchen. Considering my kitchen gadget fetish I had most of the “essentials” except for three items, and one of them was a salad spinner. Both my mom and husband commented when I told them one day that I was going to Bed, Bath and Beyond with my cool 20% off coupon to buy a salad spinner, "You mean you don't have one?" I really was as shocked as they were that amongst my hundreds of kitchen gadgets there was no salad spinner. So, I bought this nifty new gadget about a month ago. Now I must admit, I was really skeptical about Jamie's method for keeping salad greens handy. It just didn't sound like it would work but it’s part of the mission, so I gave it a try. He says to wash the salad leaves, spin them and then lay them between paper towels in the crisper drawer and they'll stay fresh. Well, I couldn't really give up a whole crisper drawer just for keeping lettuce, so after spinning my leaves I used the salad spinner bowl to layer the leaves and paper towels and kept the whole thing in the fridge. Wouldn't you know it?! We had fresh, not slimy, lettuce all week! How cool is that!
Each night I would take out just the amount of lettuce I needed, put it in a salad bowl, and then I would drizzle the dressing and then give it a light toss. 
So, as Jamie would say, "Give it a go!" And have a salad week too!

Recipes cooked: 26
Recipes left: 147
Days left: 302

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Lovin' Salads Part 2: Jam Jar Dressings

"In my opinion, the most important part of a salad is the dressing," says Jamie in his introduction to Jam Jar Dressings. I completely agree. Have you ever been to a restaurant and had a great, but simple, salad? Most likely the secret is one of these dressings. When you look on the back of a bottle of store bought dressing you'll often find my arch nemesis, high fructose corn syrup. I won't go off on a tangent about why I hate the nasty goo but one of the reasons is that it sneaks in some things that you would assume to be safe. If I had known making my own dressing would be so simple, I would have done away with the bottled stuff a long time ago.

This week, thanks to our amazing delivery service of yummy vegetables from (get ready for the plug) Washington's Green Grocer, we had salad every night with a different Jam Jar Dressing to go with it. The four dressings are on page 107 of Food Revolution and as the name suggests, Jamie makes his dressings in old fashion jam jars, how charming! I feel like a witch making her brew or a chemist working on her next concoction while I measure, pour and shake each dressing. Its awesome!

So we had Lemon Dressing on Tuesday, Yogurt Dressing on Wednesday, Balsamic Dressing on Thursday and French Dressing on Friday. We all agreed that the French Dressing was our favorite. The family also liked Balsamic and I really liked the Lemon one too.
Here is the recipe for our favorite, French Dressing. So shake up your dressing, in part 3 of Lovin' Salads I'll tell you what to do next.

French Dressing
Peel & finely chop a 1/4 clove of garlic
Put the garlic, 1 teaspoon of Dijon mustard, 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar and 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil into a jam jar with a pinch of salt & pepper. Put the lid on the jar and shake well.

For those of you in the DC area...
Link for Washington's Green Grocer:
http://www.washingtonsgreengrocer.com/

Recipes cooked: 25
Recipes left: 148
Days left: 302

Lovin' Salads Part 1

Jamie has a great chapter in his book called "Lovin' Salads." How can anyone resist a good salad? So this past week I tackled a few of his yummy salad recipes and techniques. This chapter talks a lot about techniques and tricks and gives pointers on having a good salad whether its two ingredients or twenty. It has great pictures and I just love leafing (no pun intended) through to look at the pictures. This part of the book feels more like a "lesson" than a cookbook and its got some great advice. Jamie has a series of recipes in here called Evolution salads where he takes a simple 1 or 2 ingredient salad and builds upon it to give you four different versions. This week I made the Evolution Cucumber Salad (pg. 114). I did the simplest version mainly because those are the ingredients I had and that's what I knew the family would go for. It just calls for 2 cucumbers, peeled and with seeds scooped out, roughly chopped. Add sea salt and black pepper and then 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and mix well. That's it! Throw some chopped mint on top and its delicious. Its a simple and light salad and its great for a hot day. The next day I did version two which is just adding a heaping tablespoon of plain yogurt and it was great too. You can also add black olives and red chili for versions 3 and 4.
Recipes cooked: 22
Recipes left: 151
Days left: 305

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Pancakes Every Weekend

"Pancakes Every Weekend" reads the sign that hangs in our kitchen and boy, is it true. We love to make pancakes and sit down for a nice leisurely breakfast on Sunday mornings. Husband usually whips up the batter while I make smoothies, set the table and get out the fixings. We even have a "pancake puff pan" (as seen on TV, of course). Daughter asked for it for her fifth birthday, how funny is that!

Like most seven year olds she is extremely picky. In addition, she also seems to possess some sort of superhero sense and when she likes something, that’s it. She will take no substitutions and can spot a “fake” no matter what the disguise. This can apply to quality control. Blueberries are often rejected for not being the right shape and grapes are set aside for being too squishy on top. It can also apply to things like pancake syrup brands and even boxes of pancake mix. Do you see what I have to deal with?

My dearest friend, the Queen, told me once that making pancakes from scratch was so easy once you do it you'd never go back to box mix again. I did try once or twice but couldn't convince hubby (who usually does the work) and daughter (who can smell the intruder from a mile away) to make the switch. So this past Sunday morning, I felt like it was a big food revolution coup as I whipped up a batch of Jamie's "One Cup Pancakes, Tropical Yogurt and Mango." We were visiting my parents this weekend and I thought it would be a good opportunity to break from tradition and pull one over on them. While they were out on an early morning fishing trip with my dad I got to work.

The first step is to assemble the tropical yogurt. My mom had some really ripe bananas that worked great for this. After mashing two really ripe bananas, I added a cup of yogurt (I used vanilla but I think plain would work okay too) and a handful of shredded coconut and set it aside. Jamie actually suggests letting this sit for a few hours so that the coconut softens. I didn't read that part in time and that really would have helped so learn from my mistake and do this in advance.

Now comes the fun part. If you are reading this and have been a loyal follower but haven't made any of the recipes and didn't plan on making any of the recipes, please give this next part a try. You won't even believe it! In a bowl mix one egg, one cup of self-rising flour (all purpose if you want "crepe" style) and one cup of milk. Now this doesn't need to be in a measuring cup. Any cup or mug will work as long as they are equal amounts of flour and milk. I used one of my mom's coffee mugs. Add a pinch of sea salt and whisk it a bit and there you have it. So incredibly simple and now you've made pancakes from scratch! No partially hydrogenated anything or mono this and that! Just milk, flour and an egg. And no extra work than the pancake mix!

Now for the mango part. I don't know about you but I find mangoes way too tricky. I pulled up some YouTube videos and watched with the baby on the best way to slice them, but like always I still feel like there's a lot to mangoes I don't get. I tried really hard to make it pretty since the mango is more like a garnish on top of the yogurt.

Now for the test. We sit down to give them a try. Mom, husband and I try them with the tropical yogurt and mango fixings. Husband was frustrated with the coconut, again if this had softened he may have been okay with it. Kid, Dad and baby go for the traditional syrup and butter. I can't believe it but the pancakes pass inspection with the kid! (And everyone else likes them too!)
Amazing!

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/one-cup-pancakes-tropical-yogurt-and-man

Recipes cooked: 21
Recipes left: 152
Days left: 307