Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals
I should start by saying that I am not a great lover of Jamie Oliver. I bought one of his books in the sale to find out what the hype was all about (Jamie's Italy) and was generally unimpressed. There was really nothing there that inspired me and the things I did cook from the book were quite a bit of effort with a mere plain, but nice result.
After Christmas Jamie's 30 minute meals caught my eye and as it was on sale and like everyone else who cooks, but has little time I am always searching for good new recipe books with things I can cook on a daily basis without spending hours in the kitchen - I bought it. Due to my past experience with Mr. Oliver though I must admit that it ended up in the corner and I returned to my usual companions when it came to making food.
Yesterday, when I came home from university, feeling miserable and ill (flu + period = doom), I decided that I really needed to cook more and was eating a lot of stuff (yet again) mainly because I knew that making something "proper" would take too long. So, I grabbed two of my favourite cook books and Mr. Oliver to hunt for recipes that did not take too long to make. Sadly both my favourite cook books proved a real disappointment on the topic. Even the "snacks" and "small meals" took a minimum of an hour. An hour I do not have on the average day.
Sooo... I decided to give Mr. Oliver a chance. I liked the way the recipes were laid out. He did actually describe how to make an entire meal rather than just one dish. I also REALLY liked that pretty much all of his meals included a minimum of one salad. I was a bit suspicious as to the time he assumed making his food would take, but I thought that there was no harm in trying. Thus, I purposefully stepped into the kitchen, my trusted squire kitchen assistant a.k.a the boyfriend by my side, to embark upon this new adventure. On the menu was a pastry filled with feta cheese and spinach, a cucumber salad, a tomato salad and ice cream in a chocolate crust, which I decided to skip. The recipe was fairly easy to follow, although I am not too sure about Jamie's claims that cooking his recipes is significantly cheaper than ready meals. The amount we made the other night should last for 2 meals (possibly a bit more), but also cost somewhere between 4 and 5 frozen pizzas (the good ones from Dr. Oetker; more if you took a cheap one).
I had also started a timer at the beginning of our cooking extravaganza to check the 30 minute claim - and we ended up taking almost two hours. To be fair, I think I misunderstood one part of the recipe (which was not clear at all) and thus we took longer and Mr. Oliver says that the "timer starts when all is chopped and the amounts weighed out" which I didn't do either, as our kitchen isn't big enough for lots of little pots of chopped veg. However, there were two of us working in tandem and I'm a fairly experienced cook on the whole. A novice working by him or herself would have definitively taken longer (which in my mind is an implication if you are trying to appeal to the "ready meal every night of the week" crowd").
Having said that? The result was really, really good. It left both me and Garry well fed after one potion. The pastry at a lovely flavour to it (which surprised me, as my experience with feta and spinach pastry has so far been that they tend to be fairly bland) and even Garry liked it, who is not a lover of spinach. It will definitively go into my personal repertoire. The cucumber salad also proved to be very nice, with a lovely little zing to it, despite the fact Garry forgot to buy mint. It also took next to no time to make, which really helped. The tomato salad was okay, but I wasn't too impressed with the pesto - despite the fact I already made it a bit more exciting than Mr. Oliver's was.
Overall, despite the part where the book does not at all provide what is advertised (meals cheaper than ready meals in the same time), I will definitively cook from the book again. I do wish it wasn't quite so full of pictures of Jamie cooking though >.> If I had to rate it, I'd say 7 out of 10.
After Christmas Jamie's 30 minute meals caught my eye and as it was on sale and like everyone else who cooks, but has little time I am always searching for good new recipe books with things I can cook on a daily basis without spending hours in the kitchen - I bought it. Due to my past experience with Mr. Oliver though I must admit that it ended up in the corner and I returned to my usual companions when it came to making food.
Yesterday, when I came home from university, feeling miserable and ill (flu + period = doom), I decided that I really needed to cook more and was eating a lot of stuff (yet again) mainly because I knew that making something "proper" would take too long. So, I grabbed two of my favourite cook books and Mr. Oliver to hunt for recipes that did not take too long to make. Sadly both my favourite cook books proved a real disappointment on the topic. Even the "snacks" and "small meals" took a minimum of an hour. An hour I do not have on the average day.
Sooo... I decided to give Mr. Oliver a chance. I liked the way the recipes were laid out. He did actually describe how to make an entire meal rather than just one dish. I also REALLY liked that pretty much all of his meals included a minimum of one salad. I was a bit suspicious as to the time he assumed making his food would take, but I thought that there was no harm in trying. Thus, I purposefully stepped into the kitchen, my trusted squire kitchen assistant a.k.a the boyfriend by my side, to embark upon this new adventure. On the menu was a pastry filled with feta cheese and spinach, a cucumber salad, a tomato salad and ice cream in a chocolate crust, which I decided to skip. The recipe was fairly easy to follow, although I am not too sure about Jamie's claims that cooking his recipes is significantly cheaper than ready meals. The amount we made the other night should last for 2 meals (possibly a bit more), but also cost somewhere between 4 and 5 frozen pizzas (the good ones from Dr. Oetker; more if you took a cheap one).
I had also started a timer at the beginning of our cooking extravaganza to check the 30 minute claim - and we ended up taking almost two hours. To be fair, I think I misunderstood one part of the recipe (which was not clear at all) and thus we took longer and Mr. Oliver says that the "timer starts when all is chopped and the amounts weighed out" which I didn't do either, as our kitchen isn't big enough for lots of little pots of chopped veg. However, there were two of us working in tandem and I'm a fairly experienced cook on the whole. A novice working by him or herself would have definitively taken longer (which in my mind is an implication if you are trying to appeal to the "ready meal every night of the week" crowd").
Having said that? The result was really, really good. It left both me and Garry well fed after one potion. The pastry at a lovely flavour to it (which surprised me, as my experience with feta and spinach pastry has so far been that they tend to be fairly bland) and even Garry liked it, who is not a lover of spinach. It will definitively go into my personal repertoire. The cucumber salad also proved to be very nice, with a lovely little zing to it, despite the fact Garry forgot to buy mint. It also took next to no time to make, which really helped. The tomato salad was okay, but I wasn't too impressed with the pesto - despite the fact I already made it a bit more exciting than Mr. Oliver's was.
Overall, despite the part where the book does not at all provide what is advertised (meals cheaper than ready meals in the same time), I will definitively cook from the book again. I do wish it wasn't quite so full of pictures of Jamie cooking though >.> If I had to rate it, I'd say 7 out of 10.