Jamie's 15 Minute Meals

Firstly, it's almost been a year since I last wrote on this blog, I just felt like I'd fizzled out in writing about the food I was eating and honestly, I can't even remember what I wrote about.

Let's move on to the title matter.

Jamie's 15 Minute Meals, a cookery program on Channel 4 hosted by Jamie Oliver.

Jamie Oliver, if my memory serves me right, appeared on television about 8-10 years ago, I only think this as I remember watching The Naked Chef whilst experiencing my first taste of Red Bull and eating a bag of Haribo. There was never any nudity either, which confused me at the time.

Then he started to campaign in the UK to change school dinners, which led to parents bringing bags of chips to schools and passing the contraband chips through the school's fence. He then tried to do the same in America, and was told to piss off, though in a more polite and diplomatic way I'm sure.

Now he's bringing us 15 Minute Meals week nights at 5:30pm. It was on at 5pm but timeslot was swapped with the ever popular Come Dine With Me, forcing me to miss the only reality television show I like, a show filled with sarcasm, sparkling wit and stupidity and, of course, food. Whereas 15 Minute Meals only has food. It's my opinion that this timeslot change has happened because Channel 4 must've seen low ratings at 5pm but a spike at 5:30 and assumed that that is the time that people are just sitting down and tuning in to their channel.

What is my problem with Jamie Oliver? He simply annoys and treats you like a child. The show's staging and the blatant product placement that whacks you in the face with cartoonish force.

At school I was taught to wear no jewellery whilst preparing food as bacteria can grow under rings prior to and after food preparation. Though in watching this show I see a grown man, who is a culinary teacher himself, handle raw beef mince whilst wearing his wedding ring and seeing that meat catch in it. Disgusting.

He does, on occasion, refer to using a food processor as "giving it a wazzy wazzy woo woo". I'm going to give you a moment to let that sink in. A 30+ year old man who hosts a television show aimed at adults. Does that jar you?
Tonight I saw him put what looked like a handful of salt when he said "a good pinch", yes, the guideline is 6 grams of salt a day, though I'm sure that doesn't mean all at once. I don't think he can measure.

I also think that Channel 4 have run out of money for plates, as he serves all the meals he cooks on wooden boards. He isn't Greek, so that isn't the reason.

I just can't see the appeal.

2011 Overview

I thought I'd reminisce about the food I cooked and ate in 2011.

This was the year I started cooking for my fiance, not just throwing a ready made sauce into a pan and adding mince, but making the sauce, shredding the meat.

I guess I had the thought that seeing as he had proposed to me I ought to show him that I was really wife material, though that does sound like a rather 1950's way to see the world, but I really wanted to.
I've always found baking fun, and I enjoyed food tech enough at school, there's also the fact that I love eating food from different places, that I wanted to have real fun again.
Fun, and the fact that most of the food we were eating had all sorts of additives in, that I would sleep better knowing I was giving my husband-to-be a better and perhaps healthier meal.

So, we chose a recipe for Thai salmon that I'd cook for him. We went to Tesco together, picked everything out that we needed, chose the nice cut of salmon and came home feeling excited.
I washed the fish and de-boned it, having been super squeamish about any kind of meat prior to this, I often refused to touch raw meat in any circumstance, just my knight in shining armour on hand to give the meat a clean, yet here I was, pulling tiny bones out of flesh and not having the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
We'd bought a cheap plastic mixing bowl to marinate the meat in, so we made the sauce and popped it in the fridge for the allocated time.
I chopped up the vegetables and coconut, and boiled the corn, though I cheated with the rice by choosing a microwaveable thai rice, but honestly I'm messing with flesh, I can't be arsed to faff about with rice!
I used my square plates to serve as it looks so much nicer.
The result of this cooking session is the picture above.

We've been photographing the majority of the meals I cook.

Over the year I've fell in love with Julia Childs and the movie Julie & Julia, attempted to cook the following cuisines:
French
English
Irish
Mexican
Chinese
Thai
Japanese

And plenty of food that doesn't belong in a nation category.

One of my favourite memories is Boeuf Bourguinon, straight from Mastering the art of French Cooking.
It didn't go completely to plan, what with my casserole dish cracking and me not fully reading comprehending the written tasks, though in my defense it wasn't exactly clear, but I forgive you Julia.
We couldn't get the cork out of the wine bottle either. Craig pulling the cork in one direction and I pulled the bottle in the opposite, and we got it out after a 10 minute struggle, though it resulted in a large splash of red wine which went everywhere. Though I think it's rather befitting for MtAoFC to be stained by wine.
In the end I threw everything into my big pot.
I guess I learnt some lessons in cooking this, but the biggest one was to not panic when you're pulling pottery shards out of your beef pieces.

I really enjoy cooking, watching & learning, just experimenting. I look forward to more in 2012, now what to cook first?