Fewer Chillies, More Wallies!

On Thursday Night I did another of Jamie’s Thirty Minute Meals [here] This one took me 33 minutes though! Here is his meal -

Mine took longer because;

1; my puff pastry wasn’t ready rolled [it very nearly wasn’t thawed either, but fortunately I was able to ring Bob at lunchtime and he kindly retrieved it from the freezer for me]

2; I collected the ingredients together beforehand, including some fresh thyme from the garden – but then couldn’t find it 10 minutes later, so I had to go outside and pick some more!

I didn’t do his dessert [berries. cream, shortbread biscuits] – I just sliced some bananas into glasses of yogurt and drizzled some caramel sauce over them.

It was all very tasty. I forgot to photograph it before we ate – but here’s the remaining half of our pie! Not sure why Bob sliced it on the diagonal – but you can at least see the pretty effect of the criss-cross scoring on the pastry!

There were also some French Style Peas left. So that will make another meal tomorrow with some mashed potatoes perhaps.

I reserved a little of the pastry to make some Quick Portuguese Tarts – posting a picture of them especially for The White Van Man In Scotland [you know who you are!]

The Book People Rep brought new boxes of goodies into the staffrooms of the two schools where I work this week – including Jamie’s book for only £10. So I have ordered a copy. On Tuesday someone asked “Is it true you actually did his curry in 30 minutes and it worked?” [how fast news travels!]

The only down-side of this system encountered thus far is that I work flat out for half an hour, and produce a great meal which we both sit down and enjoy together – but then my kitchen looks like a bomb has hit it, and it takes me another half hour afterwards to clear up!

The up-side is that I can manage to fit more stuff into the day – after school I was able to visit two friends in hospital and still have a meal on the table at 6.30pm.

Whilst I think that I shall enjoy doing meals from this book, and I know Jamie says he produced it because he was keen to make good meals quickly and spend more time with his children [and the ever-pregnant Jools] I am not sure how well this system would work for younger mums. It does require intense concentration, hands-on, non-stop activity for the full half hour. Not really achievable if there is a three year old needing to be taken to the loo, a baby wanting a feed, and a seven year old getting stressed about homework – and a husband ringing on his mobile to say he will be late home anyway.

And he is so very fond of chillies – which I omit all the time because I am not. But, like Jamie, being a true child of Essex, I am quite happy with his recipes which include wallies [the Essex name for pickled gherkins]

Enough blogposts about Mr Oliver. Please Sir, I don’t want any more for a bit!