Father's day came and went this past weekend and I didn't really mention it, because I was planning to write this post and did not want to chew my cabbage twice, as they say. I got Hubs a couple of little gifts. Some new CD's, made him a cute/gushy card with pictures of him and the boys on it. Made him a fancy breakfast. And bought him a new book. I'd told the Little Dude, the night before, that the next day was Father's Day, and he helped me wrap the gifts. "What dat gift?" he asked me as we cut and taped. "That's a book." I told him. "What dat book about?", he asked. "Its a book about food." I told him. So the next morning as he excitedly handed the gift over to Hubs he said "Dere's a present for you! Its a book about food!" So much for the concept of secrets.
We own several other Jamie Oliver cookbooks, and sundry other fancy ones. Hubs likes those glossy, hardcover extravaganzas full of pan seared this and caramelized that. I bought him Hot Sour Salty Sweet: A Culinary Journey through Southeast Asia, an absolutely gorgeous book which he loves to look through and has never, ever cooked anything out of. This is kind of his M.O. and I tease him about it from time to time. He's got a nice little shelf of beautiful cook books which he never actually uses. He browses through them in the first week that he owns them, and makes plans and writes himself little notes about making his own ketchup (note: save old ketchup bottles) and growing thai basil, but then the cookbooks go up on the shelf full of little notes that will likely never see the light of day again.
And Hubs has been a Jamie Oliver fan since 2000 when we lived in downtown Hamilton and cable TV magically appeared in our lives. We called it 'Cable from God' because one day all we had was an old set of bunny ears and two channels, and the next day, as if by some miracle we had hundreds of channels. The Movie Network! Space TV! The Food Channel! We could hardly believe our luck.
Turns out is wasn't actually luck. Or God for that matter. Jarred, our sketchy downstairs neighbor (we lived above a store on the top floor of a three floor walk-up in the sluggishly functioning left ventricle of the decaying downtown) had hooked himself up to illegal cable, and somehow, hooked us up as well. I didn't realize this until a year later when the aforementioned neighbor packed up his expensive stereo equipment, leather sofa and high end weigh scales and moved out, and our miraculous cable disappeared as abruptly as he did. Ah, well. Jarred giveth and Jarred taketh away.
Anyways, my point is that the Food Network introduced us to Jamie Oliver, that endearingly tousle-haired Brit (though I'm told the British don't have much use for him) and Hubs thought he was great. The ease with which he made fresh pasta, and was all loose and fun with his technique (don't bother to chop those herbs, just rip 'em up and throw 'em in there) seemed very fresh at the time. We have, over the years, bought about three of his other cookbooks, and while they do get read, they don't get used.
So my Father's Day present to Hubs this year was not just to buy him another Jamie Oliver cookbook to be perused and forgotten, but instead my gift, along with the cookbook was that once a week I would buy all the special ingredients and cook him a meal out of it.
Last night was our first such meal.
And internet, it was AWESOME. I don't feel that I'm bragging here because I mean this as a compliment to Jamie Oliver, not me. The whole point of this book is that anyone can do it. I really like how it takes the intimidation factor out of fancy foodie cooking. Not that I'm intimidated, per se, I just generally don't feel like I have the time for this kind of stuff. I case you haven't noticed, I've got kids people. Two of them, which on a bad day can feel more like three. Ok, maybe that's exaggerating. On a bad day it feels like two and a dog. Because of all the pee on the floor. (Is it too gross to mention your kids bathroom habits while talking about food? Well, that's where I'm at these days, so deal.)
The whole book is a series of meal menus, with steps carefully choreographed and written out so that everything will be done and ready at the same time (something I can never get right) and most crucially, none of them is supposed to take more than 30 minutes.
The first meal I chose to make was Spinach and Feta Filo Pie with Cucumber Salad, Tomato Salad and Coated Ice Cream for dessert. Above you can see the Tomato Salad. Isn't is pretty? And I'm telling you, ridiculously good. (though I added a squeeze of honey to the dressing, it was a bit too tart otherwise)
One very satisfying aspect of this meal was the the Little Dude ate some of everything. He really seemed to like this salad, but that was not a surprise since he likes both little tomatoes and feta cheese.
The cucumber salad had olives in it, which was his favourite part, and eventually we had to remove it from his proximity as he would have spent the whole meal picking them out of it. I tell you, this kid loves anything that involves brine. A boy after my own heart.
And here's the main event, the Spinach and Feta Filo Pie. The Little Dude kept calling it a Cake. Cake, pie, easy mistake to make. But he ate it, so I don't care what he calls it. This was so much easier to make than it looks. Its basically a quiche but you used frozen Phyllo pastry sheets to make the crust. They even have videos online that you can watch to help with new techniques. Here's the one for this recipe. (Its about half way down on the right hand side under "How To's", called "How to assemble the pie from Spinach and Feta Filo Pie." Duh.)
Here's what it looks like on the inside. It has two kinds of cheese in it and about a pound of spinach. Hubs loved it.
Here's the post-dinner carnage. I love it when the table looks like this. Like everyone has eaten and enjoyed themselves. There is a nice little lull as we all sit and digest for a minute before people want to get down from their booster seats and baths have to start being run. I like to take a moment and feel good about having nourished them all, and watch as Hubs plays with the Baby and listen as the Little Dude tells me one of his long winded stories about tractors and where we can find them. Its one of my favourite times of the day.
Oh and the Coated Ice Cream for dessert was very nice. Chocolate and hazlenuts ground together in the blender. (Also called for coffee beans ground in there too, but I left them out as I don't do caffeine while I'm breast feeding) Then you roll a scoop of ice cream in it and eat it up. Yum. So good that it didn't last long enough for a picture.
So, did this book live up to its promise? Yes and No. Yes, the food was great. No, I did not make this meal in a half an hour. Maybe Jamie Oliver can, but I can't. At least not yet. It was a new recipe after all. I'll bet I can do it faster next time. And I am not going to be precious about this book. Its going to get banged about and spilled on and I'm even making notes in it. I'll keep you posted on other meals I make out of it. In the meantime, I totally recommend this one.