Congratulations, Jamie & Jools!! Little Buddy Bear Maurice Oliver joined the brood yesterday. I'll just come out and say it, I've always loved Jamie Oliver. He's so fun and young with a refreshing attitude on life and how we eat food. He would make a good mate; I want to be chums with the ol' boy. (Oh sod off, you bloody well know what I mean.)
After hearing the news this morning, I went home for lunch and dug into some leftover mashed potatoes sitting in the fridge from yesterday. I didn't think much about it. When I have leftover mashed potatoes, the only thought that ever enters my head is "Attack!" So attack I did and enjoy I did. On my way back out the door to return to work I picked up my calendar of scheduled meals for the month, my grocery list and for posterity (since he just had a baby and all) I grabbed one of Jamie's old Naked Chef books from my shelf to see if I could whip something up in honor of the new whipper snapper. I planned on going back to work and throwing together my grocery list for shopping tomorrow. As you can see, I was planning to do a lot of "real work" at my desk.
I got such a kick flipping through The Naked Chef Takes Off! I hadn't looked at that book in quite a long time. It's Jamie's second book and he's 25 years-old. (Oh, man. Talk about making me feel incompetent.) I remember the first time I saw the book I was a few years younger than Jamie and I looked up to him in some sort of dreamy way. If I had an older brother, Jamie would have been his best friend that I was secretly in love with. Anything Jamie said was okay by me. Now looking back at this book, you can see what a kid Jamie really was at the time! He is incredibly adorable and full of character, zest for life!! It just oozes off the pages. And I can't blame myself for being so infatuated early on - those blond waves? the totally approachable attitude? the awesome cooking skill? Hello, honey, I have good taste.
And his recipes!! Haha! I got a good laugh as you hear his personality fly off the page. Frequently in his recipes he lists the ingredients, then the directions are quick and to the point. Something along the lines of: "Riooght! Mix these fings tah-gefha, mix those fings tah-gefha, cook these fings. Gih' the pan a good shake, riooght, then mix them olh tah-gefha and riooght. Ya awl done, cheers!" So easy, Jamie. Well done.
So as you might imagine I was very excited to cook up a good Jamie dish. But when to do it? I looked at my calendar and tonight was Chicken & Mashed Potato Hand Pies (an adaptation from sweet potato and chicken hand pies in Sept.'10 Everyday Foods) and also garlic string beans. Did you hear that? Oh yeah, that was a record being scratched in reverse. What? Mashed Potato Hand Pies tonight!?!? Can you see where this is going? I forgot!! I ate all the leftover mashed potatoes for lunch!! Bingo. And I also served the string beans to guests last night because I looked in the fridge and thought, Ooh, better use these before they go bad, totally forgetting I was using them the next night. Yeah, so suddenly I had a free opening.
But payday is tomorrow, so that means I have to cook with what's in the house tonight. And what's in the house after a week without grocery shopping means one thing only... not much. So I thumbed through Mr. Oliver's chicken recipes. Know how many there are in "TNCTO"? Three. Know how many there are without bones? None. Yeah, disappointing. Even on Jamie's website, most of the chicken recipes have bones or I don't have all the ingredients on hand tonight for the boneless recipe. This crunchy garlic chicken recipe looks good! But I made breaded chicken last night. Kinda wanted to switch things up a bit. Anyway, I'm still fussing a little over what to do tonight, but it will be good.
In the meantime I'm going to put a thousand post-it notes in this here cookbook and pull of something particularly Jamie Oliver fantastic in the very near future.
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