so … if you find this site, this is a little post to tell you I have a new project; the red food project.com

Chorizo Carbonara … Catalan Market Salad

This is the first time i’ve cooked against the clock for 18 months, to be honest i’m a bit nervous. I was a bit nervous before doing my first ever Fifteen Minute Meal but after having cooked all these meals before I know it’s a bit ridiculous being nervous before cooking a bit of pasta for some friends … but there we go.

I picked this meal for two reasons 1) it was very, very nice the first time round; and 2) I wanted to give myself an easy start. This was meal I did in time on the first go and reading that post back again it seems like I did it without any real stress. I’m also really pretty comfortable cooking this type of food.

Like last time I do not have a red and green chicory; I only have a green one. I do now know where to get red chicory, but I didn’t fancy the walk to Waitrose just to get one red chicory.

This is a really tasty meal. I have sort of lost the wonder that its possible to make such a nice meal in such a short space of time. But its worth just stopping for a minute to appreciate that. A really nice meal in less than fifteen minutes. Also, bearing in mind this is a carbonara, its actually pretty healthy. Low fat yogurt instead of cream. A small amount of meat (but enough to be tasty). And a massive salad.

I cooked this for the lovely Becca and Maria before our home group. The photos of me cooking were taken curtsey of Becca. 

Who with: Becca and Maria

Ready!

Multi tasking

Only green chicory

Almost finished

Chorizo Carbonara

Becca & Maria

Well after an 18-month break from blogging* I’ve decided its time to come back to this. There will be a new project … more on that later. But first, to help me get back into the whole cooking and blogging thing, I thought it would be fun to revisit some of these meals. I have no specific plans but my guess is I’ll do ten or so. I’m going to re-try some of the ones were I got a really bad time. Re-do some of my favorites (I’ll have to re-read this blog to remind myself of those) and I’ll probably let some people just pick one.

So hopefully in a few days the first post should appear.

* just to be clear I haven’t had an 18-month break from cooking, I just didn’t document it by writing about it. In fact I’ve done really quite a lot of cooking during my extended holiday.

My worst time

…Saffron Sauce & Garlic Bread 

It ended not with a bang but a whimper…

 It’s done.  It took one year and four months, which included two house moves.  I cooked 115 meals and made four smoothies.  I cooked for 236 people.  I did about 50% of them in under 15 minutes and 76% in under 16 minutes. 

I finished this project in March 2014, but for reasons I can’t explain I’m only writing the last post now, in October 2015, more than 18 months later.

It started over a weekend at the beginning of October 2012 where my brother, Gordy, and my friend, and then housemate, Gavin made me a website.  I wrote some words and started to cook that weekend.  The result was this project and these meals. 

With all the time between cooking this and writing about it I can’t really remember much. But here are a few things I can remember:

• This was a meal I’d wanted to cook from the start.  It was a meal I tried to cook many times, but failed to get the right fish.  It was a risky one to leave till the end, but I did, and it is an exciting one to finish on.  Beautiful fish.  And some saffron … appropriate for a celebration. 

• I cooked this meal for my family as a pre-Oscars dinner; just before staying up all night. I’d cooked one of these meals on Oscars night the year before, but this was the night that 12 Years a Slave deservedly won Best Picture (although more than a small part of me wanted Her to win).

That’s it. That’s all I can remember. It must have gone quite well though as it was good time.

Who With: Gordy, Selina, Matt, Mum, Peter.

How Long: Fourteen minutes and fifty six seconds

Bread

Cut

Eat

Eat

Finished !!!

Flashy Fish Stew

How to make yellow

Ready … for the last time

Stew

Whizz … or should it be whizz?

Yellow

… Chilli & Thai Noodles 

This is the second to last meal.  This is also the meal I’ve least looked forward to cooking.  I have repeatedly told myself not to leave this till, last … not to even leave this till nearly last.  But I did.  If I’m honest it’s the little pile of tofu in the corner that’s been putting me off.  There was tofu in the last meal I cooked, the Crispy Duck.   But that was hidden.  Hidden in that it wasn’t obvious from the picture so I only realized it was there when I wrote my shopping list.  This meal proudly declared its tofuness and so put me off.  But it’s to be done and if it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well it were done quickly. So lets hope it is done quickly, in fifteen minutes or less! 

There isn’t really any actual cooking here.  The only cooking is the light toasting of the seeds, nuts and Kaffir lime leaves.  The noodles are only soaked in warm water.  Everything else is just sliced, mainly in the food processor.

I was pretty confident that it would all be done in 15 minutes, less actually.  But there is a fair bit to do and I was a little over. 

As has happened before with the 15 Minute Meals, the dish I’m not really looking forward to cooking turns out to be delicious.  This meal is so multi layered in flavour its hard to describe.  All of us who eat this after a few mouthfuls realized there was a flavour, in that last mouthful, that you hadn’t picked up before. 

So I’m sorry Koh Samui Salad (incidentally another meal I can’t pronounce the name off), I have ostracized you undeservedly. 

There’s loads of food here.  It easily fed four, and I used slightly less noodles than the recipe prescribed. I took the left overs for lunch today. It’s close on a miracle that I actually remembered to take it with me to work today, but I did.  At lunchtime I bought a sandwich, sat down in the canteen and thought … bugger.  My Koh Samui Salad sat forlorn on my desk…

… So I had it for dinner tonight whist watching YouTube videos of Rachel Khoo cooking food from her Little Paris Kitchen … I may be a little bit in love.

… I have to say I think it tasted better tonight.

One more to go.  I want to finish where I started, cooking for my friend Gavin and brother Gordy.  The fact that we now live in three different cities means getting a date sorted is proving annoying so it may be a while till I actually finish this project … but it feels kind of finished already … it’s quite a sad feeling. 

Who with: Jason, Matt and Stefan 

How Long: Fifteen Minutes and Thirty Seconds 

… Hoi Sin Lettuce Parcels 

It’s Sunday lunch and I’m cooking for my friends Pieter and Erin at their house.  When I started this project back in late 2012, I cooked a few of the early meals for Pieter and Erin at their house.  At that point I didn’t know that before the end of the project we’d be neighbours … well ok not exactly neighbours … but nearly.

This meal is in the chicken section of the book … but it’s a nice change to have a bit of duck.  This has two duck breasts to serve four people, which means that a relatively expensive meat goes a long way.  This meal has tofu in it.  This is only the second time in my life I’ve eaten tofu and the first time I’ve cooked with it.  I am a tofu skeptic.

There isn’t loads of cooking with this meal.  The duck is cut into chunks, seasoned and fried.  Later chilli, spring onions and then a bit later honey is added.  Other than briefly cooking some noodles that’s all the cooking involved.  The rest is really about arranging food.  And it does take a bit of arranging.  There is a Hoi Sin dressing to drizzle over everything, with its three limes, it does take a bit of squashing. And then sweet chilli sauce to be drizzled, very specifically, on every piece of tofu.

This dish looks pretty great. The duck smells great.  And it tastes really great too. The idea with this is to create a little parcel of lettuce leaves, filled with noodles, the duck and the other bits and bobs.  The parcels pretty much worked and some of them could be lifted off the serving plate and on to your plate. 

There is plenty of food here for four people.  

I was skeptical about the tofu.  But it was pretty good actually.

This was a nice Sunday lunch, washed down with 0% alcohol beer, in keeping with my zero alcohol diet for the next 100 days, actually 96 days now. 

Just two meals left now!

Who With: Pieter & Erin 

How Long: Fifteen Minutes and Forty Four Seconds 

… Smoked Trout, Asparagus & Peas 

I really am in the count down now.  This meal is the forth to last.  This is the first meal I’ve cooked in my new house.  Well obviously not the first meal, but the first 15 Minute Meal. 

This is one of those meals that I’ve almost cooked a few times.  It’s been on the reserve list a couple of times when I’ve been shopping for some of the fish dishes, just in case I could get the fish I needed.  I also think I failed once because I couldn’t get the required hot smoked trout. 

This was a pretty easy meal to cook.  The only worry really was I haven’t cooked that much, and certainly not at speed, on the hob in the new house.  But it worked out fine. 

This is a nice meal that has a mix of felling fresh and healthy but also very filling at the same time.  It seemed to go down well.  It’s also one of those meals that gives generous portions.

For some reason mine was much greener than the picture in the book. 

It’s Crispy Duck Hoi Sin Lettuce Parcels tomorrow. 

Who with: Matt, Jason, Pieter (Stefan had the leftovers) 

How Long: Fourteen Minutes and Fifty Seconds 

… New Potato & Crunchy Salad 

For some reason I’ve been a bit reluctant to cook this meal.  I think in part it might be the slightly simple look to the meal.  And that really is down to the simple boiled new potatoes.  I’m not the biggest fan of plain mashed or boiled potatoes.  I much prefer them when they are mixed, or mashed, with something else. 

This was a pretty easy one to cook and I’m long over due a meal done in under fifteen minutes.  It did actually taste really great.  The dressing you make adds more than enough flavor to overcome my objection to the potatoes. 

This was a nice little, and pretty simple, meal. A good meal to preface the rich food we’ll all eat over the next three days. 

Who With: Anna, James, Gordy 

How Long: Fourteen Minutes and Thirty One Seconds 

… Grilled Corn & Crunchy Tortilla Salad 

It’s been a bit of a slower start to the Christmas cooking than I’d have thought – but there’s still plenty of time.  This meal is particularly exciting looking.  Beautiful colours and it’s a jerk recipe.  The Jerk chicken dish in Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals is one of my favourites and so this has a lot to live up to.

This meal has a long list of ingredients – it must be among the longest in the book.  From experience this always means the chances of doing it in time is reduced.

Making this one was fun and very much in the usual rhythm of a 15 Minute meal.  The meat is cut, flattened a bit and seasoned (to add flavour and reduce cooking time), the veg, herbs etc. that go into making the sauce are whizzed up in the food processor, and of course there is a salad to make and a bit of yogurt to top things off.

The salad bowl you make with the tortillas is a bit of an unusual idea but pretty cool. 

This is a lovely meal.  It went done really, really well with my family. Definitely one to remember. 

Who With: Mum, Gordy, Matt, Selina, Lydia 

How Long: Sixteen Minutes and Four Seconds 

… Spicy Vegetable Noodle Broth 

It’s Christmas.  Tomorrow Christmas cooking begins in earnest.  Today was about doing the food shopping … most of it anyway … tomorrow and thereafter is about the cooking. 

This is one of those dishes that look beautiful.  I’m not sure why this is one of the very last meals I’ve cooked.  But it’s a good one.  A really good one. 

There is a fair bit to do – making a broth – a paste to flavour the broth and the seafood as well as cooking the sea food.  The squid takes a bit of prepping what with removing the tentacles, slicing the body (is it actually called the body?) and scoring the crisscross pattern into the squid.  There is quite a bit of stuff to go in to the broth as well. 

All in all I’m pretty amazed that you can make a meal like this in just over sixteen minutes.  But what’s more amazing is that it tastes absolutely amazing.  

You really must cook this one.  You must. 

Who With: Matt, Semo, Lydia, Gordy, Anna 

How Long: Sixteen Minutes and Seven Seconds