Reflections …

… 15 Minute meal reflections

So it’s done, it took me longer than I wanted it to, but the project is finally finished and I’ve had a great time doing it. I thought it would be good to have a few reflections on the project, which I’ll try to keep fairly brief… Ok so I started to write this and it’s not brief so I’ll split it into several parts and created a page all of its own. 

Time

Probably the most common question I got asked was how many meals have you got left to do.  A question I could never answer, other than in the vaguest terms until, the last dozen or so meals.  But the second most common question was could they really be done in 15 minutes.  If I’m honest, seeing whether you could cook the meals within 15 minutes was never the main reason I started the project.  Why did you time yourself then? I hear you ask! I guess it was because I was interested to see if they could be done in the fifteen minutes.  It just wasn’t the main reason for starting the project.  It made it a bit more fun as well.  Ok so here are the results… Actually it’s a bit more complicated than you might think.

I have commonly referred to there being 115 meals (plus four smoothies). So there are a total of 119 “meals” and I have cooked them all.  There are four smoothies, which it might be reasonable to discount from statistics, but there are also 12 breakfasts (toasties, things on toast etc.) Arguably these should be discounted. But whilst most could be done in much less than 15 minutes there were two that were over 15 minutes (but under 16).  So there are 103 Meals.  115 if you count the breakfasts and 119 if you count the smoothies as well.

Quite early on in the project, and for reasons I can’t fully explain, I was always pretty pleased when I got a meal in in under 16 minutes and disappointed if they were over.  The only rationale I have is that it’s in the boundaries of 15 minutes.  So I have given you the figures for meals done in 15 minutes dead and under as well as 16 minutes and under.  Of course in now analysing the figures I now feel bad for those meals that took 16 minutes and a few seconds.  I was tempted to include them, but I didn’t. 

It also seems fair to give the figure for those meals that were badly out of time (over 20 minutes).  There were 8.  That’s around 7 or 8% depending on which “meals” you include.  Several chicken dishes feature, which were the worst culprits in coming in at over 15 minutes.  Four of the meals were ones I cooked in other people’s kitchens (one whilst camping) which also gave me a slight disadvantage.

All in all, I really don’t think that this is that bad at all.  Cooking over 70% of the meals in less than 16 minutes is pretty good.  I have enjoyed all of the meals and some have been absolutely delicious.  Cooking such nice food in such a short amount of time can’t be bad at all. 

One of the things I haven’t liked about doing this project was my own self-imposed, but necessary, rule not to re-cook any meal until I had done them all.  I have found that if I cook a recipe or a meal two or three times in a relatively short space of time (over a couple of weeks say) I learn the recipe, the ingredients, and I can cook it with out reference to a recipe (or at worst a quick check).  This means I can decide to cook something, call in to the supermarket on the way home, buy what I need and just cook it.  Basically it gets added to the repertoire of food I can cook without thinking too much about it and without being prepared in advance. I have never got to the point where I have “practiced” these meals. I’m pretty confident that if I did, for most of them, after the second or third go, I could get the time down.

Over time, you learn some of the techniques and tricks and just this style of cooking that helps with cooking tasty food quickly. 

In general I think that most meals could be done in or around the fifteen minute mark without too much trouble.  There are one or two, which I just don’t believe can be done in that time.  Without reading over every post I can’t now remember which they are but I do remember writing something like that for at least one meal. There are a couple, the Mexican chicken, springs to mind, where I think the order of the recipe was wrong.  For that one if the chicken had gone in earlier it might have been possible and certainty not as disastrously over time as it was (nearly 26 minutes, my worst time by some margin).

Preparation

Another question I’m communally asked is around the subject of how much prep there is in advance, i.e. before the clock starts.  Most people seem to be under the impression that the time is purely cooking time.  So for example they think that any weighing out, chopping etc. is already done in advance.  This isn’t the case, but there is a bit of prep already done. 

For those of you unfamiliar with the 15 Minute Meals, the way it works is that you have all the ingredients out, and any cooking equipment ready before the clock starts.  A meal might call for a large frying pan, a lidded casserole dish, and the food processor with its bowl blade in.  These would be out of the cupboards and on the hob or worktop ready.  However all chopping, weighing (or guessing) and portioning, as well as the presentation, but normally not the plating up, is included in the 15 minutes.  After hearing this most people are more impressed that you can actually cook such nice food in around 15 minutes. There are a few people who think this is cheating and think all time taken should be included.  To be honest I have some sympathy with that view, and in reality it does take longer than 15 minutes to get a meal on the table.  However, one of the ways this project has changed how I cook is that when not doing a 15 Minute Meal, I will get all the ingredients out first.  This just makes the cooking process smoother and more fun.  I was always scrabbling around looking for something mid way through the cooking process before and very often I was missing a key ingredient I thought I had.

I would guess that it takes me around 10 minutes to prepare for doing a 15 Minute Meal.  However, some of the prep is a result of doing the blog, being ready to time it, take half decent photos etc. All in all I would say you could have a meal on the table, eaten at an enjoyable pace, and the dishes done (if your guests help out) in around an hour.  Not to shabby I’d say.

Can’t Cook Won’t Cook

Another question people have is how good a cook do you have to be to stand any chance of getting the meals done in 15 minutes?  I’m a reasonably competent home cook, with reasonable knife skills.  I do think that you would need some basic skills to aid with getting these meals cooked quickly.  I also think there is something to be said for having a bit of cooking intuition, so you know when to jump a step, get on with the next step and come back to the missed step (for example if the meat is taking a bit longer to cook than envisaged, it’s a good time to get a head with making the salad or sorting out some of the serving things). 

I do think that if you were a total novice, who had barley picked up a knife other than to cut a pizza into slices, you will struggle.  But you’ve got to start learning somewhere, and so why not here?

Reasons

I have looked back at the reasons I stated for starting this project. In a very long-winded way I gave three reasons. 

1. For a long time I’d wanted to cook every recipe in a cookbook.
2. I wanted to get better at cooking quick “Tuesday night” meals
3. I wanted to cook for more people. 

A win on all three counts I’d say.  So it took longer than I wanted but I have finally cooked every recipe in a cookbook. Will I ever set myself that challenge again? I don’t know, but I am glad I’ve done it at least once in my life.

I am definitely a better cook from doing this project.  This book teaches you tricks, techniques and a style of cooking that helps cook quickly and with lots of flavour and healthy meals too.  Without following any particular recipe there are types, of food and ingredients I now know how to cook with to produce a quick tasty meal.  The use of a food processor has been a bit of a revolution.  I’ve had one for a very long time and used it occastionally, but it very much lived in the cupboard. I had began to use one a bit more when I did a few of Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals, but it wasn’t until doing this project that I learnt the power of using one well.  I pretty much constantly cooked 15 Minute Meals from the start of the project (October 2012) until the (first) Christmas where I took a break to cook Christmas food.  I found my self chopping, slicing and grating vast quantities of food by hand.  It was just what I always had done.  Then it dawned on me, why wasn’t I using the food processor? I had used it virtually every couple of days to chop, slice and whizz up nearly everything in supper quick time for the three previous months.  I stopped myself from all the handwork and went back to using the food processor.  I still do when not doing a fifteen minute meal and I really believe that the food processor is the most valuable items to have out on the work top all the time.  It may not be as pretty as your Kithenaid, but its more useful on a day-to-day basis.  I’ve done this whole project with a mediocre food processor, with a bowl that really is too small.  I have my eye on a better, bigger one.  Maybe, as a treat for finishing the project its time to buy it? If your going to buy a food processor, my advice is get a good one and get one with a big bowl capacity. (Update I bought the biggest  Magimix there is about a year ago and wonder why I waited so long!)

I cooked for 236 people over this project.  Ok so many of those people were repeated several times, and my old housemate, Gavin, is included dozens of times.  But I did cook for a lot of people.  I never cooked any of the actual meals for just me.  I cooked all of them for at least one other person.  I did a few of the breakfast and smoothies just for me, but that’s all. By the way that figure doesn’t include the fact that I obviously cooked for myself each time and so that’s another 119 people fed. The project definitely made me cook for more people.  Part of the reason the project took longer than I wanted was it was, at times, hard to organize having people round, or gong places, to cook. 

The Rules

I gave myself five rules at the start of this project:

1. I will cook every single meal
2. I will try to cook at least 2 meals a week, more if I can, but if I can’t do any at all one week so what!
3. I will follow all the recipes exactly and I’ll only do a substitute if I genuinely can’t get a particular ingredient.
4. I will try to cook for others as much as possible (but I may do the odd meal on my own, which will mean I’ll have tomorrow’s lunch and dinner sorted).
5. I’ll cook all the meals myself, without assistance from others.

I’m surprised to say that I basically followed almost all of the rules.  I have cooked all the meals.  I did religiously follow the recipe and there really was only a small handful of occasions where I had to make a substitute and even then I don’t think it was of any great consequence. I cooked for a lot of people and I didn’t cook any of the actual meals just for me, so I did better than the rule on that one. No one helped.  They helped do the photos and I got lots of help with the dishes, but I did all the cooking myself, all of it.  The only rule that I didn’t quite live up to was cooking two meals a week.  I was very sporadic.  There were times when weeks (perhaps almost a month) went by without doing a 15 Minute Meal.  However there were other times when I cooked them consistently.  Without checking I think I did a run of 8 meals in seven days once (by cooking lunch and dinner on one of the days).  I also had several days where I cooked more than one meal.  The best was three meals in a day, a breakfast, lunch and dinner, all of which happened on a day I moved house. 

Other things

If I have one criticism of the book it is that it doesn’t give you an indication of the amount of food you will end up with.  All the actual meals are done for four people.  However some of the meals are very much a light lunch for four where as others are a hearty meal for four.  There were a few meals for four which me and my house mate, Gavin, finished of between us and there have been some meals (often the pasta dishes) where I have fed six people.  I’ve been caught out once or twice, when I thought there’d be plenty of food but it turned out to be a light meal. On one occasion, it required a trip to the kebab shop after a few beers!

There was a very welcome unexpected consequence to the project.  I lost weight.  I’ve been uncomfortable with the fact that over the last few (roughly three) years I had put on a bit of weight.  Doing the project caused me to loose weight without changing anything else about my lifestyle. This was very noticeable in the first three months of the project when I was cooking meals very regularly and taking any left overs for lunch the next day.  The meals are genuinely healthy and if you eat one most days you will loose weight.

What next

Well I had an 18 month break. It wasn’t a break from cooking. I’ve cooked loads most of the time with a few spells of not cooking at all. It was a break from a cooking project though. I have another project in mind which I hope to start in the next month or so. This project has been one of those times when I genuinely felt I was improving as a cook. That has happened before, and is actually happening now.But the next project is going to target a area of my cooking and eating life that, has been very boring and pretty unhealthy. I’ll add a link once the new project is up and running. 

Before I start that though I thought it would be fun to re-visit a few of these meals. I’m going to do some of the ones that had a really bad time. Some of the ones I enjoyed the most. And I’ll probably let some people pick something they fancy. I’ve no real end for this in my mind, but I think about 10 or so seems a good number. By the way; i’ve started photography lessons and I’ve bought my self a nice camera so my aim is to get some nice pictures as well as having fun revisiting the old meals. 

The first meal

The last super