My Jamie Oliver Experiment: Ozzy Mushroom Risoto,Spinach Salad, Quick Lemon & Raspberry Cheesecake

How This Started and My Hope For This Experiment

My Husband and I are both big fans of Jamie Oliver. For Christmas I bought him Jamie's cookbook "Jamie's 30 Minute Meals: A Revolutionary Approach to Cooking Good Food Fast". As I read the preface of his cookbook I was inspired by his ideas. He felt that he was spending too much time cooking during the busy week and doing too much clean up. So he decided that for the week night meals there needed to be something quick and still healthy and yummy. He and his team did a lot of work and made the "30 Minute Meals". He has explicit directions for step by step getting the meal done in 30 min. He tells you what to do first, second, and third so that you have all dishes going at the same time, instead of making it dish by dish. Since we aren't doing once a month cooking right now I was captured by this idea and dying to start trying. I have been spending way too much time in the kitchen during the week and can't wait to be able to prepare good meals fast. My husband was all for it since he loves to eat great food and has a very particular palette. He will be making some of the meals on weekends when he isn't working because, this is after all, his cookbook :)

Monday, February 21, 2011

Ozzy Mushroom Risoto,Spinach Salad, Quick Lemon & Raspberry Cheesecake

Oozy Mushroom Risotto, Spinach Salad, Quick Lemon & Raspberry Cheesecake p. 64 I made blueberry cheesecake instead since I couldn't get raspberries.

These are the crispy mushrooms that go on top of the risotto. They were the best part in my opinion. So good! You fry them up in a pan on the stove first and then pop them under the broiler in the same pan. Be sure it is oven safe :)

This salad was also very very flavorful and good BUT not quite as good as the salad in the last recipe. I loved it though and so did the rest of the fam.

The risotto cooking up. You do this differently than other rice. He uses water to slowly bring out the starch making it sticky and oozy.

I toasted my hazelnuts for the desert and then rubbed off the skin because I couldn't find blanched hazelnuts. Plus toasting the hazelnuts makes the flavor come out so much more than just using blanched nuts. These are crushed up with the gingernut biscuits for the crust of the cheesecakes. Very good!

These are the toasted pinenuts for the salad. They were a little harder to toast in a frying pan than they would have been in the oven I think. They seemed to have a hard time not burning before getting toasted and warmed throughout.

Here is the finished meal. We all enjoyed this one too. Like I said earlier the crispy mushrooms on top were delightful and added a texture and taste to the risotto that made the meal. The pinenuts and sun-dried tomatoes are what really made the salad.

Here is the cheesecake. The bottom I explained already. The filling is supposed to be lemon curd but my husband forgot it at the grocery store that night so I quickly figured out to use some chocolate mousse in it's place. The cheesecake part is made up of cream cheese vanilla, milk, and icing sugar. Then dark chocolate shavings on top. Quite the desert and very quick.

So this meal was also very quick but it got muddled up when I had to wait for some main ingredients from the store so I don't know exactly how long it took. I think it could have been made in 30-40 min for sure. Would definitely make it again.