Day 57 - Potato Wedges

Recipe from Jamie's Home Cooking Skills

Today we made something similar to 'chips' but they're called potato wedges. Now you must be thinking, "This doesn't make sense, they've made these before, but they were called chips." But that's where you'd be wrong. To be technical, you have to take the hypotenuse of the frying pan, then multiply by it's circumference.

This may all sound like jargon to you, but it's not.

Actually, it is, but, shhh, don't tell anyone. The chips from before were fried. These potato wedges are baked.

There you have it.

All you do for this simple recipe (I know, I said I'd do something longer and more time laboring, but we didn't get all the right things at the store) is cut potatoes into wedges.

You halfway cook them in boiling water (called parboiling)...

...then you coat them with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Then cook them in the oven.

Potato Wedges with a hot dog in gluten free toast

Schwam! You have potato wedges.

I thought they were good, but I had a lot on my plate with macaroni (gluten free, of course), a hot dog (on toasted GF bread), and the potato wedges, so I didn't eat them all. But they were good.

2 THUMBS UP for these potatoes!

Day 56 - Funky Coke Float

Cookbook - Jamie's Kitchen

Hi Everyone! It's me, Sophie. Today is Friday! We did a dessert!

First off, you should know that I did not eat this morning until 9:00 because I had to get a blood test and I couldn't eat in the morning, so I couldn't go to school right when my dad does. So I stayed home until 7:45, then after my appointment, me and my mom went to Starbucks where where my mom's HOT HOT coffee spilled on me. My shorts were dripping with coffee on them. I had to rinse them off, and then I went to school.

What a morning.

My dad had to take me and my little brother home today late because my brother was playing The Star Spangled Banner at a pep rally and my mom wanted to see that.

So by the time we and finished with dinner, it was eight o'clock and we made our dessert.

This Funky Coke Float is from Jamie's Kitchen called a Funky Coke Float. It's just like doing a regular float. You just put vanilla ice cream in first, then add Coke, only we didn't have Coke, we had Diet Dr. Pepper, which in Texas some people call Coke.

Every soda is Coke, apparently. There's a joke in Texas where you walk into a restaurant and say you want a Coke, and they say, Sure, what kind? And you say Dr. Pepper. I thought that was pretty funny when I heard it.

The one thing I really liked about this recipe was...it's called...wait for it...Sugar Encrusted Walnuts or Pecans. What you do is get pecans or walnuts and wash them in a colander.

Then you get powdered sugar and roll the nuts around in the sugar.

Then you bake them at 350 for about 15 minutes.

They are one of the best things I have ever tasted, truthfully. You put them on top of the float, but I didn't like them so much in the float, but I liked them plain.

1 1/2 THUMBS UP

Day 55 - Grilled Asparagus with Olive Oil, Lemon and Parmesan

Recipe from Jamie Oliver Online

Well, this is another easy recipe.  We're getting kind of predictable.  Saturday I'm going to make a hard recipe that will take hours and hours and hours... just for your entertainment.  

The reason we made this was because we asparagus that was going to go rotten if we didn't cook it and it desperately needed to go in someone's mouth.  But, in the end, it never went in my mouth because I conveniently forgot.

I got the asparagus and I pulled off the ends.  

I have never even touched asparagus before.  It was kind of squishy, like any veggie.  

After I cooked it, it was kind of flimsical.  It was kind of weird.  

After I cooked it, I salted it (extremely well), expecting to tone down the taste with the salt.  And then I peppered it and I put some lemon juice on it.  We didn't have fresh lemons because we've been using them a lot.  So I used this bottled lemon juice. 

Then I drizzled some olive oil over it all. 

My mom added grilled squash to it, which is why that's in the picture.

I kind of expected it to be soft like corn, with a ton of water in it.  But since I didn't take a bit of it, I don't know if it was watery inside.  Sophie says, "You can really taste the olive oil, lemon, and sea salt."  She gave it 2 THUMBS UP.

Day 54 - Shrimp and Sweet Corn Chowder

Recipe from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

Hi everyone! Caleb, thanks for cooking for us yesterday. Yesterday I had to go to the doctor, then we were only home for about 30 minutes, then we had to straight to piano lessons, and my parents had to go to back to school night, and so while Jared and I were gone at piano, my mom and Caleb made dinner.

I was glad. I was very glad. You probably saw the pictures of Caleb.

Tonight, dramatic pause, I was in the kitchen once again.

Last night I didn't get much sleep, and I was very tired, so I was going for an easy recipe. This chowder was quite easy, but my grammy's chowder is really good, too. But hers is clam chowder heaven. This had shrimp in it. Jared, my fellow cooker, cut the potatoes WAY TOO BIG. It took about 20 extra minutes to cook because of that than it was normally supposed to.

We used onion instead of leeks because we didn't have leeks, and we've never had leeks. I've never had leeks, which explains why I don't know what they are. Jamie Oliver has everything which is why he uses things like leeks.

It was very good with onions.

This was really fun. I got a knife and corn cob and went zing zing zing and sliced the corn off the cob.

Although you could use frozen corn, but we didn't want to use frozen corn because we had fresh and didn't want to waste that, so we used it.

It also had shrimp in it. That's why it's called what it's called. You buy the shrimp at the store and then take off the shell of the shirmp.

You finely chop the potatoes and onions (which my brother did not do), and then you saute them in a pan and then you add the corn and shrimp, then the broth and cream.

You let that simmer, and then you crumble crackers, bacon (which we didn't have), so we used ham, which is really, really good also. We cooked the ham to make it crunchy like bacon.

1 1/2 THUMBS UP, and a special shout out to Grandpa! Sophie loves you, Grandpa! Happy Birthday. Jared says he loves you, too!

Day 53 - Chili Con Carne

Recipe from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, and Jamie Oliver Online

Hello, it's me, Caleb, the one that wants to be a cameraman for this blog. Yeah, I'm seven and my mom is typing what I say.

Today I helped cook because...because my brother and sister were at their piano lessons and my other brothers had to go to band. Well me and my mom cooked together. This cooking should count in the kids cooking challenge because if it doesn't count, then my brother and sister would have to pick a different recipe. And they don't want to do that. Plus, we already made a recipe. And I'm a kid.

We made...Chili with lots of stuff in it and it does not look like chili.

It looks good to me, but it won't taste good to me. I did not taste even a little tiny bit. I didn't take a little bite because it wouldn't taste good because I don't like the stuff in it.

I had super fun making it. I got to stir, put stuff in it, I got to cut celery, and I got to cut cilantro. Cutting is really fun. But it wasn't that sharp of a knife. It was a kid's knife, though. My mom taught me to curl my fingers because it makes you safe. This way I won't chop off my fingers, which would be bad.

I cut the end of the celery off, the bottom of the tree part, and put the rest in. I put the last part, the leaf part of the celery in the red bucket, and when the bucket is full, we dump it in the trash, and when it gets full, we do it again, over and over again until it breaks, which my mom won't think will happen. Jamie Oliver calls this his rubbish, or something.

Well...my favorite part of cooking tonight was stirring...

and the weird part was that you put cinnamon in the chili.

And other stuff, but only the cinnamon was kind of weird.

My brother AJ thought it was good...

That's a crooked thumbs up

...but my brother Sam didn't even try it and he didn't think it would taste good, but he doesn't know since he didn't try it. I don't know if it tastes good. It looks good to me, but it doesn't look tasty. My dad thought it was the best thing in the world. He said to me and mom, "2 Thumbs Up!"

I had super fun cooking.

May the force be with you.

by Caleb and the whole blog...TO ME caleb!

Day 52 - One Cup Pancakes

Recipe from Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and Online One-Cup Pancakes

Hi Everyone! You're probably wondering what we made today, on day 52. I made One Cup Pancakes! And I made them gluten free using the new gluten free Bisquick which is now sold at different places.

It was very easy. You get a cup of flour (like I said, I used the gluten free Bisquick). Then you put in uno egg, and one cup of milk. I whisked it together. You can also mix in bananas or other fruit. Then what you do is put butter in a skillet or on a griddle and spread it around. Once it's all melted, you ladle the pancake batter onto the griddle or skillet.

When it's ready to flip, you'll see bubbling in the middle of the pancake. Another way you can tell is that the edges start to dry.

Then flip them. It doesn't necessarily take the same time on the other side. You can sort of tell when they're done because they rise and thicken. Then you get your spatula and kind of lift it up and take peak to see if it's ready. If it is, then get a plate and put it on.

Jared tried his first bite with the parfait from last night.

He said, "This pancake is a vessel to carry the flavor of something else." He liked it pretty well with the parfait, but says he would like it more with just fresh fruit.

My brother, Jared, doesn't like syrup. He actually doesn't like pancakes at all. BUT he sort of liked these. This was the first time ever that he sort of liked hot cakes. He got some homemade whipped cream and some ground cinnamon and sprinkled that onto it.

He liked it!  1 1/2 THUMBS UP!

Oh! I forgot to mention, we are a featured blog on Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution news site! Here's what we have to say about THAT:

"I think it's awesome because only two blogs are chosen every month. I think it's really saying something that we got chosen and we've only been doing this for 52 days. We're getting noticed and that's good because hopefully more people will join the Food Revolution." ~ Jared

"I feel like I'm the best cooker-blogger kid ever. It's so super cool to be featured on Jamie Oliver's newsletter site because most kids can't say that they've been on his Food Revolution site. I think we've accomplished what we've wanted which is to have Jamie Oliver notice us so that more people would look at our blog, and hopefully change how and what they eat by joining our challenge." ~Sophie

Day 51 - Stewed Fruit, Minus the Stewing, with Yogurt

Recipe from Jamie's Food Revolution, and then we changed it

Well, it's day 51 and we made it past day 50 (hence the day 51). To celebrate, we went to the movies at around 6:00. We saw The Karate Kid, which is a good movie... you should see it.

By the time we got home, it was after 9:00 so we needed something quick and easy. We made Stewed Fruit, Minus the Stewing, with Yogurt. I made a parfait. I put some vanilla yogurt on the bottom of one of those elegant, fancy-shmancy dishes for ice cream and stuff. Then I layered it with some cut strawberries. You can do this with any type of fruit or multiple types of fruit. And really, to follow this recipe, you should stew it, which means just cooking it with some stuff in it. I'm not really sure what you stew it in since I didn't do it this time. I will try actually stewing, sometime. Eventually. In the near future. Maybe.

This is our homemade granola, the Jamie Oliver recipe, too!

Then you put some more yogurt, and some more yogurt. Then you top it with some granola, or strawberries and granola, or you can just use oats.

It tasted good. I might have eaten all of it, but I stuffed my face with movie theater popcorn. Even though it's not healthy, I give into temptations once in a while, so don't blame yourself if you do that. Just make sure it's not 20 donuts.

1 7/8 THUMBS UP (because 2 THUMBS UP is getting too predictable!)

Thank you, and good night. Literally.