Summer 2011, Day 1: Eggs in a Basket

Hello, everybody. Well, it seems it's that time of year again. We're starting the cooking challenge again. But this year, it's not only focused on Jamie Oliver. We're using Ellie Krieger's cookbooks, as well as some of our favorites from last year.

This year will also be different due to the fact that we're not going to be doing the challenge everyday. Maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Because last year, the cooking really dominated my summer.

Today, for the very first entry, I did Eggs in a Basket from Ellie's So Easy cookbook. My mom read about Ellie in a magazine, then she started watching Healthy Appetite, her show. Soooo...

It was somewhat easy. It's not technically easy if I actually have to wake up (I got up at 11:30 today after 11 hours of sleep... tragic), get up, and make food.

Anyway, for this recipe, I got a piece of my GF bread from the freezer. We made some from a a mix using the bread machine about 2 weeks ago. I have slices frozen. I cut a hole in it using a 3 inch cookie cutter. Use a pastry brush to spread melted butter, or a spoon to spread softened butter onto both sides of the bread. After that, what you do is you put it in a pan and crack your egg into the hole. You also put the little 3 inch circle you cut out into the pan.

Then you cook it until the egg white hardens. Flip it and cook it for another minute or so, depending if you like it runny or rock solid.

In the recipe, you're supposed to put turkey and asparagus on top, but I said, "Chale! Let's just throw some sausage in there." Because sausage is the best food known to man. I don't know if Ellie Krieger would approve, since I didn't get my veggies, but, "Sabes que," it's my lunch so I can do whatever I want.

It was good. I will do it again.

Two things: put butter on the little cut out circle of bread, and serve with hash browns, which I did.

Two thumbs up.

Day 26 - Boiled Eggs

Cookbook - Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution

I’m really liking doing this. The challenge, I mean. It’s really quite fun. I mean I liked cooking before this, but I never really did it much. So this is super awesome.

Anyway, I was looking at jamieoliver.com, which is cool and you should check it out. So I was looking and I saw a a restaurant called Fifteen and it has a cooking classes.

Cool!! I know, right!!!!

And so I looked up the places where the restaurants are located and I found that there are only 3 in the world. There’s one in Amsterdam, one in Cornwall, and there’s one in Melbourne. When I found that out, I thought that was a bummer because I live in Texas and Texas isn’t near the Netherlands, England, or Australia. So it was a lose-lose situation because I was ready to go to Fifteen and eat there and look at the classes. Check it out, you know what I mean?

I just wanted to mention this because I thought it was pretty interesting and I thought that you guys would think it was pretty interesting.

Anyway, today I cooked 2 boiled eggs around 10 o’clock this morning. It was the first boiled eggs that I’ve made.

Just my luck, I misread the instructions and I used a frying pan instead of a sauce pan because I couldn’t think since I’d just woken up, so I asked Sophie and she said, “Use a frying pan”, although in her defense she says she was focusing on making scrambled eggs for her dear poor mother who was working hard writing a new book.

Hint: don't use a frying pan to boil an egg

And I cooked them to make them semi-firm and set the timer. After the timer went off, I cut one of them open and found the egg all over my cutting board.

A yolk disaster

That was not good. No way, Jose. It was a spectacular failure, but I got an A for effort, btw.

I figured out how not to use a frying pan to boil an egg but it was too late for the first one. I let the other egg cook in the frying pan for another ten minutes. I decided to risk opening it up. Looking at the picture, I cut off the top of the egg and it worked. It wasn’t semi-firm, it was firm. But it still tasted good. I made some bacon with it, and I ate it and it was good.

Spectacular!

I also made some guacamole around lunch time. I was inspired by Sam the Cooking Guy from Fit TV, a super cool, awesome guy you should check out. I should have used a tomato and the chipotle sauce he uses, but we didn’t have either so I used salsa. I also squeezed a little bit of lime and green onions and it was really good.

Sam the Cooking Guy's Gauc, minus the real tomato and chipotle

It was a very semi-successful cooking day, if I do say so myself, which I can since I’m me.

2 THUMBS UP!

Until next time...

Day 17 - Fried Egg

Cookbook - Jamie's Food Revolution

Fried eggs intrigue me, Jared, very, very much. I'd never had a fried egg before. It's way different than cooking anything I've done before. It was fairly easy, except it's kind of hard to know when to take it off because we took it off a couple times too early and the yolk was way too runny.

It's different than an over easy egg because we didn't flip it.

It was kind of a quick thing because we need to do quick things all this week because my mom is doing a writing camp where we get to write a mystery story. It has to be good since this will go in our permanent record.

Ha! Not really.

So the fried egg was pretty easy and fun and I enjoyed making it. The only difference between the poached egg and the fried egg was that it wasn't wrapped up in the whites like a poached egg, but it pretty much tastes the same.

Sophie put cheese on her egg and she said that was good also.

I especially liked it with the toast (gluten free, of course) because it gave it had the flavor of the egg with the crunchiness of the toast.

It was quite delicious so I will give this 2 THUMBS UP

Day 14 - Bacon and Cheese Omelette

Cookbook - Jamie's Food Revolution

Today I, as in Jared, made a delectable bacon, cheese, and egg omelette.

Obviously an omelette is made of eggs. (If you don't know that, you might want to consult your doctor about your knowledge)

It was fairly easy to make which was a relief after last night when we made two dishes and the failure of the lemony lemon cake.

All I did was put eggs in a bowl, put in some salt and pepper, mix it up, and then you put it into a hot frying pan after you put in a chunk of butter and let it melt.

New cooking station...

You wait until it's kind of cooked on the bottom but kind of not cooked on the top. Then you add the cheese and bacon, which I was supposed to cook in the pan, but I used the microwave.

Perfectly cooked omelette

When it's just about cooked, I folded it in half like a taco.

Folding it like a taco

It cooked for a couple more minutes and ta da! If you do this you will have made your first bacon and cheese omelette. We will be sending you your certificate in the mail and you will receive it shortly.

Perfecto!

Notice from the pictures that we have made a better work station so we're not running around all the time. We have added a cutting board that we're leaving out all the time just like Sam the Cooking Guy from Just Cook This... 'cause we don't have a whole counter made of wood like Jamie.

I like the new station. It brings joy to my heart. Seriously.

Happy Eating...until next time...

DOS (2) THUMBS UP

Day 11 - Scrambled Eggs

Cookbook - Food Revolution

Yesterday we received some brilliant news. We discovered through our psychic mind powers -- or through twitter -- that Jamie Oliver is now following A Kid's Cooking Challenge! We used our super brain power math skills and found out that he has more than 533,000 people following him. Of those, he only follows around 3,700. So we are in the 1 1/2 percent that he follows!

As Jamie would say, "That is spiffy and brilliant!"

He also DIRECT MESSAGED US, so clearly he has brain psychic power abilities, too, since he obviously felt our longing for us to direct message with him.

Now back to business.

The business of cooking. And since Jamie Oliver is in the business of cooking, that's obviously still on the same business so we're going to continue with the same business.

Today I was feeling a little bit lazy. All people feel like that sometimes, I think . . .

I made some classic scrambled eggs, with gluten free toast, of course. It was magnificent.

Usually when we make scrambled eggs, we spray the pan with a cooking oil like Pam or that kind of stuff. But this time we used some butter in the bottom of the pan. I thought that was pretty spiffing (which my mom thinks is not a word but really is).

I also added some pepper, and I don't normally add pepper. I enjoyed the peppery flavor. It was kind of subtle, so it wasn't overpowering, so it was perfect.

Except that nothing in life is perfect, so it's kind of ironic, but that's not the cooking business. These were as perfect as they could be without being perfect.

2 THUMBS UP

I shall definitely make this multiple times in my future.

Day 2 - Poached Eggs

Cookbook: Food Revolution

Today is Day 2. My brother went to skateboard camp so I made poached eggs, Jamie Oliver's recipe from Food Revolution.

I had no idea what poached eggs would taste like, look like, or even what they were.

What we did to make it was get some water simmering in a flat saucepan.

Crack the eggs into a little bowl. Once the water is simmering, then pour the egg very lightly and gently in one motion then let the egg sit in the water for 2 to 4 minutes.

At first it looked really weird. It separated and looked like hair flowing in the water. But then it looked like a seal formed, like on a hard boiled egg, and then you just take it out. You can have it either runny, or you can have it with a hard yolk.

I made a sandwich for my dad with a poached egg, ham, and toast and he loved it.

Me and my mom had it with an English muffin.

I didn't think I was going to like it because it floated in the water and looked watery, so I thought, "Ew, it doesn't look that great," but then it tasted just like an over easy egg to me. So I really did like it.

I will make it many more times!

Happy Cooking!

2 THUMBS UP!