Day 58 - The Best Winter Veg Coleslaw

Recipe from Jamie Oliver Online

Today we went to my grandparent's house for my grandpa's birthday and I needed a recipe to make to go with the lunch which was grilled steak, chicken, and mashed potatoes. I chose cole slaw because I thought my grandparents would like it, and other people in my family like it. But I don't really like it.

We didn't do it at my house today, we did it at my grandparent's house. I got to cook with my grammy which I thought was pretty fun because I don't normally get to cook with her. She showed me how to use a new tool for lemons, but I'll tell you about that later.

Now you're probably wondering about the recipe. You have to get cabbage, radishes, a shallot, fennel, red onion, dill, mustard, plain yogurt, carrots, lemon, and I think that's all. What happens is cut the cabbage, then cut it to fit in the food processor.

You put it on the shredder.

You shred your two cabbages, which is regular cabbage and red cabbage. Then you shred the carrots, radishes, and fennel. Mix those together. Then chop the shallot.

You mix that together. We ended it up chopping some of it really fine in the food processor, because the shredding wasn't working so well with some of it.

But then the fun part was making the sauce to go with all those vegetables. What you do for the sauce is get 1 cup of plain yogurt, dill, and 1/2 of a lemon (I used this really awesome thing that my grammy showed me. It was wooden and you stab it in the cut lemon and twist it and the seeds come out, so you have strain it, but you so much juice. I had fun with that tool.).

Then add salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons of mustard. And you put in a giant lug of olive oil.

You pour that over all the vegetables and mix it together.

I thought this coleslaw was okay. I give it 1 THUMB UP. My grandpa gave it 1 THUMB UP also, because it was too finely chopped for him. Next time the cabbage should be more chunky. My grammy loved it, though. She gave it 5 THUMBS UP.

Grammy's gluten free squash casserole, grilled chicken, my coleslaw, and mashed potatoes.

What I've learned is that each person has different taste buds!

That's all. Good night!

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 48 - Chargrilled Marinated Vegetables

Recipe from Jamie Oliver Online

No one really wanted to cook at all tonight. We didn't know what to make, but we had vegetables from the fruit and veggies vegetables. This is where my mom got a bunch of organic food and it's SO good.

So we made some grilled chicken, some biscuits, corn, and potatoes. My mom really wanted some more vegetables so my mom saw this recipe on Jamie Oliver's web site. It was Chargrilled Marinated Vegetables.

It was squash, zucchini, yellow bell pepper, garlic, and green onions. Jared sliced the vegetables and I made this marinade with our fresh basil. I used a mortar and pestle to smash it all up. That mortar and pestle hasn't seen daylight since 1922 (or my mom says for a long time). It was fun to use. I got to smash stuff. Once the basil was all smashed and the vegetables were grilled on the grill pan on our stove, I added olive oil and some balsamic vinegar to the basil and then tossed it all together.

The verdict was that my mama and papa LOVED it. My brother, Alex, liked it okay. Me and Jared didn't like it so much because it was a lot of vegetables all together. My dad said it was a $10 vegetable dish and he LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it.

So my mom will make this one again, and I guess I'll help her. I give it 1/2 THUMB UP, but mama and papa give it 2 THUMBS UP.