I have seen tiny spots of blood in eggs before but this was TOO CRAZY!

I saved the ribs that came with the 9lb pork belly I bought for our 2 year party so that I could use it later. This is probably not the way to cook ribs but I first boiled it then roasted it in the oven. The liquid that I used to boil the ribs in was tea! and star anise. Yes tea. Think it was 2 cups of tea and 8 star anise. Boiled it for about an hour. Then I took the ribs out placed it in the roasting tray, seasoned it and cooked it in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour then cranked it up to 500 degrees.

The end result was pretty good. A little on the dry side but I could really taste the tea and that extra salt I added before roasting was super nice!

Yes Jamie At Home is the name of Jamie Oliver’s cookbook and also one of this cooking show. But this is me cooking a Jamie Oliver recipe at my own home. I know this idea of cooking through a cookbook and blogging about isn’t new but in my attempt to cook more and actually use the cookbooks I need to document it. Sorta like homework. I’m less lazy if its homework. Also I’m not cooking through 1 book, I’m merely just cooking any of his recipes from books, magazines and website.

So here is my first attempt of this Jamie at Home weekly post (lets see how long this goes eh?) Pasta Peperonata, found here on his website. Oh man this one was so simple to make but I really hate cleaning and slicing bell peppers. In the recipe, creme fraiche or mascarpone cheese is optional but if you ask me it should be a must. I just love a good creamy pasta sauce. Basically you just slice everything, saute everything, stir in the creme fraiche and add pasta and parsley, done! This was really good! The bell peppers were sweet and tasty though my apartment smelled like peppers for few days.

I am giving myself a challenge to learn how to make one food item a month.

It all started when I wanted to pickle things. That was going to be my project this year but then my mind trailed off, typical me, and I began to think well what if I started to make other things. Oh I do love dim sum, let’s google for dim sum recipes. After that I narrowed it down to few dim sum items like shrimp dumplings, roast pork buns, turnip cakes. Then I found, on youtube see above, this lady teaching how to make roast pork bun in her kitchen in Germany. Easy to follow step-by-step process of first roasting the pork then making the dough for the buns.

So that’s it. For February I plan to learn how to make ROAST PORK BUNS! Eventually I don’t need to go get dim sum, I just make them at home.

At the Farmer’s Market the other week I bought a bunch of kale. Sometimes when I buy something at the market I know exactly what I’m going to do with it. In this case, I just bought it because I like kale. A few days later I was trying to decide what to make for dinner; I didn’t want to make pasta again, but I wasn’t sure what I was in the mood for. Suddenly my mind started repeating over and over to me: kale and eggs, kale and eggs, kale and eggs… I wasn’t sure why, at first, but I was convinced they’d make a great pairing. After a few minutes I remembered that I’d had a dish at Blue Hill which involved a poached egg and some stewed kale. I wasn’t sure how they’d made it, and I assumed it was rather complicated, but I knew how I could make something similar, but much simpler and easier.

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Membrillo is so easy to make it’s surprising to me that more people aren’t making it at home. Maybe it’s the lack of quince, or maybe it’s just that people aren’t sure exactly what it is. Membrillo is basically a paste made of quince; there’s sugar and lemon juice in it, but the main thing is applying heat to the quince, in various stages. This simple application of heat, over a long period of time, transforms a hard, pear-like fruit into a delicious bright orange paste that is traditionally served with cheese, and is also delicious on its own.

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