Sort of a quick meal like under 20minutes, thats quick right? While the water for the pasta was heating up, I cleaned and chopped the chives and added few tablespoons of fennel seeds into the ground pork and seasoned it. Prep everything before cooking the pasta. So while the pasta was cooking, I added the ground pork to a very hot pan because if its not hot enough I’ll just be steaming the pork. When the pork was all done cooking, I added the chives. The chives doesn’t take that long and then I added couple big spoons of creme fraiche. Tasted the pork and chives mixture and seasoned correctly. I also grated some parmesan cheese and gave it a good stir. Add pasta when done and mixed it really well. Then I added some more cheese, why not. This was pretty good, the Chinese chives were a bit awkward only because I’m used to eating it as a Chinese dish and the fennel seeds in the ground pork really added a lot to it and transformed plain old pork into something fantastic.

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.

Crumpets, Creme and Jam! Crumpets, Creme and Jam! Crumpets, Creme and Jam! Crumpets, Creme and Jam! Crumpets, Creme and Jam! Crumpets, Creme and Jam!

I can chant that FOREVER! Last week a friend tweeted that they got crumpets from Trader Joe’s. So when I was at Trader Joe’s the other night I tried to find some. Of course they were out of crumpets but there was a whole pile of cinnamon crumpets. Better than no crumpets, so I got a pack. 1 pack comes with 6 crumpets. They look like a hybrid of an English muffin and pancakes. The next morning I sliced a crumpet into 2 halves, it was hard to do without a super sharp knife but I managed. Got a pan nice and hot, added butter to the pan and placed the 2 halves into the pan. Just toast them till nice and crunchy. I don’t have a toaster oven so I used a pan. Once they were done I took them off the plate and smeared creme fraiche and topped it off with strawberry jam from Trader Joe’s. It was D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S-! Really loved the different temperatures hot crumpets with cold creme fraiche and room temperature jam. Wonderful!

I think next time I’ll grate some lemon zest into the creme fraiche, it lacks flavors or use mascarpone cheese. *Sigh of if I can find some real clotted cream.

As I noted here that I was going to participate in Jamie’s Huntington 1000. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to cook at first but I knew I wanted something quick, easy and cheap. Luckily on Jamie Oliver’s site he has a “Budget Meal” section that was perfect for me!
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