So my next Jamie Oliver recipe, I wanted a seafood dish. I narrowed it down to 2 dishes, one was a tomato-y pasta with canned tuna and the second was a spaghetti with mussels dish. Both Steph and Mo voted for the mussels dish, so mussels it is.

Why are mussels so cheap? They’re usually $2-$3 per pound and I bought 2.5lbs of it. Though I should’ve bought the extra half pound because there were few dead ones in the pile.

This whole dish took about 25mins to prep and to cook. While it was fairly easy and straightforward to cook I wasn’t too sure of the end product. It’s hard to know if I cooked it right or not if I haven’t tasted it before. I guess it only matters if the dish was good or not. Well I thought the dish was just alright, it was kind of bland and I was heavy handed with the pepper, whoops. I just didn’t taste any basil or any flavors from the basil oil broth. Overall this was okay.

Click here for the recipe

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.

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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Yes I am a huge fan of Jamie Oliver. I have all of his cookbooks and when the Food Network showed “Jamie at Home” on a Saturday 9:30am morning I made sure to wake up to watch it. Yeah this was my pre-TIVO days. He pretty much inspired me to cook and have family dinners. Though long time ago a girl that I had a crush on asked me to make her a cheesecake. That was the VERY first thing I remembered making for somebody. I do have to thank her for getting me started with cooking and baking. Where would I be without that? Would there be an Eat to Blog? *shrugs.

Anyways, Jamie’s Huntington 1000. You can read what it’s about on his site but basically Jamie wants 1000 people cooking something using his recipes and send the photos to him. I love the idea of trying to get people to cook for themselves and it’s just FUN to get people around the table eating.

Recently I did an all Jamie Oliver recipe dinner. For the main entree I made the Sausage Carbonara, a potato mushy dish, and the DIY Chocolate Truffle. In the past I have also tried his Chicken in Milk recipe and the photo to the left is his recipe for mushroom and thyme. I am tempted to do one of those food blogs where I go through all the recipes in a cookbook. Hmm…

So hopefully all of you will give Jamie’s Huntington 1000 a try. Happy cooking!