Tag Archives: cook with jamie

[59] Creamy Butternut Squash

cover of Cook With Jamie

I love butternut squash. I don’t think I had it a lot as a kid, but I definitely had it some. Mostly, my mother would cut one in half and put a little butter and brown sugar in the cavity and bake it until it was soft and delicious. In fact, I don’t think I had it any other way until years after I started making it at home. Of course, over time that sort of preparation makes you wonder if you’re having a veggie or a dessert, so I started looking for other ways to make it. Mostly, I found soups. I like them, but I still wanted something else.

That’s part of what’s been making this challenge so neat; I’m being forced to branch out in two ways.… Continue reading →

Cook with Jamie: My Guide to Making You a Better Cook

cover of Cook With Jamie

This is, as far as I can tell, an awesome cookbook. It’s part recipes, part concepts (“here’s how to match things together so they taste good! Here’s how to use a knife properly!”) and part stories about the students he works with. All of it is written conversationally, and if you’ve heard Jamie Oliver speak on TV (or in his TED talk, which I recommend), you can imagine him reading it. I love that there are full page pictures of every recipe so that you can know what you’re expecting when you make a dish.

As you can tell from the title, it’s a book about learning to cook. As such some of the recipes are loose. “A large knob of butter”, “a few bay leaves”, “a good glug of olive oil” and “a splash of red wine vinegar” are some of the ingredients I see flipping through a few pages.… Continue reading →