Friday Favorites...Jamie's Food Revolution and The Art of Simple Food

We have spent the last two months eating recipes from this cookbook, Jamie's Food Revolution by Jamie Oliver. It is exactly what it says: simple, delicious, and affordable. In the past two months we have eaten out less and honestly eaten better than we would at most restaurants. And I'm no chef. (Though if I'm completely honest, a vast majority of my day dreams involve owning a bakery in a small town. Kind of boring day dream, I know. I'm not the superhero type.)

The recipes are really easy to follow. I've learned to make Indian curries, my husband's favorite, that rival a few local Indian restaurants around here. (Is my humility bursting from the page here or what!) I repeat, I'm no chef. I give full credit to the recipes. A lot of the recipes use similar ingredients so by staying stocked up on those staples I save money. My kids are eating soups full of veges and loving them. It doesn't hurt that the pages are full of the Naked Chef himself. Ah, crush.

It's just simple stuff, like pastas and how to roast a chicken the right way. But sometimes simple is best. I think home cooks fail a lot because we try recipes with terms that are way over our head. Then we think we can't cook. But you can, you can cook good, nutritious, pure earth food. You just have to know the basics. I've pared my little culinary adventure with this book:

The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters really breaks it down. Each chapter tackles the absolute basics of good cooking. I'm talking technique, like how to cook fluffy rice and dried beans. How to make chicken broth, polenta, and custard. And most importantly I've learned what a poached egg is. Some of you might be laughing but I didn't grow up knowing any of that. This has been a wonderful learning process for me. Knowing the basics, I feel like I can cook anything now. When Steven and I go out for a date I can tell what's in our food and how it was cooked. I love knowing that. And I love that it's so incredibly simple.

Both of these books allow you to go to the farmer's market, know what you're buying, and go back home to prepare a lovely, delicious meal. You can finally make peace with your oven. Who doesn't want that?