Jamie Olivers 30-min meals

I stumbled upon Jamies new cookbook "30 min meals" at Sainsburys and thought it would be a brilliant buy because I a) love cooking books b) like Jamies tv show c)love bargains (the book was on offer) d)got excited about the possibility to cook nice meals without spending the whole day in the kitchen. The fact that I usually have at least one kid clenched to my leg while cooking and the another one shouting after "maaaaaammmmmma" every 5 min made my decision even easier. Cooking healthy meals quickly was just too tempting to resist.

Oh boy, how mistaken I was!!! So far I have cooked 5 of his dishes (which are usually 2 courses) and I never made it under 45 min (despite skipping the desserts most of the time). The whole idea of making those meals in 30 min seems like multi-tasking gone mad and the fact that I am rather competitive doesn´t make it any better! I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to get all the things (he uses like 397343 ingredients for each recipe)in the right bowls, at the right time and in the right size and order. On top of this I needed to constantly stop my 1 year old from eating misdirected pieces after my cutting-slicing-and-grating mania off the floor. So after another, near heart-attack experience I decided tonight to give Jamie his 30 min of fame when presenting his recipes on TV but to stick to the rule: DONT`T TRY THIS AT HOME (at least not in 30 min)!!!

This is, however, not to say don´t buy his book. Most of the recipes are quite nice. The only problem that I have is its promise to help you make healthy dishes quickly, which it totally does not. In fact, the more quickly you try to do it, the more likely it is that you die of a heart attack before you even get to taste it.

Since I intend to wander on earth for a bit longer I decided to ban the book from the kitchen on weekdays but I will definitely try some more when there´s time for it.

This said I should mention that we had a delicious dinner tonight. M. gave it 8.5 points/10. One of the best scores in our shared history. We had monkfish, which I bought at the local market here in Ashbourne, accompanied by a tagine with mussels and couscous. Totally loved it. Even S., who has become a rather picky eater lately asked for more twice.