Cooking with a Friend : Jamie Oliver’s Ricotta Fritters and Zucchini Salad
A week ago Monday Andrea took a vacation day and we spent the afternoon and the evening together. It was a two part date, the first of which today’s post is about.
When she was over last (seen here) I showed her my new cookbook : Jamie Oliver’s 15 Minute Meals. So she suggested that we cook one of the menus together for lunch. We decided on this meal, his Ricotta Fritters and Tomato Sauce, with a side of Zucchini Salad flavoured with fresh mint. To quote him ‘These fritters are an absolute doddle and the crispy creaminess works a treat with the tomato sauce’.
We had a lot of fun and laughs cooking together and the results were delicious indeed. I was a bit surprised by how tasty the salad was, given that I believed that I didn’t like zucchini.
Even with two experienced cooks at the helm, it took us considerably longer than 15 minutes to make. More like 45 minutes, but that was probably because we’d never tried the recipes before, and now that we have, we both think we could probably do it in the 15 minutes that Jamie thinks we can.
The recipe called for ‘Passata’, which is not a commonly used term here, but we looked it up and saw that it is just tomato purée, so we made our own by putting some of Nick’s home preserved tomatoes in the food processor. Next time we would drain the tomatoes before puréeing them because the sauce turned out a bit more watery than it should have been, but it still tasted good.
Conveniently, we got the fresh basil and mint that the recipes called for from my herb garden.
Nick was working from home on Monday so was able to join us for lunch, which we had outside on the deck. Also on the menu were some white wine spritzers for the ladies and a Guinness for Nick.
Tomorrow I’ll tell you about the second part of our date : a visit to the Canadian National Exhibition. All in all, it was a great day. Not to belabour the point, since I’ve already mentioned my situation a couple of times on the blog, but first thing on Tuesday I was due at the hospital for an operation on my foot, so being able to fill my last day on my feet for a while in such a nice way, made this lady-date with a good friend extra special.
Thank you for taking a look,
xo loulou
