Recipe #1: Sweet Potato and Chorizo Soup, and Avocado Shrimp with old School Marie Rose Sauce

For my first date with Jamie, I cooked two recipes that didn't necessarily go together, but worked nonetheless. I cooked this before I struck the idea of putting together a blog, so unfortunately there are no photos. But there will be for the rest!

Starting with the shrimp:

Everything about the shrimp was fantastic! It was super easy, didn't require any ingredients, and cooked FAST! In fact, it cooked so fast that it was done well before the soup, and it got cold before I got to it, but it still tasted pretty darn good. I'm especially excited for this recipe because it solves two problems that keep me from cooking more often:

1. Since Phil doesn't live here yet, I end up just cooking for myself, which I hate because it's hard to cook just enough for me. I always have way too many leftovers, and I get sick of them quickly. This recipe is just enough for me and maybe a few shrimp leftover for tomorrow's lunch!

2. I'm always hungry when I get home from work, and don't want to spend all the time cooking--I want to eat it now! This shrimp was so easy to make, that I didn't have to let my poor tummy growl for too long before eating.

Now for the Soup:

The soup turned out really well, and there was A LOT of it! I was worried that I was going to have too much, but thankfully Mike and Phil helped me eat it, so it went pretty quickly.

What went well:

• It was just the right amount of spicy (from the chorizo). Jamie said to put some finely chopped red pepper on top, and I skipped that part, which I'm pretty thankful for, because I think it would have been just a little too spicy. I put the pepper on Mike's, and he said it was pretty spicy.
• It seemed to be the right amount of everything, which meant for the right level of thickness. It was not watery, but not so thick that it no longer seemed like soup.
• It was a good, hearty soup. I still don't think soup is every REALLY enough to fill me up like a full meal, but this soup at least has lots of different vegetables, as well as the chorizo which helps make it more filling. Just add a grilled cheese or quesadilla and it's the perfect little lunch!

What I learned:

• I didn't realize that I needed to actually blend it until the very end, which took me by surprise. It turned out okay, I just would rather have had the blender out and ready to go ahead of time.
• Jamie's recipe called for either sweet potatoes or yams. I bought sweet potatoes at the store, and was scared when I got home, started peeling them, and they looked like regular potatoes on the inside! I was expecting that orangey yam color, but I learned that real sweet potatoes are white on the inside like potatoes! Next time I would try yams just to try, but the sweet potatoes turned out just fine.
• My soup looked pretty much like Jamie's pictures, except the color of mine was much darker and browner. I imagine this is partly due to the fact that I used sweet potatoes instead of yams, and also maybe because of the kind of chorizo that I used.

Overall, a delicious, healthy, and easy meal! Off to a good start!

And, as Mike requested, I will thank Jamie for what I learned. . . thanks Jamie!

The point of it all

So I've become newly obsessed with Jamie Oliver and what he's trying to do right now. If you don't know, he's the "Naked Chef," which I never actually watched, and he just started his new show, "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution." I was first introduced to who he was through Karen, who discovered him and his delicious recipes while she was living overseas. Just recently, I watched the first two episodes of "Food Revolution," and I'm sold.

Jamie's on a "crusade" of sorts to change the way America, and the world, eats and thinks of food. It's really impossible for me to describe the problem and what he's trying to do to solve it better than he can, so I highly recommend watching this video. I know it's a little lengthy, but it's totally worth it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIwrV5e6fMY

So here's where I come in. I bought one of Jamie's cookbooks, Jaime Oliver: Food Revolution, and I've begun cooking some of the delicious recipes in there. In the beginning of the book, Jamie asks us to take a pledge that we'll pass on at least one recipe from each chapter to at least two other people. He imagines that means that we'll actually personally teach someone to cook these recipes. As awesome and fun as that sounds, it's pretty unrealistic, given all of our busy lives. So in lieu of that, I am cooking the recipes, and posting them on here, including what I did that worked, and what I would have changed. My hope is that you can take these recipes and add them to your own repertoire.

The whole point of all this is for everyone to start cooking at home and eating healthier. Once I started watching Jamie, I immediately wanted to do something to help. I quickly realized that, not being the healthiest eater in the world, it would be extremely hypocritical of me to start anywhere but with myself. So I'm working on cooking through all (or most) of the recipes in Jamie's book. Please take these recipes and, following Jamie's instructions, pass them on!