Cooking made Easy–well, easier!

Having recently adopted three rather lovely hens, I’ve, I’m ashamed to say, been a bit lax with the cooking, and especially the writing about food that I so loved. Well, now the hens are settled in their purpose built run, I can, one again, continue with the cooking and writing that I so enjoy! I began with trialling a ‘basil burst’ pizza, but the recent star of the show has been the OH, who has discovered a liking for cooking Sunday Lunch.

Pizza Toppings – I didn’t chop the pepperoni – Tesco’s did that for me!

Now, this is something we don’t usually have, well, not in terms of a sit down roast dinner, normally opting for a bacon buttie and coffee, or similar. So this has been quite a treat, with him insisting he do all the work: He even cleans the kitchen after!

I must say though, that his life (and, therefore, mine too!) has been made a little easier with the recent present of a Jamie Oliver Knife block set, and all-purpose peeler from his new ‘Kitchen Kit’ range of all those basic tools that speed up the preparation tasks. The knives, in particular, are brilliant! They’re weighted just right and have a comfy grip you can really hold onto if needed, although the sharpness of them will mean that little effort is needed to cut through most things! Whilst preparing the roast, the OH used the paring knife to prep. small veg, then the utility knife for larger potatoes and parsnips. When the chicken was cooked (free range only in celebration of our new girls!), he even used the carving knife to serve up! As of yet, we’ve only used the basic peeling blade on the peeler as we haven’t found a need to peel tomatoes or julienne carrots and the suchlike! I’m sure there’ll come a time though.

For the real ‘knife’ fans amongst you, I’ve taken the details below from the Jamie website:

“This knife block set includes five knives: 11cm/4” Paring knife, 15cm/6” Utility knife, 19cm/7 ½” Chefs knife, 22cm/8 ½” Bread knife, 20cm/8” Carving knife. Each knife has a stainless steel blade and chunky bolster that provide superb balance and extra weight for easy chopping and slicing. Each knife is named at the handle so they can be easily identified in the knife block. Full tang MoV stainless steel blade.”

The one other feature that is so useful and often forgotten is that each knife is named on the end of it’s handle so that when they are in the block, you know which one to take without having to remember or guess!

Last night I had mum over and she took one of my old serrated knives to slice an onion. Since her eyes were watering, I took over the task and couldn’t believe how much effort was required to simply chop it up! Now all I need to remember is to keep them sharp – I’ll be needing one of his  ‘Really Sharp Knife Tools’ then!