An Update Of Sorts....

OK, nothing says "You NEED to get to work on this Gordon Ramsay project that you keep going on about." like randomly opening a web page and seeing an Amazon ad for Gordon Ramsay cookbooks staring you in the face. So yeah. Maybe I should I get started??

Phew!

What a week it's been! Between working, taking care of my home, getting things ready for Easter, trying to get back into a regular running schedule and starting my cake decorating class, I've been a busy girl since my last post (which was two weeks ago, yikes!!)! I remember waking up at around 4 a.m this past Monday and wondering how in the world I was going to get it all done! But here I find myself on Sunday afternoon still in one piece! It's been nice having some time between yesterday and today to relax for a little bit, but now it's time to get back  business and update you all on what i've been up to :).

So remember in my last post I talked about how impossible it is to find "Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course" book? Well as luck may have it, it turns out that another book entitled "Gordon Ramsay's Home Cooking" is being released on April 9th, 2013! I can't find too much info about it but from what I can see it looks like the exact same book (same cover, number of pages, etc) but with a different name. So I'm really looking forward to this coming in the mail and getting started!! I find it so funny that just the other day I was talking about this on the blog and then all of a sudden this new release turns up! Maybe it's just sheer coincidence or something bigger trying to push me in the right direction? Only time will tell ;)

Yesterday I actually got to experiment with cooking Greek food for the first time! I happened to buy some ground lamb the other day and while perusing recipes for it,I came across a dish called "γιουβέτσι με κιμά αρνίσιο" (and for those of you who can't speak or read Greek, that is pronounced "yoo-VET-see meh kee-MAH ar-NEE-seeyoh." Overall I think I did  pretty well with it! It basically consisted of the ground lamb, orzo pasta, chicken broth, tomatoes, onions and celery (and of course, olive oil and spices or else it wouldn't be Greek cooking ;) ). 

Apologies for the pre-packaged broth and tomatoes!  I had very little time this week!

The finished product!

While cooking this delicious dish, I broke one of the cardinal rules of cooking: Make sure you have all your ingredients prepped and ready. Don't just assume you have what you need! The recipe called for chopped tomatoes which I forgot to pick up at the store! All I had to substitute was that can of Pastene ground tomatoes hidden in the background there. It wasn't absolutely correct but didn't taste bad overall in the end. Although it did contribute to the unfortunate end result of overdone Orzo in the final product. Too much liquid +not enough Orzo to soak it all up = a bad time. 

The verdict: Not bad for a first attempt! I brought this dish to a get together at a friend house and it got pretty favorable reviews! Thanks to all who gave it a shot even though it looked odd :). I will most likely make this dish again. Only next time i'll have EVERYTHING I need!

The second dish I attempted yesterday was a dessert called "Peeps S'mores Bars" from a blog called 'Bake at 350'. It's the perfect dish to throw together if you don't know what to do with your leftover Peeps! Of course, you could just EAT your leftover Peeps, but where's the fun in that?? Also why does anyone HAVE leftover Peeps in the first place. Eat them! Anyway....

I improvised a little with this recipe too! But not in a bad way this time :) ! I added some extra chocolate chips and M&M's for flavor! This is was a fun recipe to try out and even more fun to eat in the end! You can't see but in the blue bowl there are rolled oats and in the sauce pan there is butter and dark corn syrup.  My only downfall with this one was not enough Peeps! There wasn't enough marshmallow goodness to make a whole layer. So I ended up cutting the peeps in half to compensate (again, not a bad thing just sad :-/ ).  The end result came out like this: 

Melted Peep-y goodness!

Verdict: Not a smashing success, but better than I imagined. I think i'm just not as big a fan of oats as most people. It was certainly sweet enough! Between the Peeps, the M&M's and the chocolate chips, you might need a glass of milk or water afterwards :). One of my friends who tried this actually used the phrase "It's a lot of things from my childhood rolled into one." The flavor was definitely a familiar one, but oddly enough it tasted completely different than what was in it! Strange, huh? 

I guess that's all for now since this post is pretty long already. I hope the next time I have a dish to share that it will be a Ramsay-inspired one!! I'm so excited to get started on this!