guest blogger / Robert Festino

Sorry for the lack of updates, I have been busy working on other projects. Lucky for me, my friend, photographer and graphic designer Robert Festino decided to give a Jamie recipe a shot. I'm annoyed that his photos are so much better than mine! Read his account below. - DC



Robert's take on Jamie's South American Fishcakes

Fishcakes, fishcakes, rolly polly fishcakes! Okay, I don't even know what that pop culture reference is at this point, but I cannot get it out of my head. The other night I was starved for something A) fried B) bites sized, and C) from the seafood counter of Whole Foods market. I had just made some wonderful baja style fish tacos a few weeks before and craved the same. Since I'm in need of improving on my culinary repertoire I wanted to make something new this time. This is where Jamie Oliver and Diane Chang enter the picture. Fishcakes, fishcakes....

I looked up Jamie's recipe for South American Fishcakes. No surprise to anyone, this recipe completely fit the bill. Jamie recommends haddock, but I picked up tilapia. Sure the flavor profile would be different, but it's supposed to contain much lower mercury levels, and I really like tilapia. Okay, enough of that business. Let the cooking begin.



Prepping the ingredients here is really fast. First I started boiling my big pot of water. I quickly threw my bay leaf covered fish fillets onto a bed of milk and into the oven. The idea of cooking fish in milk was curious to me, but who's to question these things in life? I assumed it added flavor and moisture to make the fish more fibrous in the mixture. He calls for baking them 15 minutes in a 375 F˚ oven. While that was happening I grabbed my knife and started chopping and peeling. I don't own a peeler so my knife skills on the potato, which are lacking, came back to haunt me. I've peeled many carrots with a knife. Peeling potatoes should be no problem, right? Well, let's just say it was a time suck. We only had 15 minutes here! So after dicing them and throwing them into boiling water, I hit the rest of the ingredients with my knife. All chopped and ready to go, lovely.



The fun part is mashing everything together in the bowl. I love this stuff. After that, I actually placed the bowl in the fridge for a while. I was in need of a nap. Sorry, I had a long day.



Awake and ready to get back at it, I heated the sunflower oil. Then floured my cutting board and started rolling out the little palm sized cakes. This, again, was fun. The first few formed nicely. The fourth bunch were a little tricky. You definitely want to keep your hands well floured in order to avoid stickiness.




Watching the cakes fry for five minutes is where the real fun began. I did four at a time. They came out golden brown, perfect. Honestly, I recommend this dish to anyone, even the novice cook. I am experienced enough in the kitchen, and frying, which once was a challenge is no longer one, but these cakes are so well formulated that there is no chance of them falling to bits within the pain. The consistency is that solid.



Eating them was exciting. I paired 'em with a Pinot Grigio.

Oh, now that I think of it, the original verse was FISH HEADS, not cakes. Gross! Jamie's (and mine) FISHCAKES, delicious.



By: Robert Festino

Organic + farmers market fresh Roasted Carrots and Beets and the Juiciest Pork Chops


First off, you're probably thinking "pork chops, again?" (See this post.) Cooking and blogging about bone-in pork chops two times in one month might appear suspiciously unoriginal, but I swear I'm no one trick-pony. I
just happened to have beets and carrots from the farmer's market lying around that day and that needed to be used immediately. As bad as I am at this, I attempt to use veggies the day of purchase in order to maximize the freshness. Actually, I usually suck at this so it was time for me to shape up.

Here's the thing about beets. I love to eat them, but I hate cooking with them. The long scraggly leaves, the dirt that collects in the crevasses­ all these factors leave me feeling lazy and uninspired. All the peeling and slicing and boiling and dot dot dot. With that being said, the beets I saw at the farmer's market last weekend were gorgeous: Robust, with healthy green leaves, unusual for beets sometimes. So I bought some, not knowing what would befall upon one of my weeknight meals until I found Jamie's pork recipe. My last "Jamie" pork was such a success that this one seemed like a smart investment. This project has turned me into a day trader I tell you.

The sage + pork combination was going to be a surefire winner. Sage is so good with most meat dishes. It's kind of woodsy and savory. Burn it and you ward off evil spirits, or something of that auspicious nature. Press it onto a pork chop, and you get a fatty, juicy decadent dinner entree. Sage is awesome and in my own kitchen, a very underrated herb.

The carrots and beets were roasted until glazed. The carrot was dressed in an orange juice, garlic and thyme mixture while the beets were dressed in balsamic, garlic, and rosemary. I think Jamie did this so both would achieve similar levels of sweetness. And the sweetness was just enough to balance the natural saltiness of the pork loin.

Overall, this dish was good, but maybe it lacked a little oomph for a Monday night. Back to the drawing board, I guess.



Here I am, chopping off my thumb, as usual.


Segregating my root vegetables.


I always cook my pork under the guise of the yin-yang symbol.


The directions said to deglaze the pan with lemon juice, giving me delicious
citrusy crispy pork bits to spoon over my dish. Perhaps, my favorite component of the dish.

Salmon with Couscous, Asparagus Tips, Matchstick Zucchini

When I’m alone, I usually opt for easy 2-step meals. Despite working at an award-winning, national food magazine, I often come home to unappetizing freezer-burned food and doggy bagged-goods. Yum.

Sometimes, I just skip dinner altogether.

J.O.’s Jamie’s Dinners cookbook has various recipes designed for the single, low-income folk. I shied from that section initially, not wanting to acknowledge my alone-ness. I avoided it the same way I avoid the self-help section in the bookstore, tiptoeing close by enough to see if I can catch some of the titles without getting caught. But then an image of pan-roasted salmon over a bed of couscous caught my attention. Salmon is a fish I rarely cook these days. It used to be a weeknight staple during my George Foreman-years in college. Remember those days? A little salt and pepper over supermarket salmon then tossed on the G.F. grill. Now that I’m embarking on my post-collegiate culinary practices, cooking protein on what is essentially a non-stick panini press just won’t cut it anymore. It’s time I duke it out with a real grill pan and some Atlantic wild caught salmon from Whole Foods.

The recipe called for zucchini sliced into matchstick-sized pieces, asparagus tips, and fresh salmon of course. The fish and veggie combo is served over couscous dressed in lemon juice, olive oil, and fresh roughly cut-tomatoes–a true Medi spread. I was excited about adding the finely diced red chili pepper.

Jamie is notorious for seasoning his food with red chili. Luckily, I picked up some red jalapenos at the farmer’s market over the weekend. (I realized later that having some on hand all the time is helpful since a lot of recipes call for red chilies).

Though the whole dish was quite easy to put together but assembling the plate (so that it looked appropriate for the obligatory overhead shot) was difficult. There was an array of colors and textures and precisely what my grandmother would be excited to see on my plate. As she likes to tell me in her Sichuan-Mandarin, “Food should be about balance”. And I think I achieved it with this meal.



Farmer¹s Market/Whole Foods-fresh produce and protein.


I was so close to making sashimi.


Couscous dressed in lemon juice, olive oil, fresh tomatoes, and cilantro.


Almost at the finish lineŠ


Trying a healthy dessert for a change.


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