30 minutes eh?!

April 26th - You have probably gathered by now that I'm prepared to give cooking a go but I'm often rushed/starving/late home/on my own or a combination of these! Nonetheless, cream cheese bagel notwithstanding, I do like home cooked food and have never really gone in for ready meals bar the odd pizza! I bought Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals and thought this would make my life easier still - he makes it look easy on TV.  I had frozen seabass and sweet potatoes in the fridge so decided to try Sea Bass and Crispy Pancetta with Sweet Potato Mash. I got all the ingredients and equipment ready, he kettle was on, the saucepan  (with lid!) was on standby....... Ready Steady Cook.....slammed the sweet potatoes in the microwave.....the dressing was made for the Asian greens...skipped the pancetta because I had none....then I had to put the fish on....by this stage I was stressed and the glasses were going on and off and I was getting confused which part of the recipe that I was following and trying to do bits that I wasn't even making! Time was marching on ....thankfully I decided to check the sweet potatoes and they were still hard!  By now my timings were all out and I thought I'll never manage to do all that peeling and mashing of sweet potatoes while sea bass cooks.....then I missed a step and it said 'carefully tip the sweet potatoes on top of the mango chutney mixture' and there was me thinking "what mango chutney mixture is that?"  When it got to the 'Drink' step I was in severe need of a large gin and tonic! Completed dish took longer than all my other meals....though it did taste good.  And I even did a bit of a Jamie and stuck the lot on a board!