Jamie Oliver

Beenie

I suppose I'm one of the lucky ones who doesn't have to budget and can buy what I want and fill my trolley if needs be.

I can cook and have loads of recipe books, and find that I make a lot of vegetarian meals with peas, lentils, tofu, quorn, quinoa and a mix of pasta/rice/couscous/potatoes. The meals don't cost much.

However, and this is the problem to my mind, because I choose to make these meals, and don't have to for money reasons, I like them. I think it would be completely different if I was forced to budget and make cheap meals. I think I would really resent that day after day, week after week.

Jamie makes it look fun because he knows that he doesn't have to eat like that all the time. I shall look at his book but I think something by Jak Monroe will be far far better for people struggling to have a healthy and varied diet on a tight budget.

evie451

I just watched it on 4OD, he is a brand and a business I suppose but I do think he trys..........The book he has out for the series is very pretty and glossy and hopefully has more detail than the show! not sure how MS it is to buy the book though

I will keep watching the show as his enthusiasm is quite infectious and I am glad he picked beef for his lefties recipe cos I am useless with it unless its sliced in sarnies or a stir fry....

I did slag off some of his 30min meals for daft ingredients like the one with the figs drizzled (hope you like the cheffyness there) with honey but then Al4i have figs for 69p in the super 6 this week.........:rotfl:

maman

I've got it recorded and haven't watched it yet.

On the general theme, I expect I'll do the same as I do with all cookery programmes: I'll watch it, :eek: over all the oil and salt and cream they're putting in and then maybe take a few tiny ideas away as to how I may adapt things to be healthier, cheaper, easier etc. I believe all these programmes are really done for entertainment and to boost the bank balance of the chefs and TV companies.

That being said, this recipe of Jamie's:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pork-recipes/6-hour-slow-roasted-pork-shoulder

is cheap and a family favourite.

BitterAndTwisted

I thought the dishes he demonstrated on the programme last night were fab. Feeding six people two meals each out of one piece of brisket at £14 was very fair. I thought the recipe using the left-overs with rice, cabbage and eggs looked pretty good. If you don't have the same sauces to marinade the meat you could use other ones or none at all.

Same for the fish pie: he mentioned that using frozen filets/pieces meant they were cheaper than fresh but just as god for that recipe and you could control what went in, so a person could use a handful of prawns if they had them to hand, or use something else. That huge pie was enough to feed six, so I think that was a pretty reasonable. If I was skint to the max I'd use less fish and add veggies, just like many cooks do.

As for the pizza: some people have no idea how to make one or think that they're difficult or need fancy ingredients. They don't but if no-one has ever told you, how would you know? Still, those pizzas came in at the price they did because sausage-meat was used on them, and no mozzarella. They would probably have cost half that using veggies only.

I think some people are going to object to what Jamie does purely on principle because they have an axe to grind, and it has nothing to do with budgets, what he thinks his target-audience might be or anything else.



Edit: I seem t remember quite some time ago he was trying to help a mother with pretty reasonably-prices dishes for her children, one of which entailed using salmon fillets. She cried that she couldn't afford luxuries like salmon while standing in her fancy kitchen and smoking a fag. Fags which cost upwards of SEVEN QUID a packet. I dont think we need to be told how many ruddy salmon fillets could be bought out of her smoking-habit per week. I wanted to throw something at the telly. These are the sort of people who need to be watching Jamie. And paying attention.

ash28

don't mind Jamie Oliver, I think the intentions are good but often comes across as a bit of a prat.

I don't have to stick to a particular budget for food shopping if I don't want to...but since taking early retirement it's become almost like a hobby to shop on a budget.....years ago when the kids were small I did have to stick to a budget.

Earlier this year I was visiting (helping) son and dil when she was in hospital having a baby (their 4th)....I stayed in their house, which I normally don't do. We used to live very close to them and had a big house so all the family meals were done at our house. We moved away and now when we visit we stay in a hotel as they don't have the room to put us up.

I was shocked at how little was in the cupboards......bit of cereal, bread, few herbs and not a lot else. The fridge was virtually empty with the exception of a couple of bits of salad veg, marg and milk......

It turned out they lived mainly on takeaways and ready meals......at what cost I have no idea, they were always pleading poverty and no wonder.

I did a shop of the basics, tinned toms, beans, kidney beans, chilli powder, mixed herbs, tomato puree, stock cubes, flour (plain & SR), rice, pasta, you know the type of thing.

Before she came out of hospital I made up a big batch of mince, made a bolognese sauce, a chilli and a shepherds pie without the potato topping, a beef casserole with potatoes in it, a chicken curry, more or less a weeks worth of meals so she wouldn't have to cook for a few days when she got home.

They had 3 children.....when I got home I asked her how she got on with what I'd left for her.....she had been over the moon....the kids devoured the meals she said.....

We often helped them out with bills and stuff they were struggling to pay....and our son has a decent well paid job and I couldn't really understand why they struggled.....now I know why.

jackel

Hi all - Didn't find the program money saving, inspiring or helpful
,just the same jamie"showman"oliver . Think he's run out of ideas and is past his sell-by date. I used to like him and his shows but every dog has it's day. I shalln't be buying his book - not even out of a charity shop. jac x

catkins

liney wrote: »

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/29/jamie-oliver-cookbook-libraries-save-with

He has donated 4000 books to libraries so that they are available to all for free. I suppose that must all be about his image, and it will be his fault that the 'poor' don't use libraries, like they didn't use SureStart Centres.

Anyhoo, i'm not going to defend him any further; you don't have to watch him if you don't want to. Instead i'm going recreate that fish pie with whatever is lurking in my freezer.

I'd like to know how many, if any, other celebrity chefs have donated their books to libraries.

I get that we don't all like the same people but I really don't get the Jamie bashing. He is rich yes but I still think he is more down to earth than a lot of the chefs, has good intentions and seems a nice person. Some of them (Gordon Ramsey) I dislike intensely.

I would also like to say as much as I like Jack Monroe, some of her recipes are pretty tasteless although they are all really cheap.

She was having a dig at Jamie saying not everyone can buy fruit and veg from a market. She said there is no market where she lives so she has no choice but to buy from supermarkets. Well she lives in Southend, where I was pretty sure there is a market a couple of days a week, but there are definitely Asian supermarkets there where you can buy cheap fruit and veg, along with spices, herbs, big bags of onions, rice etc. There are also an Aldi and Lidl, both of which do the weekly range of cheap fruit and veg but she fails to mention that

maman

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Edit: I seem t remember quite some time ago he was trying to help a mother with pretty reasonably-prices dishes for her children, one of which entailed using salmon fillets. She cried that she couldn't afford luxuries like salmon while standing in her fancy kitchen and smoking a fag. Fags which cost upwards of SEVEN QUID a packet. I dont think we need to be told how many ruddy salmon fillets could be bought out of her smoking-habit per week. I wanted to throw something at the telly. These are the sort of people who need to be watching Jamie. And paying attention.

I remember that. I think it was the same woman whose LO was sitting on the floor eating chips and kebab meat from a polystyrene box when she had a range cooker in the kitchen never/rarely used! I found it heartbreaking.

Maitane

Reading about Ash28's DIL is more what I was thinking about.
What would be really handy is a less patronising, more basic, less fancy pants olive oil and showmanship programme that teaches total basics for total novices and builds from there. Like 'OS-ish cooking for dummies' if there could be a volunteer.

While many, like Bitter And Twisted, get wound up by someone smoking an expensive packet of cigarettes and complaining about £7, it's worth remembering that this isn't necessarily about the salmon being £7. It could be a front for the fact they've never tried salmon before or they've not cooked anything beyond beans on toast.

There's an assumption that people can all cook but that girl in question hadn't been taught by her family and you don't get cooking lessons in school any more. I started secondary school seventeen years ago and I did two years of 'Food Technology', it was once every two weeks on a rota with Information Technology and highlights of us actually cooking were beans on toast, cheese topped crumpets and a cheesecake style disaster made with powdered jelly and cream cheese.
No knife skills, no nutritional skills, no meal planning, nowt. It's like the financial planning education that Martin has worked so hard for - it should be like a follow on from that.

patchwork_cat

There is a few issues, although I have the book out from the library and will be making some things from it. Agree that he ahs stolen some ideas from Economy Gastronomy. Also his brisket was flat, but all the supermarkets sell rolled, apparently rolled ones aren't always one piece, so maybe not that easy just to open up - but we are talking non cookers here and I can cook , but was thrown by it.

Also when he was making the pizza , although he used different pans I don't think they were the sort of pans everyone would have he should have shown you could make it in a cake tin, or make a rectangular one in a tray ( I do this.)

I can sometimes be blonde and said to an acquaintance a long time ago oh I would like to make Chilli, but I don't like kidney beans! It was a doh moment!

He used lemon juice and zest of half a lemon - could we freeze the rest of the lemon for next week or grate it and freeze, etc.?