What planet is Jamie Oliver on? £1

[BananaCocktails]

I just want to say I absolutely love Jamie, Oliver, and his cooking . watching
£1 wonders right now
he is using up some very expensive ingredients, 3/4 of a bar of butter isn’t budget friendly at all, if I had butter, I certainly wouldn’t be using almost all of it in one recipe it’s so expensive nowadays
he is also using olive oil, another very expensive ingredient
I feel like I’m moaning, but I went to Sainsbury’s today and spent almost £20 and bloody packed lunch alone for the kids. I absolutely hate margarine so bit the bullet and bought butter which was £2.60!

😁😁😁
I agree.

Without wanting to appear some mad fan, Jamie actually does a really good minestrone! This was a recipe he did when we were in lockdown. I have used it loads since, you can adjust it to use whatever vegetables or herbs you have lying around. It is great for using up bits and bobs.

I enjoy his programme but the recipes are complicated. He means well I think.

@RosesAndHellebores

"Sliced potato, sliced onion, pepper, chopped bacon on layers deeper but like lasagne with a cheese sauce poured through and baked. Excellent with cabbage or brocoli and Carrots."

Do you cook the bacon first or just whack it in raw?

@RosesAndHellebores I've seen ox tail in the shops but always been a bit apprehensive of doing anything with it (even though I like it!)

I joined yesterday and just laughed. One recipe came to £15.21, I had none of the ingredients in the cupboard.

Exactly Add some salad with it and it’s more than enough.

What did you join yesterday @Museya15 ?

What recipe was it that cost £15.21?
Could you post the ingredients list, you may have joined something other than £1 meals.

The recipes that JO has been doing are fairly basic. He may need to learn a bit more about macros. One tin of soup and a tin of butter beans would have made a better pie.
I'm pretty stunned by the high percentage of posters who think the pizza was meant to serve 8.
His love of a pestle and mortar is slightly amusing, just assume people only have a knife and a board Jamie.
The ingredients were costed early 2023 as an average of the four biggest supermarkets' prices.

There are good, bad and indifferent things about JO but at least he is doing something.

You can find them online - look for Jamies £1 dinners.

Namechanger1002 it's Tones Cookbook

I find his recipes inspiring. We also have a freezer full of bolognese and chilli, but it's nice to see new ideas that you can modify to your own tastes (or whatever you have leftover in the fridge). And I think his campaigns have been well thought out.

We've watched a couple of episodes and I've just been having a look on his website. I don't see any reason why some more expensive ingredients can't be substituted, ie use vegetable oil instead of sunflower/olive. Buttery spread instead of butter. That's what we do in our house to keep costs down and what we're used to.

I also really liked the look of the aubergine parmigiana and agree the portion didn't look enough. Depends if you've got the budget, but I'd probably add a crusty or other bread roll (Lidl fairly cheap) or put on a small base of rice or cousous.

There are a couple of meals I like the look of on his website that you can eat and save/freeze rest for later with ideas of how to vary what you serve them with.

It doesnt even make a lot of sense in the first place though, his dad had a pub, he worked there, he started to get noticed by that woman who did the Riverford cafe and started work there, then he got noticed by accident I think when they did a programme about the restaurant

Hardly 'family connections' like some actor or politician in a sinister way for gods sake.

And 'middle class' thrown in like its some sort of insult, his family seem an average family who ran a business, they're not oligarchs!!

He isn't middle class by upbringing, at all. And he was classed as special needs. So much pointless bitching on here.

Nat6999 any chance of getting the pub chef channel? I live in the US and our prices are outrageous.

He is the one who made the claims not me. His family owned and ran a pub restaurant business. He made it into the Carluccio level kitchens via business and family trade connections. Nothing particularly unusual about that but I never understood why he had to burnish an already successful persona by claiming to be otherwise - reminiscent of a lot of white blokes-of-the-people identifying as working class.

He was happy to leave his actual minimum wage staff without pay and small suppliers unpaid whilst walking away from the debts. Again, not unusual for wealthy businessmen but then don't pretend to be a great philanthropist whilst doing it.

I wish he would just retire so sick of the same faces on tele. If it's not the same old faces it's their nepo babies. So predictable.

Not perfect but good for ideas and you can tweak and substitute some stuff

Well Rick Stein has been around a lot longer than Jamie and I hope he doesn’t retire anytime soon!
Anyway why the heck should people who are good at their jobs retire?

I think the program would have been improved by having Jo co-host with Ian the Skint Roofer.

Rick Stein is 76, I think he’ll retire soon whether you want him to or not!

And Rick is a lot older than Jamie, but his first TV series was only in 1995, four years before Jamie‘s first.

I think he's a nice enough guy.

He gets flack for trying to help - school dinners is a perfect example.

I thought exactly the same. Minuscule portions.

How is it that so many people didnt even understand how many portions the pizza did. It served 2 yet so many posters are slagging him off because they didnt even understand the serving size?