Jamie's one pound meals

Riverwalk

Indeed cheap as chips Norah but the portions are tiny - one tin of chickpeas between 4 people gives about 4g of protein each.

I make a similar curry and it's very tasty but hardly filling.

Surely it depends on the size of the cauliflower?
One large cauli will do Cauliflower cheese for 3 or even 4 in my experience.
@Rainnsnow - JO’s recipes are also available free online.

Mollygo

When we were first married I had £6 per week ‘housekeeping’ and the 2 of us ate very healthily. Then we had children.

What puzzles me is feeding a family with children.
Did/do all your children/grandchildren eat with no complaints or did you/do you cater for their likes and dislikes?
Do you allow any
“Please don’t give me” when you say what’s on the menu?
Did you/do you say, “You stay there till you finish,” or “No pudding till you’ve eaten that,” the way I remember from school dinners?
Did/Do you find your hungry children/grandchildren will eat anything?
Starving children probably would.

I went the route of "I'll just put a teaspoonful on your plate, then, so you try a tiny smear" if it was something new to them that they were suspicious of, and "Sometimes you like things better the second time round, when you are more used to it" and a teaspoonful again, if it was a repeat of something fairly new. Quite often subsequent servings of it were eaten without comment, when it was no longer seem as weird and dangerous.

Some things were never liked, in any form, and I accepted that. One daughter couldn't stand mushrooms, and if a dish contained any, her plate at the end of a meal would have a ring of the detested things round the edge. She now loves them!!!

Forcing children to "Eat it all" and clear the plate before getting pudding are doomed to put them off for life. I solved the "empty your plate" problem by letting them help themselves to as much as they thought they would eat, and then expecting at least an effort to finish it. Often someone who thought they only wanted a small helping would return for seconds. I didn't produce the pudding or even mention it until everyone had stopped eating the main course. The mere sight of, say, an apple pie, was enough for knives and forks to be laid down and spoons taken up! Sometimes (randomly) there wasn't any pudding, so it was a big risk for them to declare that they had no more room for shepherds' pie, but they might just manage a plate of pud.

When I was young I ate just about everything that was on offer, not because I was forced to eat it but because I just wasn't particularly fussy and didn't have many dislikes. (I even thoroughly enjoyed school dinners).

One of the few things I wouldn't eat was curry. Although I had never eaten it, I decided, from the smell, that I wouldn't like it. Mum didn't push the subject. I eventually did try it and loved it (an example of Dr Seuss's Green Eggs and Ham syndrome, which always makes me chuckle).

I can remember going with Mum to see a relative who served a roast dinner with Oxo gravy - and for some reason Oxo makes me feel sick so I wouldn't eat it. For pudding it was sweet macaroni milk pudding, which, again, makes me feel nauseous so I wouldn't eat that either. It was most embarrassing for Mum and most unfortunate because it made me seem like a very very fussy and spoilt child - and I really wasn't.

I don't think children should be forced to eat something that really turns their stomach, but some children seem to have so many dislikes. I think if this went on too much I would just say go without then..

HannahLoisLuke

I quite like some of Jamie’s recipes, his £1 a meal recipes are usually for four people so a tin of tuna would cost more but it’s the individual serving that he’s referring to.
Years ago, in the 70s I had a little paperback cookbook called The Paupers Cookbook by Jocasta Innes. No lovely colour photos, just good cheap recipes. Wish I still had it although I’d give some of the recipes a miss! Tripe and heart for instance.

You can buy it on Amazon UK £7 used edition

Eloethan
^ I would just say go without then.^
My mum’s strategy exactly. I went without eating meat (hated the texture) until I was about 5. Not even putting a teaspoon or a smear could make me eat it an the sight of me gagging was off putting to others.
Children faced with JO’s £1 curries when they couldn’t even cope with a smear would evidently be left to go hungry.
Your mention of gravy making you feel nauseous reminds me of DGS. He’ll eat most things except for foods which flow into each other, like baked beans, mushy peas or ratatouille or gravy. So we don’t add gravy. We serve gravy so people can help themselves.

Too much mercury and plastic particles in fish, especially the bigger ones like salmon and tuna. If you care at all about health, watch the movie "Eating Our Way to Extinction." It's free on YouTube. Some of my favorite Chefs are Chef AJ and Cheap Lazy Vegan.... especially her Just Egg copycat recipe - tastes just like eggs but made with Moong Dahl so it's high in protein without the cholesterol. She also has a great Kimchi recipe that involves batch preparation along with lots of batch cooking ideas. If you haven't tried "Mock Tuna" made from Chickpeas, its a great alternative to tuna, without the risks of ASL or Parkinsons, and a lot cheaper. Health is Wealth. I can't get over how all of the recipes on this site are so unhealthy!

Serving things separately so that people can have as much or as little as they want solves a lot of problems. It also gives children practice at not emptying the whole lot of something they do like onto their own plates leaving none for everyone else!

There were 6 of us for Sunday dinner ,I cooked 4 different meals.If there are 2 of us its often two different meals.I'm almost veggie OH likes meat ,it has never been an issue.

My late mother was a very fussy eater and she never tried to coerce us to eat things we didn't want ,I didn't eat fowl or pork or much beef ,didn't even like the smell of tuna
Now I only buy it for the cats and my OH feeds it to them .

Strangely my kids will eat amost anything and always have though my daughter was always annoyed when eating at friends where the parents had nice food and the kids got fish fingers or sausages and my son complained in a restaurant about the mac n cheese being tinned when he was around 6 years old .
I would never ask anyone to eat something they didn't like I love to cook and its not a problem making something different

I vowed I'd never force my children to eat anything, because I was forced to eat the unacceptable when I was at school, rice pudding and mashed potato with massive lumps and milk which I still can't drink neat till this day. I don't consider that I was a fussy eater, but there were a few things, like everyone, that I gagged on. I did allow my children to leave what they personally found unpalatable, fine with my first, he ate practically anything, my second was an incredibly fussy eater, spat out all the homemade food I'd prepared when I started to wean him and that continued through childhood, objected to anything green. He sorted himself out somewhere along the line, eats most stuff now with a penchant for South East Asian cuisine, I wonder now if he'd have spit out Pak Choi for for example or Kimichi if he'd been started off on those, probably because they are an acquired taste that he developed along with a more appreciative palate. As an adult has moved on considerably from peanut butter and fish fingers, which were among the handful of foods he found acceptable.

MawtheMerrier

Riverwalk

Indeed cheap as chips Norah but the portions are tiny - one tin of chickpeas between 4 people gives about 4g of protein each.

I make a similar curry and it's very tasty but hardly filling.

Surely it depends on the size of the cauliflower?
One large cauli will do Cauliflower cheese for 3 or even 4 in my experience.
@Rainnsnow - JO’s recipes are also available free online.

Indeed, the entire curry is plenty for 4 people. Very filling.

Serve on rice, cheap, really filling.

Many people over eat, no need.

The ingredients all have protein, an extra tin of chick peas is cheap if one finds even more protein necessary.

I like Jamie and his ideas.

Oh sorry JaneJudge, that was my fault. I meant I love Nigel Slater & his recipes! He was my first cooking guru. His autobiography about his cooking. times with his Mum was rather sad but lovely too.

GrannyLondon

Oh sorry JaneJudge, that was my fault. I meant I love Nigel Slater & his recipes! He was my first cooking guru. His autobiography about his cooking. times with his Mum was rather sad but lovely too.

have you watched the short film toast?

GrannyLondon

Oh sorry JaneJudge, that was my fault. I meant I love Nigel Slater & his recipes! He was my first cooking guru. His autobiography about his cooking. times with his Mum was rather sad but lovely too.

Have you read the book Toast?

Oh, it's a film now too, I hadn't realised.

Callistemon21

Oh, it's a film now too, I hadn't realised.

Enjoyed the book, haven’t seen the film

The film was a bbc one I think 🤔

The Toast film is very poignant.
I like Jamie Oliver, always have done, at least he’s trying to help and you can always improvise his recipes, adding or taking away, especially the £1 ones.

Yes JaneJudge and Callistemon, I have read Toast and seen the film. I think the film is on Netflix.
Oh, and I like Jamie Oliver too.

If Jamie Oliver feels relevant to younger people and they can adapt or use his recipes that is a good thing..I imagine most of G's know how to budget and cook a healthy meal. I'd hope we're also passing on skills as well. Where I live we have centres where cooking skills are taught to a wide range of people on benefits, asylum seekers, young parents etc.. Any shared knowledge is useful..

😂 I was intrigued by the title of the post, and wondering why the heck a meal that weighed a pound had any particular advantages? Oh, lol.

He really does have brilliant recipes. Today we made a delicious stew with just a sweet potato, an aubergine, peppers, onions, coriander, sun-dried tomatoes, curry, coconut milk, mangetout, chick peas, soy sauce.

Cheap as chips.

That sounds very tasty, Norah. I might try that.

What was it called?

Callistemon21

That sounds very tasty, Norah. I might try that.

What was it called?

It was called: 5-a-day spiced veg stew

Thanks, Norah, I did look but couldn't find that particular recipe

You're quite welcome.

I'm attempting what is a new to me recipe today, I'll let you know if it's stellar.