Jamie's back with a new bee in his bonnet. After campaigning for better school meals for the nation's children, he's set to tackle what we're eating at home. And it's not pretty. "I've been to Soweto and seen kids in AIDS orphanages eat better than this," says a shocked and saddened Jamie. He's starting his campaign in Rotherham, a city of fast food junkies and set to become the fattest region in Britain. His mission, to teach mums the basics for healthy home cooking, get them to teach their friends and get the menfolk cooking too. Will Jamie's catering crusade take off or are his dreams just pie in the sky?
It's episode 2 in Jamie's quest to get the people of Rotherham cooking. To speed up the project, Jamie heads to Rotherham United football club in search of hungry men. It's the last match of the season, a sunny bank holiday and there are 5000 vocal locals here to cheer on their team. Jamie's hoping this will be the perfect place to find some new recruits but as he heads out to address the braying crowds his confidence begins to fail. "You fat bastard, you fat bastard," chants the crowd - proving not everyone's familiar with the phrase involving a pot, a kettle and a few choice words. Oh well Jamie, when all else fails, give 'em free grub. But an hour and 180 steak sarnies later only 98 men have signed up. "Unless it involves a chip pan he's no chance," is one man's thoughtful prediction. "We like us chips in Rotherham."
It's episode 3 in Jamie's quest to get Rotherham cooking but after weeks of campaigning the recipe crusader is still not sure if the public are getting the message. He needs to know if his recipes are being passed on. Time to do a Cheggers and knock on some doors. "It'll probably freak the hell out of people," he admits as he saunters up his first garden path. Probably best not to try and flog them a cookbook. The good news is everyone's pleased to see him. The bad news is nobody's heard of his Ministry of Food. Jamie was hoping that by this stage 10 per cent of the city would have heard about the campaign. So far this morning he hasn't found anyone.
Jamie is five months into his experiment to get Rotherham cooking and by now tens of thousands of cooks should have passed on his simple recipes to family and friends. But they haven't. If Jamie's going to convince councils across the country to fork out for their own Ministry of Food, he's got a lot of work to do. "Pass it on has worked, to a degree, well. But I don't think we've achieved enough in Rotherham to go to other places and say look," he muses. Jamie needs to drum up interest and fast. It's time to pound the streets. Again.
This is such a great recipe. The thing I love most about it is how simple it is. All you need to do is buy some ready-made puff pastry, split a few bananas in half and get something magical happening in the oven! You just have to be extremely careful when you flip it out on to a board as hot caramel can burn quite badly. It's best to cover your hand with a tea towel and make sure you concentrate on what you're doing. And if you don't like bananas, try using apples or pears.
This dish makes use of a tender, juicy Asian cabbage called bok choi, which is simple to cook and really tasty. You should be able to find bok choi (also known as pak choi, Chinese white cabbage or hakusai) in your supermarket but if not, then a nice little gem lettuce or a handful or two of baby spinach would work well instead
This is a fantastically simple fish pie which doesn’t involve poaching the fish or making a tedious white sauce. Loads of good, fragrant veg are added quickly by grating them in. You can use whatever fish you like, making this as luxurious as you want it to be. If you like your fish pie to be creamy, feel free to add a few tablespoons of crème fraîche to the fish. PS Some of the supermarkets now offer lovely packs of different fish and shellfish for using in fish pies. Keep a look-out, and if you buy one you want it to be about 700–750g in weight for this recipe.
Meatballs are fantastic! They’re perfect like this, with a one-minute homemade tomato sauce and spaghetti, but you could also try polenta or simple chunks of fresh crust bread. I like to make meatballs with a mixture of beef and pork, as I think it gives a really wonderful flavour and texture.
This is one of the dishes I cook for my kids, but to be honest, it’s so good that me and Jools always eat it too! Mini pasta shells are actually meant to be added to soups, but they’re quick and easy to cook, which makes them a good thing to serve with pasta sauces. All in all this should take you no more than five and a half minutes to cook. However, if you decide to go for a bigger type of pasta, remember that it will need more time to cook than these mini shells.
Make the perfect omlette in just minutes!
This recipe takes literally minutes to put together. However, in return, what happens in the pan from just a couple of ingredients is an absolute joy and never fails, so it’s a good one to serve if you have guests.
Quick stir fry with beef.
