Save With Jamie.

                                                 My tasty Chinese beef and noodles

After my glorious holiday in Spain it's back to reality! Since leaving my job a year ago I've had to tighten my purse strings, ironically we've never eaten so well. Far from trading down, I source ingredients far more cleverly and economically, as Jamie Oliver quotes: 'if you look back through history, the best food in the world has always come from communities under massive financial pressure.'

My paternal grandmother had nine children and very little money, she had to be extremely resourceful as did many women of her generation. Today we have masses of choice and consequently in the UK we now waste 2 billion pounds worth of food each year..........easy come, easy go.

Supermarket chain Asda has grown into a retailing behemoth, I visited an Asda store yesterday and clearly their marketing promotions are based on price and a target market. People on low incomes can fill a trolley full of food which my grandmother couldn't have hoped for in her wildest dreams.

Jamie Oliver sparked a poverty row recently when he attacked families for living on a diet of junk food. He said: '7 times out of 10, the poorest families in this country choose the most expensive and unhealthy way to hydrate and feed their families with ready meals and convenience foods.' He also pointed out that whilst children are being fed on cheesy chips and fizzy drinks, money is being spent on wide screen TV sets and other technology. There is a great disparity between modern food poverty and that of my grandmother's era, and there is a stark contrast between us and other parts of the world- such as Italy- where economically deprived families manage to eat a healthy diet.

Cheap convenience food is not economical in the long run, although I've always cooked I did rely on convenience food to some extent when I was working, by shopping for raw ingredients and cooking from scratch I have almost halved my weekly shopping bill!

In response to requests from his readers, Jamie Oliver has written a cookery book: 'save with Jamie' a book dedicated to great food at great value. I'm currently navigating my way through various recipes and am very impressed with the results. Naturally I've done a bit of tweaking here and there but the recipes I've tried thus far have been delicious and not hard on my wallet.

Mince is an ingredient most of us buy on a regular basis, the problem is I find myself using it time and again for Shepherds pie, spag bol or chilli. Jamie's recipe for Chinese beef and tofu appealed to me but I didn't have any tofu, I took the bones of the recipe, added a couple of different ingredients and the result was fabulous.

Chinese beef

Recipe
250g mince
1 teaspoon Chinese five spice
3 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger (I used pickled ginger, ground ginger is another alternative)
Soy sauce
1 beef stock cube
1 hot chilli, finely sliced
Noodles
1 can Chinese vegetables (I had a can of Chinese vegetables, alternatively you could add frozen peas and chopped spring onions or fresh beansprouts)

Put a splash of oil in a pan and fry the beef and Chinese five spice for 15 minutes
Add the garlic, chilli and ginger
Crumble in the stock cube, add a splash of soy sauce and pour in 500ml of water
Simmer for 30 minutes until thickened and reduced
Meanwhile cook some noodles according to packet instructions
Add veg and noodles to the pan, gently stir through the sauce and continue simmering for 5 minutes

Serve immediately into warm bowls and enjoy!

This meal was more than enough for three of us, you could stretch it further by adding more noodles or as in Jamie's recipe accompanying it with rice.


'Sir, respect your dinner: idolize it, enjoy it properly. You will be many hours in the week, many weeks in the year, and many years in your life happier if you do.'
-William Makepeace Thackeray

Love Donna xxxxx