Save with Jamie Shop Smart Cook Clever Waste Less

Jamie Oliver, TV chef extraordinaire, food and education campaigner and all-round local hero has a new cookbook - Save with Jamie: Shop Smart, Cook Clever, Waste Less. In just one title Jamie tackles the reduction in spending power of families due to the credit crisis, food and food shopping education, food waste and, of course, the cooking of delicious food.

This Jamie Oliver cookbook is packed with delicious but sensible family recipes that are quick to cook, great to look at, tasty and don't cost a fortune. What more could you ask for?

Well - Jamie is also conscious that 40% of food is thrown away and he's keen to show us how to avoid waste. (When I was a child my great aunts and Grandmother were fond of the saying "Waste not want not" - they were brought up in a world without social security and lived through two world wars). So, thrifty recipes, tasty recipes, quick and easy recipes - what more could you want?

Jamie is hot on at least two additional areas that are close to my heart - his recipes are healthy (they won't cause you to pile on the pounds) and they go light on the old washing up.

Jamie - we love you!

Buy Save with Jamie: Shop Smart, Cook Clever, Waste Less now from Amazon.co.uk

This work by Barbara Walton is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Please note that all images, unless otherwise attributed, are the property of Barbara Walton

With his finger on the pulse and his down to earth attitude, Jamie Oliver always seems to know what the issues are for real, ordinary people. Unlike our millionaire, private schooled Prime minister and government, Jamie Oliver really seems to have the nation's well-being at heart.

He value's the contribution of women to the family and to the workforce, he makes real efforts to take care of the diets of our children, he gives us constructive help to managing time and money.

Jamie - when are you going to take over running the country? We need you there.

Don't hold your breath for the time that Jamie is voted in as the British PM - but don't waste time and cash with cooking either. One click of the mouse will get you this book and you'll be saving time and money cooking fast and delicious meals from the word go. Remember "time is money", and, as Mr Selfridge famously said "Do it Now"!

Buy Save with Jamie: Shop Smart, Cook Clever, Waste Less now from Amazon.co.uk

Jamie will tell you how it is. He's trusted for his honesty and I'm just going to let him tell you why his book is a must-have.

Or catch Jamie on TV Mondays at 8pm on Channel 4

Jane Garvy of BBC Radio 4 Womans Hour (first broadcast on Monday 02 September 2013) talks to Jamie Oliver about his new book Saving With Jamie. Always a pleasure to listen to Jamie and here Jamie, the Naked Chef, wants us to get cooking properly and on a budget.

The interview kicked off with a short discussion about the fact that Jamie Oliver has been reported as saying words to the effect that young British workers are not grafters. Jamie maintains that his comments about working youth had been taken out of context but seems to generally stand by the idea. Work-shy British youth - Jane asks if it's true that a mum phoned Jamie to say that her strapping lad couldn't get into work? It hasn't happened just once, says Jamie who goes on to explain that he and his chefs have ongoing problems with the endurance of his young staff- he said that when he was 18 / 21 he worked an 80 hour week.

He wants young people to get up, get going, move fast - (here here - Jamie - come and speak to my son!)

Other issues were discussed as well - food and class. Jamie, says he remembers working in a school, putting Spaghetti Bolognese on the menu and being accused of being 'posh'!

Budgeting and getting priorities right is something else to think about. Challenged about his comments about one of the people who starred in his show eating chips for a polystyrene container in front of a huge TV - he talks about priorities. He maintains that priority should be feeding children well.

Why does he keep putting his head above the parapet? Jamie explains that he just sees things that need to be tackled and just now cooking good food on a budget is one of the important issues. He aims to show us how to cook fabulous and tasty food for 1.32 per portion. This is not food for those on the breadline, and he defends himself well at jibes against the cost of his book and his ready food products. He tells us that his book sells for 10 in Tesco stores and he hopes that it'll save us 1000s. (His pricey fish-fingers, he explains, are bigger, better and more sustainable than other cheaper brands - but quite rightly points out that this is nothing to do with his new book.)

Is Jamie Oliver attacking women, asks Jane Garvy? Jamie quickly defends himself: he employs 7,000 women, is surrounded by women at home and he says he has more regard for women than men on the whole. He acknowledges that women are struggling to get to the top. He tells us that given a choice between employing women and men he would go for women. (

He's created 7,000 jobs in the last 5 years.)

He can see that now mothers are not in the home to teach such skills as shopping, budgeting and cooking the state must take over the teaching of these life-skills. Hie is keen to promote cooking in schools they have been sent our to work (by society) but the government are not now teaching kids about food and cooking in school. After much campaigning by Jamie, who points out that there has been no investment in school dinners for 40 years, and the government has now promised that kids in school will learn to cook in school - and Jamie is going to help and keep them to the promise.

A health visitor writes in to Woman's Hour to say that the problem starts with weaning (I agree!!) Don't buy food, says Jamie - save a fortune if you make the food and freeze in batches. Pregnancy is also important (via the womb?), re fussy eaters - keep trying things.

Let's get down to the cooking. This is the recipe from 'Save with Jamie' that Jamie cooked in the radio show:

Singapore Noodles 80 pence a portion. You'll have to go to the web page for the recipe

He makes Singapore noodles out of a bit pork mince, left-over meats, (don't throw away left-overs), rice noodles, chili (buy fresh and freeze - you can grate from frozen), ginger (do the same with ginger) ....

The recipes includes frozen prawns, a luxury you might think, but Jamie Oliver reassures us that you only about ten prawns and after that you take a look in your fridge and see what is there - a carrot, bit of this etc - remember that 40% of everything we buy ends up in the bin - so start saving there!). White cabbage is a good value vegetable and Jamie adds a bit of this.

Question - fresh or frozen? Jamie says, go to a farmers market or grow your own and fresh is better, but in the commercial environment, that is to say if you buy from a supermarket, then frozen is better. Vegetables are snap-frozen at the time of harvest, while 'fresh' produce could have been hanging around for a long, long time.

Lowest weekly food budget for a family of 4? Jamie says 35. (Get the book!)

What should everyone be able to cook by the age of 16? Jamie has a school syllabus that goes to schools for free and about half the schools use this, it includes 10 meals to save your life. Be able to make a budget, shop and cook a roast, a tomato sauce, a ragu, curry, soup, stir fry ....

Calling all lens masters! Join our fabulous, supportive group on this facebook page: Post Your Squidoo Lenses Here Post links, network and make friends.