Poor Jamie

For goodness sake leave poor Jamie Oliver alone!! (well I know he's not poor but you know what I am trying to say).

All to often he gets slagged off for changing the way things are done in schools. Its the best thing he could have done. Have these people ever taken the time out to read one of his recipe books?

He is trying to educate the Great British Public to eat the food 'we used to eat'. When I was a young girl growing up in the 70's I didn't eat ready meals, they were virtually unheard of, except for maybe the odd Vesta with crispy noodles which tasted like dried up crispy wall paper paste.

I hear time and time again that our children (wcf) can't gain calories if they don't get to eat crisps and chocolate. Its total bullshit! You can calorie load any food if you want to and there are plenty of things that are an alternative. For example, Jamie would definitely endorse a company that sells sausages that are locally made from a local farmer using the best quality pork. How many calories would there be in that sausage fried with the same quality bacon and a fried egg? Or that same sausage served with a jacket potato and cheese and butter? The stuff your Mum used to make..... not the processed crap that we get today, that's all he is trying to say, sure he's encouraging fruit and veg, but I would encourage fruit and veg to all of my children with or without cf because they are packed with vitamins that they need to help fight infection.

I give my children without cf the same to eat as Grace, just she gets extra calories, maybe a splash of cream or extra butter or cheese, if she wants it. I do put treats in her lunch box for school, and the teachers are quite happy for me to do that, but they do comment that she has a healthier lunch than the other children.

Grace loves salad, I add olives or pasta or fried or roast chicken pieces to it and even a blob of mayonnaise will add calories. As for treats has anyone that slates Jamie ever prepared his home made chocolate chip cookies?? I can tell you that one batch of those can pile on calories.

So I just want to say give a bit of thought, he has your children's interests at heart regardless of the change in the school menu... and they can always bulk up more when they get home.... I'm not saying that Grace never gets crisps or chocolate or MacDonald's, just no more than the other kids in the family, as a treat.

JAMIES CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

Ingredients

325g flour
255g room temperature unsalted butter, cut into cube sized lumps with one lump kept aside.

170g sugar
1 free range egg yolk
as many handfuls of chocolate chips as you dare.

Preheat your oven to 180c, rub a baking tray with your saved butter cube. Put the rest of your butter in your mixing bowl with the sugar and beat it with a wooden spoon until it's all light and fluffy. Stir in your egg yolk, then the chocolate chips and then the flour. Mix until you a get a lump of dough. Then tear off pieces of dough - any size you like - and roll them into balls.

Place them onto your buttered tray, but remember to keep them 5cm apart as they'll spread when they start cooking.

Bake them in your oven for 10 minutes. When they're done, take them out of the oven and let them cool down a little before tucking in.