The Dinner Lady: Change the Way Your Children Eat, for Life

by Jeanette Orrey, Jamie Oliver (Foreword)

As part of her campaign to improve children's diets, Jeanette Orrey has written a unique family cookbook full of tasty, healthy, inexpensive, and appealing recipes that are easy to make and can be enjoyed whatever age you are! She believes in simple, traditional dishes with a modern twist, made with the freshest local ingredients. All the recipes are big hits from Jeanette's kitchen and are accompanied by personal anecdotes and comments from the children at St. Peter's, the school in which she worked for years as a dinner lady. They include Pasta with Peas and Bacon, Meatballs in Tomato Sauce, Real Chicken Nuggets, Cowboy Stew, Toffee Cream Tart, Apple Cobbler, and Muffins.

269 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2005

Reviews

[Cidney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a big book! I was reading 3 of them and have only finished 2 so far! I actually enjoyed this although it wasn't what I was expecting. I was expecting just a cookbook by the dinner lady who gave Jamie Oliver a run for his money on his programme! He wanted to make a difference in the provision of school meals and she was the dinner lady in Nottinghamshire who already was.

The first part of the book was about Jeanette herself and what she has and had achieved, some of it pre-Jamie Oliver, and some after. She is passionate about good food and healthy eating which means using locally grown produce wherever you can as, she says, the quality of the food really does count.

There are some good sections on feeding babies and when to introduce the weaning stage and what to feed them. Some very good information on salt and allergies, and how to help with fussy eaters. It was good to see that I had done a chunk of that!

Then we came on the next half of the book which was the recipes themselves. She gave for each recipe the amounts to feed 4, and then 96!!! Some very good recipes, not earth shattering ones, she believes in good wholesome home cooking and I've tried a few of them as I was reading it and they are very good! On the whole I am very pleased with this purchase from a charity shop, well worth my £2 then!!

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a home educating parent,it seems a bit strange to be using a cookbook designed for school dinners.Some of these recipes have worked quite well.Sometimes you just need to try a few different dishes to break up the monotony.

[Lindsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book because it has a recipe for chicken nuggetts (real non mechanical ones) and most importantly for Cornflake Cake...which is THE one food that reminds me of school....Yum

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice ideas. Never actually cooked from it despite owning it for years.