Something you cook when you have no food in?

[rumqueen]

Random things you throw together when you don't have much food in?

Pasta with tinned tomatoes, garlic and onion.

I always have pasta, tinned tomatoes and onions in.

I can then raid the fridge for any of the following :

Bacon
Mushrooms
Courgettes
Peppers
Spinach
Prawns (freezer)
Cheese
Garlic
Chillies

Tasty cheap pasta dish.

Gosh.

Some of your 'no food in options' require a lot of food to be in.

Mine would basically be bread, milk, and something. If I'm lucky.

So toast really.

Spaghetti with olive oil, chilli flakes and garlic stirred through it. Omelette with whatever I have in the fridge.

Meera Sodha’s Worker’s Curry.

Tin of tomatoes, tin of chickpeas, onion, the spices I already have. Quick, cheap, need barely any ingredients.

Pasta with garlic, dried chilli flakes and spinach (I buy bags of chopped frozen spinach so usual gave that in)

Spicy beans on toast (even better with a poached egg or grated cheese)

TexMex rice - whatever sad veg are in the fridge chopped and fried, chilli spices, rice, tin of tomatoes, stock. Add beans if you have them. Simmer until rice is cooked. (Also good for stuffing burritos etc)

And of course pasta with butter and cheese, the ultimate comfort food.

Puttanesca.

Thunder and lightning

soften onion or red onion or leek at a push or just garlic
in oil - whatever sort
tin of chickpeas (always got chickpeas)
pasta - whatever sort
grate that drying lump of uninteresting cheddar
all in whatever proportion you have
mix till cheese melts
salt and pepper

really delicious.

@JamminDoughnuts

Tuna pasta

Yes - even better when you add tin or half of tomatoes and cheese sauce - yes I know you have to have cheese and milk but sometimes I keep a cheese sauce packet mix - I don't usually keep it in but for emergencies to do this. Yum.

Pasta with green or red pesto - the Sacla or supermarket own brand stuff is nice.

prefer concheglie (shells) pasta with above dunno why.

@lughnasadh

Gosh.

Some of your 'no food in options' require a lot of food to be in.

Mine would basically be bread, milk, and something. If I'm lucky.

So toast really.

Things I've noticed that I rarely use in cupboard:-

or have spares of:-

Tin tomatoes
chutney (homemade usually)
quinoa
the odd tin of chickpeas but can be used
lentils
lots of different bags of sugar
flour
almost always try to have a long life milk in cupboard
kidney beans
oh and some sort of oil - DM uses olive oil to make white sauce - I never do - butter or no sauce but could use that at a push

^Some of your 'no food in options' require a lot of food to be in.

Mine would basically be bread, milk, and something. If I'm lucky^

But the point is that it's all storecupboard stuff that keeps for ages, is usually cheap and is versatile and regularly used. Tinned toms, pasta, marmite etc. Plus the longer lasting fresh stuff that can't be kept for months, but again isn't expensive, is used regularly and will keep for a couple of weeks or so. Like eggs, cheese, chorizo, some veg like squash, peppers, onions etc.

So it's no hardship to keep all that sort of stuff in, and you'd keep it topped up, so you always had it. Doesn't need defrosting too, so can be turned into a meal in minutes often.

Dried pasta with butter and dried parmesan.
Dried pasta with pesto/tomato sauce and parmesan.
Tuna pasta with sweetcorn and mayonnaise/salad cream.
Beans and toast -I always keep half a loaf of sliced bread in freezer as I don't always get though a full loaf.
Porridge made with water.

My friend mostly only has bread, milk, margarine, coffee, boil in the bag rice, mince, chilli sauce jar, frozen chips, cheese, pickle, 1 box of breakfast cereal, frozen veg packet, 1 bottle of coke, frozen fish fingers, frozen chicken coated in breadcrumbs, 2 tins of soup, 1 packet of biscuits, 1 pack of x24 crisps, 1 frozen pizza, 1 bag of salad, 1 bag of oranges and 1 bag of apples.

That is her weekly shop and she hardly ever deviates. At the end of the week her cupboards are mostly bare. I didn't realise when she says she has no food in the house - she really doesn't have any food in the house.

Something out of a tin on something toasted

Or oven pancake - pour the batter into a deep baking tray and bake for 25 minutes AKA Yorkshire pudding.

Beans on toast, hopefully with cheese and bacon.

Having been hungry as a child my cupboards are fairly full of tins so soup, beans tuna are usually available.

Buddha bowl-basically random stuff left over put in a bowl! 😂

Well I don't know.

Nothing in means no food/money to me.

Not tinned tomatoes, rice, pasta, chickpeas, fuel to cook them.

Autual food poverty is a thing.

Not make believe.

I remember trying to fry flour and water, in a pan. it doesn't make a pancake.

And trying to make an egg, water, and bread streatch between four.

There's no fancy stuff when your're on the actual bones of your arse.

These days something on toast. Or fridge bottom soup where you gets different result every time! In my worst days financially 20 years ago dough balls. An 8p bag of flour from quick save made a lot of them (not envy) Mix flour and water, roll into balls and throw in the fryer.

Generally a puttanesca as we pretty much always have the ingredients in for that.

I'm having one of those can't be bothered meals right now as I'm doing my food shop tomorrow.

Morrisons tinned beans and veggie sausages on top of two slices of brown toast topped with butter and parsley fried mushrooms... Delish.

Another favourite is Asian packet noodles with an egg stirred in (or a boiled egg) and some spring onion. Again we pretty much always have those things to hand.

I'd forgotten my special fried rice. I always have frozen peas in for my leftover rice and add one onion, garlic, any leftover roast meat and mushrooms with plenty of soya sauce.

It's more of a leftovers meal than an empty cupboards meal though.

lughnasadh you're right

egg ,water and bread between 4 . Most of us are v lucky not to have had to do that .

@banivani

Pancakes. Or oven pancake - pour the batter into a deep baking tray and bake for 25 minutes.

Surely that would be a giant Yorkshire pudding not a pancake?