I’ve got the tins. Now what the hell do I do with them

[luggageandbags]

DH persuaded me to go out and buy some tinned food just in case. The shelves in my local supermarket were depleted so I grabbed what I could find. Now chickpeas, lentils and beans I know what to do with, as well as tuna chunks. But how do hell do you use sliced mandarine oranges? Plum halves in grape water? Whole strawberries in syrup?

I was a child in former Yugoslavia when it was all falling apart and I remember prolonged periods living without fresh fruit and veg, we would get packets of essentials through humanitarian aid and people would do best they could with them. I remember something called UNPROFOR cakes and once my mum even attempted to make a home made Nutella (it was vile). May be time to brush up on those tips and recipes... anyone cares to share?

Crumbles, pies or tarts if you have flour.

@mindproject

Yes do have flour and am prepared to make bread if I need to.

I can't bake bread, I have all the ingredients, I know the steps but for some reason what I make never looks or tastes like bread so I've bought a few packs of crackers/rice cakes which we will eat anyway and have a couple of packs of flour tortillas in the freezer.

Maybe you could make flatbreads or mini rolls. I find large loafs hardest to make.

Most tinned fruit is totally fine whizzed up with a blender to make a sort of coulis to have on pancakes or other bland puddings. Would be lovely as a topping for a sponge pudding or microwave mug cake for instance. You can use the fruit in cakes/crumbles and save the syrup for pancakes or french toast. Panna cotta or baked custard is really easy to make and you can make an OK version using Carnation or other evaporated milk - lovely with any kind of fruit or fruit sauce. You need gelatine for panna cotta and eggs for baked custard.

I've heard tinned potatoes are really good in curries.

Slice the potatoes up and fry in butter.
Used to love these, had forgotten.

@TorysSuckRevokeArticle50 that’s great thank you, I have fond memories of making fudge with a friends mum I’d forgotten about also, I know what we are doing this weekend.