The Brexit Cupboard: Recipe Edition

[PerverseConverse]

Hi everyone,

I'm really pleased that so many of us are forward planning/purchasing as a buffer in the event of No Deal and thought it would be good to share recipes we can make with our store cupboard essentials. Recipes that are based on long life or shelf stable items that can have fresh or frozen ingredients added as available.

Here's my basic pasta sauce recipe:

I tin chopped tomatoes or carton/jar passata
1 tablespoon tomato purée
1 teaspoon garlic purée (or to taste)
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon sugar

You can add chilli flakes or paste to spice it up and red wine to make it richer.

For extra nutrition roast some peppers and courgettes and onions and add at the end. Simply blend together with a hand blender. It's the only way I can get my children to eat veg with pasta.

I use alone or add quorn mince (we are veggie) and too with plenty of grated cheddar. It's a cheap, quick and easy meal.

For a treat put two cans of coconut milk in the fridge for a few hours. Scoop out the hard coconut cream whip up with a bit of Coco powder and icing sugar. Cheap digestive biscuits and a bit of butter or margerine. Crush up the biscuits and mix with the butter to make a cheese cake base. Layer in a cake tin top with the chocolate coconut cream for a delicious cheeseless cheesecake. My kids love it i discovered it while broken and using everything in the back of my cupboard.

Yum.

We made cookies today:

4oz butter
3.5 oz Demerara sugar
1 tbls golden syrup
6oz SR flour possibly more if mixture sticky
4oz rolled oats
4oz dried fruit (we use raisins or cranberries but today have used a mixture of raisins and cherries and blueberries)

Melt butter, sugar and syrup in a pan.
Add fruit and allow to soak up the liquid a little for a couple of minutes
Stir in the flour and oats. Add more flour of too wet.
Bake at 170C for around 10 minutes.
Allow to cool slightly before placing on a cooling tray.
Delicious warm or cold

Tonight we made the macaroni cheese recipe I posted earlier. I divided it over two dishes and added 2 blocks of chopped frozen spinach, one teaspoon chilli paste and one teaspoon garlic paste to mine. Bloody gorgeous. Highly recommended.

Shamelessly placemarking

I'm sure I posted my last recipe in the cupboard thread.
Have a bag of gram / chickpea flour to use and am exploring its possibilities.

Eggless fritters, because I love a fritter for breakfast.

Two giant heaped tablespoons chickpea flour
One giant heaped tablespoon flour
one tsp baking powder
leftovers (I used a kippered mackerel fillet, some roasted onions and a couple of tablespoons of soup). A tin of mackerel fillets in some sort of sauce would also do it. As would tinned sweetcorn.
salt
pepper
Add water to mix to a soft batter.
Leave to stand for 20 mins
Fry in hot shallow oil
Makes 6 fair size fritters

It is worth getting some chickpea flour

My go-to store cupboard recipe is pasta alla puttanesca, tart’s spaghetti, with a tin of anchovies, tin of tomatoes, black olives from a jar, garlic (fresh or from a tube/jar) and a dried chilli or three. Sauté garlic in olive oil, add the crumbled chillies, mash in the anchovies. Then add the tomatoes, broken up if whole, simmer 10 minutes, then add about a tablespoon or so of capers and a dozen black olives.
I also add chopped fresh parsley from the garden at the end but realise not everyone has it to hand. No cheese needed!

Lovely with linguine or any long pasta.

For those planning forward ....
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/gardening/3504562-29th-March-Grow-your-own-newcomers-welcome-here

Beer bread for home brewers.

475g of SR flour. Tablespoon sugar. 400ml beer. Mix. Bake at 180 for about an hour.

It's a very sticky non kneading dough. Tastes a bit bitter. Nice with chocolate spread.

Thanks for the ideas, I particularly like the sound of the coconut milk cheesecake.
Basic curry recipe: frozen onions, frozen/jarred/squeezy garlic, ginger and chilli. Dried spices: coriander, cumin, turmeric, ginger, chilli powder (or you could just use garam masala and chilli powder). Then add frozen or tinned vegetables, protein (tinned chickpeas or lentils, peanuts, frozen chicken) and either coconut milk or chopped tomatoes. Or you could use frozen or tinned spinach to make a saag sauce.

To make that macaroni cheese recipe more nutritious, mix with a jar of crushed tomatoes, chilli and garlic to taste along with salt and pepper and a little sugar. Tried to tonight using Moo long life milk and it was gorgeous. Like vegetarian lasagne but macaroni. Quick, easy and really satisfying. Cheap to make too.

Lots of Jack Monroe's recipes are based on tins/long life items.

cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/10/05/tin-bolognese-recipe/

Her carrot and cumin veggie burgers are also worth a try (based on tinned kidney beans) and can be easily adapted to include whatever you have in stock.

Does anyone have any salmon pasta recipes please? I don't eat fish so no idea about salmon and pasta together. It's for my mum. I was wondering if tinned salmon heated through, frozen broccoli or peas, tossed with creme fraiche and maybe some chopped tomatoes would be nice? She can't have spicy things and pulls her face at garlic but eats garlic bread can't have onions.

Mine eat salmon pasta either with a white sauce (creme fraiche would do but it isn't a store cupboard item) or with a tomato sauce or with pesto. They also often eat it mixed into cous cous with some sweetcorn. DS2 loves salmon with sweet chilli sauce so often has just that with rice and sweetcorn.

Can she have leeks (not storecupboard I know) but I used to do a fish pie with flaked salmon and liquidised leeks which oddly made a lovely sauce! mash & cheese on top - or fairly easily converted to fishcakes too

Thanks for the salmon ideas. Got some to use up so going to experiment.

No leeks. Am sure there will be other things she can add. I'm all about the tomato, chilli and cheese based sauces but she's not at all. Philadelphia would work and has about 2 months on the date.

perhaps just a little pesto mixed through?

What kind of pesto is nice? I've never bought it.

Try vegan soft cheese substitute. Longer life as a stir through sauce.

Glad I found this thread...was about to start one but was sure there would be one already!

These are my ideas, based on the bits I have and the supplies I'm planning to add to my store.

I'm going to stock up on dried and tinned bits over the next few weeks, whilst running the freezer down so that when I get paid on 22nd I can fill it up with frozen meat, veg and ingredients. Noticed Tesco have got a great selection of frozen herbs and pre-prepped ingredients including chorizo and cheese sauce!

Mine are very tin/packet heavy but I work full time and am also dealing with injured elderly dad and supporting my mum atm so I'm only willing to spend so much time in the kitchen. Have bought some tinned ready meals e.g. curries which DD (14) has point blank refused to eat so they will be for me she she's at her dad's.

Steak or chicken pie (pastry mix, water, tinned meat), frozen veg and roast potatoes

Pasta with...

Carbonara stir in sauce, tinned ham & frozen mushrooms

Tomato and pepperoni stir in sauce, frozen chorizo, peppers, onions

Bolognese (pre made and frozen)

Pesto and frozen green veg

Med veg lasagne, frozen veg/tinned toms or tinned ratatouille, jar of lasagne sauce, grated cheese from freezer

Pizza...

Homemade base, jar of pizza sauce, frozen/tinned meat/veg, cheese from freezer

Fish cakes...tinned tuna or salmon, frozen mash, frozen or pk dried breadcrumbs, frozen chips and peas

Chilli - pre made & frozen or storecupboard version
Tin stewed steak in gravy
Small tin each of kidney beans and chopped tomatoes
Chilli flakes, cumin, coriander, beef stock cube
Frozen peppers and onion
Rice of frozen potato wedges

Tins of 'Big Soup' bulked out with extra veg and homemade bread

Veggi chilli.

Frozen onion(red)1/2 pack250g ( or fresh from garage as they keep well in cool dry place if home grown)
Frozen peppers 1/2 pack250g
Two tinned chopped tomatoes and a tin of water
Chilli powder to taste.
Throw in a couple of handfuls of red lentils and cook for 20-30 minutes til lentils soft. 1 tin of red kidney beans or one tin of mixed beans.

Serve with brown basmati rice.

For an extra kick I sometimes add a splash of balsamic vinegar and soy sauce.

Just doing an old student fave here- worm pie:

Cook dried spaghetti, fried onions, mix together with tin chopped toms, baked in oven with generous serving cheese on top.

Add almost any other roasted veg for more variety.

Also sausage meat pie: cook with onions and toms, add slices Granny Smiths and mashed potatoes ion top.

Quite like the sound of sausage pie.

I've got tinned potatoes which are really handy for slicing up and sauteeing or making frittata with (assuming eggs won't be an issue).

EatNotSpend has a shopping list and a week of recipes using tins and frozen veg on the blog eatnotspend.com/brexit-box/