Speedy spaghetti, stews and more to feed friends and family in a pinch

Last weekend, a bunch of us, complete with kids and dogs, went to Epping forest for a frolic and had a jolly old time. Not quite ready to quit the party, my husband Hugh and I invited everyone back to ours for a bite to eat, only to get home to find that we had nothing in the fridge.

I had fantasies of wowing everyone with my ability to fashion a three-course meal out of a few tins of beans and some bendy broccoli. Then, Hugh suggested spaghetti pomodoro, albeit via its British alter ego, “tomato pasta”, and everyone nodded vigorously. We ate it in the traditional manner – not with parmesan and wine, but with beers and mature cheddar – and it was wonderful.

The next day, however, I was consumed with a culinary form of l’esprit de l’escalier, or “staircase wit”, an old French saying to describe coming up with the perfect reply too late. I couldn’t stop thinking of all the perfect meals I could have cooked for our friends, even with our meagre supplies.

So, this week’s newsletter is one to keep in your back pocket, and is dedicated to everyone-back-to-mine recipes: semi-effortless dishes that can be cooked quickly with a few ingredients that you will probably already have, or could nip out to the corner shop for.

Eggs and flour are the power couple of the store cupboard – if you have both, you can make many meals. Okonomiyaki, the Japanese flour, egg and cabbage pancake, is my first choice, and this BBC recipe by Rachel Phipps seems like a good and simple version. For something a bit more bougie, Ferran Adrià’s crisp tortilla (£) looks like real achievable genius. But if I’m in need of comfort, I might choose a masala omelette. Stuffed between two slices of buttered toast (and washed down with chai), there are few things I’d rather eat. For an egg-free alternative, there’s always savoury chickpea-flour pancakes: this recipe by Anna Jones looks great.

Tinned beans are a cook-in-a-bind’s best friend. If I had cannellini, I’d make my failsafe Iraqi white bean stew. Skip the coriander oil if you don’t have coriander and serve it with plain yoghurt instead. Have you got butter beans? I love the sound of Nigel Slater’s tomato and miso butter beans (above), while, for chickpeas, there’s Alison Roman’s famous stew that (quite rightly) broke the internet in 2020. Finally, you can’t go wrong with dal. Priya Krishna’s Everyday Dal via NYT Cooking (£), looks just right, but I always go to my own Malaysian dal.

I don’t want to deny tomato pasta its rightful place as the queen of speedy and beautiful meals, but, for a more interesting alternative try my kimchi spaghetti (pictured top) or Rachel Roddy’s spaghetti aglio e olio: a go-to of mine in my Trash years. For crowds, I tend more towards pasta than noodles, but for a smaller huddle, these one-bowl sesame noodles look like heaven.

Obviously, if all else fails, don’t mess around: just order a pizza.

Full steam ahead | This week’s discovery from my local Chinese supermarket was a Freshasia preserved cabbage bun, which transformed into dinner in about eight minutes. As with most things cabbage, expectations were pretty low, but these turned out to be fantastically delicious and scored a solid 10/10.

Condiment of the week | Algerian sauce has gone straight into my top five. Think of mayonnaise, but cut with shallots and harissa – somewhere on the spectrum between mayonnaise, sriracha mayo and burger sauce. I love eating it on flatbreads, over boiled eggs and with any cooked greens. I tested it on Trullo chef-owner Conor Gadd and he approved.

‘Anti-ageing’ for food | I was given a BiPOD this week, a home vacuum system that promises to make my home-cooked food last up to five times longer. Will I use it? Maybe. It’s certainly an impressive, eco-conscious piece of kit that I can see being helpful to reduce food waste or for batch cooking in the weeks ahead.