Magic from bags and jars! (Emergency Dinners)

Member Name: caro

Product:	Emergency Dinners
Date:	17/12/01 (100 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very quick, very simple, ingredients from the cupboard

Disadvantages: .

The awful thing about emergencies is that by definition, you don't get any warning. Obviously, if you have a well-stocked freezer or a 24-hour Sainsbury's Local across the road, then no problem. For the rest of us, here are some meals that can be made really quickly from ingredients that keep pretty much forever.

FAST PASTA
Dried pasta is a brilliant stand-by, and the durum wheat sorts are really cheap. If you want to be a bit posher, buy dried egg pasta - more expensive, but it's delicious.

As to the shape, spaghetti is my personal nightmare. It does cook quickly, but it's a pain to eat (and I've even been known to get in a tangle serving it!). I therefore prefer more manageable shapes - penne are great, and cook quicker than twisty shapes which are thicker.

Your filling can come from a jar. There are plenty of options which are not only much better value than dedicated pasta sauces, but also often better-tasting. Here are some favourites:

Antipasti - wild mushrooms. Available in various brands, Sainsbury's own are particularly good. Just stir them in with a little of their oil, and you have instant pasta with wild mushrooms. YOu can add a bit of pesto or double cream if they're to hand.

Pesto is superb, especially red pesto - add a few spoonsful and a drop of oil and stir. Really good if you chuck in any vegetables to hand as well. Put a teaspoonful of oil in the jar to keep it fresh once opened.

Jars of sundried tomatoes and tins of black olives give you instant Mediterraenean pasta, and if you add wild mushrooms (above), it's really special.

All of these recipes involve just cooking the pasta and stirring in the additional ingredients with a bit of oil. They can therefore be made with as few as two storecupboard ingredients - my definition of a perfect emergency meal!

ACCOMPANIMENTS
Again, I'll assume you don't have a well-
stocked freezer with loaves of garlic bread. I'll also assume that you don't want to be bothered with heating up the oven. What to serve instead?

Simplest is toast spread with pesto - it's really delicious, and takes about two minutes. Very glamorous with thick slices of fresh, crusty bread, but quite acceptable with white sliced!

Alternatively, and if it really has to be garlic, make a simplified bruschetta. Take thick slices of bread (french stick is perfect but you can get away with most sorts) and lightly toast them. Rub one side with half a clove of garlic - the cut, exposed side of the clove. Drizzle a little olive oil over. If you have fresh tomato, chop that up and scatter over the top. A bit of basil is a perfect finishing touch, but not essential.

THE BOTTOM OF THE SALAD DRAWER

If all you have is a selection of tired-looking vegetables, then the answer is soup. Boil up the veg, with a stock cube in the water, then blend the veg with as much of the 'stock' as you need to make it a good thickness. Potato will mean a really thick, hearty soup if that's what you like. Crumble in leftover bits of cheese.

Jazz up the flavour with sauce - pesto is, yet again, ideal! I've also used mojo (a spicy Spanish sauce), or even a few drops of Tabasco.

EGGS
The same ingredients - tinned olives, jars of sundried tomatoes and mushrooms - can make scrambled eggs seem really special. Just mix them in with the eggs as you cook them and hey presto, mediterranean eggs!

POTATOES
If you can heat up the oven, but can't wait hours for baked potatoes, this is a faster and more glamorous alternative. Cut the potatoes in half longways, and score the flesh to a depth of about half an inch. Do it diagonally in both directions, to make diamond shapes. Spread fairly liberally with butter, and put in the oven for about half an hour. They come out delicious, with a cr
ispy top!

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