Empty the Storecupboard Challenge: Week 16

Hello again. It’s been another busy week in the Storecupboard Challenge kitchen, and we still haven’t run out of steam – although it won’t be long before we run out of ingredients…finally.

We’ve had spaghetti with roasted veggies and brown butter sauce, a lentil curry, and baked savoury pancakes. I’ve also made three batches of Scotch pancakes with cinnamon and raisins, and most of those have been frozen for lazy brunches.

The spaghetti dish used up another 100g of the wholemeal pasta, which was dressed with a tiny bit of brown butter (beurre noisette), and mixed with a load of roasted kitchen garden veggies and herbs plus a few olives, then topped with some finely grated hard cheese.

Next we had a lentil curry (above left) with green beans and courgette from the garden, cucumber and mint raita (cucumber also from the plot), and some grilled papads. It used up another couple of sachets of the lentil curry sauce, and there’s a couple of portions in the freezer too. I’ll be glad to see the back of those sauces – they’re more of a faff than cooking the stuff from scratch yourself, and need constant stirring. Sorry Ainsley H, but I’ve been referring to them as inconvenience food.

Finally, I used up a quarter of a tub of just-add-water batter mix to make savoury pancakes (above right). These were filled with spinach, onions, mushrooms and finely diced halloumi, then topped with a can of chopped tomatoes before being baked. The flavour was great, but next time I make something like this I’m using passata to get a proper topping, because it looked a real mess. The first bite is with the eye, and all that, eh?

This week’s three recipes

1. Toad in the hole. Aiming to use up the last of the batter mix, especially if the bad weather continues.

2. Paella-style quinoa salad. Can’t wait to get rid of another packet of those spices, plus we’ll use a few frozen prawns, lots of veggies and maybe some leftover chicken if Beau wants some of that.

3. A pasta dish to use up the last tagliatelle box meal. Either a bake if the weather’s still cold and rainy, or a plain plate of pasta if it isn’t.

If there’s time, I’m also going to make up a couple of batches of chocolate pudding to have with fresh fruit.

Over to you

What are you going to cook this week? And is it just me, or is it easier to think up good storecupboard meals when the weather’s cold, rainy and a bit rubbish?