Making a meal without going shopping

We got home from a 3 week holiday on Friday and within a few moments of uncurling our stiff bodies from the car, we were stood on the plot, aghast at how much stuff had grown whilst we were away. Fortunately, my parents and my friend Sue help keep an eye on things whilst we are gone and keep picking the French beans, courgettes and other things that would otherwise go over. Between them (with a hand from Mother Nature), they had done a good job and everything was looking impressive. Within minutes we were picking French beans, courgettes, cucumbers and tomatoes. Tempting as it was to stay longer, it was late and we needed dinner. It was, however, lovely to return home from holiday and yet still have fresh veg with dinner (homemade pies from the freezer, by the way).

The next morning I found myself staring into a mostly empty fridge and wondering if I could get away with not shopping until Tuesday. Tuesday is the day I usually get my shopping delivered, having prepaid for a mid-week delivery pass. If I needed shopping before then I would either have to go out in person and wrestle with the weekend crowds (I hate shopping and I had piles of laundry, unpacking and gardening to do!), or I would have to pay for delivery. Quite often when I get my shopping delivered I then struggle to put it away because there is so little space in the cupboard and fridge and I wonder why I felt the need to do the shopping in the first place. The answer is, possibly partially habit, but also because some key ingredients are required such as milk and bread. We had bought a couple of pints of milk in the service station the day before so that was OK and I had all the ingredients in to make bread so by lunchtime we had some freshly baked bread, which we enjoyed with some tinned soup. There was plenty in the freezer and homegrown fresh potatoes and other vegetables.

In the end I concluded that I we could probably manage. Indeed, I always enjoy a bit of "making do". There is definitely something to be said about having a good rummage in the freezer and reminding yourself what's in there anyway. It's easy to think that things in the freezer keep indefinitely but of course they don't so having a purge every now and then and using stuff up is a good idea. My freezer rummage on Saturday resulted in finding a packet of diced chicken breast and some duck breast strips. That to me looked like the basis of a Chinese style meal. All I needed now was some rice, some veg to stirfry and some Chinese flavours.

The great thing about a stir fry is that you can generally add whatever veg you have to hand. From the garden we had onions, courgettes, carrots and garlic and there were sweetcorn and peas in the freezer. I usually like to chuck some celery into mix for a bit of crunch and flavour but I didn't have any. What I did have was some overly large leaf beet. I've not grown this before but my daughter likes baby leaf beet leaves in salads so we had sown some onto her little plot. Whilst we had been away the leaves had romped away and were about the size of the sole of my shoe and the stems had turned into something that looked like celery - some white and some red. I picked a few of these and chopped up the stems to throw in with the other vegetables. I then shredded up the leaves to add to the duck dish as a substitute for green leaf veg such as pak choi or spinach.

So for the meal, I boiled up some rice, fried the chicken pieces in one pan, the duck pieces in another pan and the vegetables in another. Once the rice was cooked, I drained it and added it to the vegetables with a dash of soy sauce to make some special fried rice. I would have added some sweet and sour sauce to the chicken once it was cooked but when I went to get it I realised I didn't actually have any in the cupboard. Instead, I rustled up a sauce using about 1 tablespoon of tomato puree mixed with a splash of hot water, about 75ml pineapple juice, a tablespoon of onion chutney, a dash of soy sauce and a splash of Balsamic vinegar. This I added to the chicken once cooked then left it to bubble away for a minute or two until it had reduced and thickened. Once the duck was cooked, I added some oyster sauce to the pan and diluted this with some hot water, then I chucked in the leaf beet leaves and let it cook for another couple of minutes until the leaves were cooked.

The family tucked into the meal with enthusiasm and even commented on how tasty the chicken sauce was and how much they liked the leaf beet in with the duck. They say that necessity is the mother of invention and being too lazy to go shopping had certainly made me more creative with what I had to hand.