Food to cook when the cupboards are bare

I feel like my life consists of apologies at times but I wanted to let you know I have not vanished off the face of the earth! I am currently studying very hard, cooking not very much and as a result have run out of things interesting enough to write about! Roll on this time next week when the first lot are out of the way!

Following my recent move, the second in the last six months I have been rapidly downsizing my store cupboards, and have been very creative with using up odds and ends! How I ended up with around fifteen varieties of pasta I will never know! Fortunately most of the dishes I've made have been pretty successful, and I have a few quick meal ideas to share with you:

One of them was a surprisingly delicious pilaf kind of affair, started off with frying a little onion and mustard seeds, then adding very weeny bits of cauliflower that needed eating, some leftover cooked chicken, sultanas and rice, covered with stock and gently cooked until all absorbed, then went in the last of a bag of frozen peas and warmed through with a generous amount of fresh coriander. 

It is no doubt to go down in my history as one of those dishes that came out spectacularly well but I probably will never be able to recreate due to the fact things were thrown together with a silent prayer it would come out edible!

Next up was a really satisfying lunch consisting of cream cheese and olive stuffed mushrooms. At the time I had two gorgeously large field mushrooms leftover from another recipe, and not much else!

The filling was made from sliced green olives, aka the last 4 in the jar, mixed with the last tablespoon’s worth of soft cheese (I never waste anything!), stuffed into the mushrooms, topped with breadcrumbs (woohoo another tub dealt with it!) and then baked until all bubbly and golden.

They made for a great little lunch with salad and also gave a good send off to the last of the fridge contents!