could do with a bit of help please !!

jem132

Hi ok so ive got a pantry full to bursting and am fed up of the same old things .I wounder if you fab guys could give me any ideas on what to make with this lot lol:eek::eek:

Hear goes :

3 big bags of pasta twists
5 packets of savory rice
2 big bags of short crust pasrty
4 packets of spagetii
11 dried noodles (cheap 13p)
10 tins of chopped toms
2 bags of rice
3 boxs of pizza dough
big packet of chow mein noodles
"" " chillie noodles
3 tins of spagetii
4 boxs dried veg
10 pasta and sause
4 tins of pots
1 tin of carotts
3 packs of broth mix
3 coconut cream
3 instant mash
1 big tin of beans
1 small tin of beans
4 tins of rice pudding
2 packs of puff pastry
2 boxs of lasange sheets
lasange sauce
big box of cous cous
chicken and white wine soup
9 cans of beef paste
2 packs of tortillas
assorted soups
loads of cup a soups
2 tikea massala paste
2 sweet and sour sauce
5 boxs of stuffing mix
2 boxs of atora
4 fajita mix
enchalada mix
2 apple sauce
polenta
tin of ratatuiie
8 cans of pot and leek soup
mushroom soup
chicken soup
pionor beans
2 butter beans
2 sweet corn
semoleana
creamy tom pasta bake sauce
risotto rice
curry sauce

And a big bag of muslie no one likes and mango pulp what do i do with that ???

all the useal spices and sauces and flavorings loads of packet mixs for cassarolls ect

2 freezzers full of every meat/fish going and veggie meat and loads of frozen veg .

just a bit stuck on what to do with it all so keep buying and not using .. Please will someone inspire me .

Triggles

You've got so much available to you there, maybe a good browse through the recipes on the site will help you find something.

There's always the method of "choose a random ingredient and build a meal around it." We've done that a few times.

Popperwell

I'd go along with Triggles, at the end of the day we usually have basic ingredients and just switch them around to make meals but I'll tell you what...you've one h*** of a store cupboard there, ready for when prices go up, income is short, when things are in short supply or there's an emergency of some kind...

Which many on MSE are building up too...

As suggested there are so many recipe threads on here for those on a low budget or who are doing ok. There are many great sites on the internet and there some wnderful virtually new cook books always coming into charity shops which are very low in price. Its more a question of what meals you cannot make rather than what you can...

I think you are very fortunate...

BTW sometimes when you have more items to choose from I agree it can make decisions more difficult...even this thread may give you suggestions you could try...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3705165

PipneyJane

What styles do you like to eat? You have a lot of the basics but your list reads as if you are an "add a jar/packet of sauce mix" sort of cook. (Apologies if I'm wrong.) Would you be willing to forego packaged flavours in favor of cooking completely from scratch?

What spices and condiments do you have in stock? If you had soy sauce and Thai fish sauce in stock, I'd suggest making Chicken Pad Thai. Ginger, chilli, soy, sherry and a splash of vinegar would set you up for Hot and Sour Soup. Both of those would use up some of your noodles. Ginger, chilli, tumeric and some of the creamed coconut from your list would go a long way towards making the Thai Chicken Livers recipe from my blog and you can always substitute some other meat for the chicken livers. (We're not supposed to post links, so I won't, but it's an April 2007 entry. Hot and Sour Soup is on there, too.)

Can you make a scone dough? I see you have a can of chicken soup. How about making a chicken stew and, instead of serving it with the usual rice or potatoes, serve it as a cobbler? Half an hour before the stew is due to be served, make your regular scone dough (omit suger if included in the recipe) and add a teaspoon of mixed herbs plus several grinds of black pepper to the dried ingredients. Then, either roll it out and cut into scones and dot those over the stew or roll it into a wide sausage, cut that almost all the way through at 1 inch intervals and arrange that over the top of the stew so that it fans out. Glaze the scone dough with egg or milk and then bake for 20 minutes. The "cobbles" will be a bit like dumplings.

Another thought: you have polenta a.k.a. cornmeal. Google "spoon bread". Next time you have leftover chilli, add a can of baked beans and a can of sweetcorn, heat through then pour over your spoon bread and bake at 180C for 40-45 minutes. Congratulations, you've just made "Corn Pone". This spoonbread recipe is similar to mine but I stir in half a teaspoon of lazy chilli plus some mixed herbs and substitute water for the milk. (Oh, and I don't bother with the melted butter.)

HTH.

PasturesNew

Just open a corner shop.... that's a LOT of stuff in. You could eat for 3 months wtih that lot.... and still not have empty cupboards.

Malfiore

I'm all for the choose an ingredient(s) and build a meal around it.

Last night I didn't want what was on my meal plan so I looked up a recipe for lentils and tomatoes (as I have stupid amounts of both) and using a few recipes thrown together made Tunisian Lentil and Tomato Stew.

I think that's a great way if using what you have and making new recipes without popping to the shop Maybe just think about what you usually eat and try and vary it - so if you always have sausage and mash for example, you could make a sausage casserole instead poured over roasties. Just an idea, but you get the picture

valk_scot

I am so sick of cooking that I try to minimise the thinking of what to cook bit as much as possible. So I think of a week as one roast dinner (that's Sunday), one leftovers dinner (usually Monday), one chinese dinner (using the last of whatever roast it was), one soup and pudding dinner (or cold salad type dinner in summer), one indian dinner, one pasta dinner and one vegetarian. That's seven nights, conveniently enough, and I find it much easier to thing "Pasta dinner tonight...what type of pasta then?" rather than have too many alternatives. Within the heading "Pasta Dinner" though I do have a range of choices ie lasagna, meatballs and spaghetti, tuna pasta bake, tomato and roast veg, carbonara etc etc. And if I find a bargain buy in the Whoopsie section or something in the freezer that needs using up it's a lot easier to see where it will fit in.

Also once every couple of months I have a no-spend week. I have a good tidy up of the larder and freezer, pull out to the front everything that needs used up/is going out of date and cook just with this. The family quite enjoy this, they get some interesting combinations! And I save a bit of cash to use for stocking up on basics.

Wouldn't worry about the size of your storecupboard btw, as long as you're using everything up in rotation and before it goes out of date then it's not a problem. But by the sound of it you feel there's too much choice and not enough inspiration? If so try my weekly plan above for a couple of weeks, then have a no spend week and see how you feel then.

Popperwell

I agree with Malfiore and Valk_Scot. I am that I have managed to mostly keep an interest in food and though nothing wrong with simple food(Soup, baked beans etc...)but I do try to vary what I have.

Sometimes it's fun to think of food and all the different things you could do, even looking at cook books for inspiration and there are some great sites online.

Then other times I can't be bothered and when that happens I usually take the easy option and have a salad.

It's a nice position to be in but like Jem sometimes having such a variety to choose from actually makes it harder to decide what to have...