Working from home may seem perfect with time to stop and prepare tasty, wholesome home cooked meals each day and, on the whole, that's the case, but if I do have to work late and my partner (who also works from home and is an excellent cook) has to do likewise, we don't always feel like turning round and having to do everything from scratch so we've come up with some really quick and easy recipes which are relatively healthy. The recipes are also a perfect way to use up left-over meat or veg in the fridge.
We always have a ready supply of canned condensed soups, jars of sauce mix and canned and frozen veg. You don't have to use condensed soup but you may find the flavour is a bit diluted if you need to add liquid to ensure you have enough sauce.
Each of these can be adapted, depending on what soup you have in the cupboard at the time or whether you're vegetarian.
The "Magic Mix"
The basics are that you take the tin of soup (we normally use chicken, mushroom or celery but there are probably other variations out there), empty it into a pan, add the relevant extra ingredients and heat through, slowly adding water to ensure there's enough "sauce" to cover those ingredients.
The additional ingredients we normally add are bacon, chicken, fish or shellfish, peas, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, sweetcorn, sweet peppers, celery, mushrooms, runner beans or broad beans. We also add a bit of seasoning here and there if the mood takes us. Here are some ideas I've come up with:
Quick curry
Add curry powder or a few spoonfuls of canned or jarred curry sauce to the magic mix, heat through and serve with cooked rice.
Quick macaroni cheese
Add grated cheese to the magic mix, heat through and stir in cooked macaroni.
Quick Pesto Pasta
Add pesto sauce to the magic mix and serve with pasta.
Quick Fish/Veg Pie
Add fish/shellfish or vegetables to the magic mix, put in a casserole dish Cover with mashed potato or crushed crisps and place in the oven for quarter of an hour or so until brown. I find that prawn cocktail, sour cream and chive or cheese and onion crisps seem to work best. For a treat, I sometimes add a bit of grated cheese to the top. If you don't want to go the hassle of heating up an oven, you can always put the heated ingredients into a heatproof dish and pop the dish under the grill for a short while.
I'm sure the variations are endless but these are the ones that we use on a regular basis.
These recipes obviously don't have quite the same appeal as fresh, home prepared versions but they're ideal for an emergency and, with the new school/college year coming up, can be great for students who are strapped for cash, can't afford a takeaway pizza, want slightly healthier meal options without hassle or don't know their hob from their oven!! All you need to be able to do is open a can, or a pack from the freezer and chuck it in a pan!
