Store Cupboard

Unless you want to spend your every waking free hour buying food, you need to have at home basic ingredients that you can use to make something good when you haven’t had time to shop or plan for a particular meal. But don’t believe what you are told about essentials: all it means is that you’ll have a larder full of lost bottles of Indonesian soy sauce with a use-by date of November 1994. There is a compromise. Buy those few ingredients which really do provide a meal quickly and easily, and don’t weigh yourself down with various tempting bits and pieces that you think you may get round to using one day.