Old-fashioned tasty recipes......PLEASE!

I love cooking but as I live alone, I find most recipes are for 4 or more people. I do make good use of the freezer and my daughters family often get what I make. During last year and now I find if a recipe has more than 6 ingredients I look for something else to cook. I too have a large range of herbs and spices which may or may not be out of date. I did find porridge oats at the back of the store cupboard , when I cleared it last week, that expired in 2011. It was only about 2 ounces so they went in the bin.

Like Lemsip post about oldest stuff in the cupboard. At the moment everything is in date as lockdowns made me finally go through cupboards and edit. Not much was thrown but when I did this a few years ago I found crawlies in old flour and barley!!!! Many years ago when my son moved out we moved from a large house to a smaller one and found a half drunk bottle of lemonade over 10 years old as my son had a primary school friend had drunk it but subsequently none of us did.
On the storecupboard one I always have arborio rice for risottos and jars of red and green pesto.

I live in a very rural area, but one that by tradition (from mid 20C) had a lot of Italian and Eastern European workers. Although a lot of 'their' shops closed in the 70-80s, one or two remain. There is a 'Chinese Supermarket' near a motorway junction about 30 minutes from us, and a our nearest market town has a couple of Asian shops for basmati rice and spices.
I think some gransnetters live in more remote areas, but for me, the Italian deli & the Asian shops are as near as the local Co-op, and a lot nearer than any of the "Big" supermarkets (as well as being cheaper & better quality)

I have chilli, but not chilli paste or the others you mentioned and my cupboard is full of spices, which I use, as I make a great deal of Indian food.

Don't know what half of them are! but i do have quite a few ingredients bought for a special recipe that have not been used since. I usually look up the odd ingredient online and see what can be substituted instead.

Have always been interested in cooking but am not keen on Asian food but like French and Italian. I have a cupboard full of recipe books and leaflets right from the Ministry of Food ones issued during the war. Very plain whole some food in those days. I used to have a pressure cooker but now I have mobility problems found it dangerous and I miss it. I now use the slow cooker most of the time.
It amuses me when TV cooks say “You can get it in your local supermarket”. Not everyone lives in London or a big town.

I only discovered Gochujang paste about a year ago (it has become a Christmas tradition that DD and I make each other a hamper of different ingredients to try and that was in mine) and I have to say that it has become my 'go to' for stir fries using the sauce recipe here: www.telegraph.co.uk/recipes/0/spicy-korean-stir-fried-vegetables-recipe/
Worth a try if you like a chilli kick ?
I do have most of those things in my cupboard and I'm not a foodie and live in middle of countryside; I just like to try new things every so often and I can get them all at supermarket or online.

Not a one.
I am a cheese on toast sort of person

Lemsip - I’ve recently moved house and am ashamed to say I had dried packet soups from 2014! Some herbs and spices from 2015! My husband said ‘oh they’ll be fine, they’re dried!’ A few other things from 2016-2019, it’s just so easy to forget they are there!

Was OP asking for recipes ?

None of those. I am not very adventurous and stick to what I know though sometimes it gets a bit boring. I am not going to buy ingredients I might use only once. This is where those things like Gusto and Hello Fresh come in, as you can try a recipe with the right amount of ingredients provided, so no waste.
As for Best Before dates - I ignore them. I have many tins and packets which are well past their BB date. I sniff, maybe taste and have a good look and most are fine. Use By dates need to be taken seriously. I had to throw away an unopened pack of Brie yesterday as we had forgotten all about it and it was days out of date - too risky.

I worked in a farmshop for a few years. I was amazed that a lovely box of January King cabbages were unsold at the end of the day. We couldn’t give cauliflower away. Times have changed, with their fast paced lives, youngsters these days want quick tasty food. The days of meat two veg and gravy and long cooked casseroles and stew are gone sadly. However, their reply when asked what their favourite meal was, “Mum’s Sunday Roast’. We must be doing something right.

Beanie654321, do you have a good recipe for Rose Harissa?

MissFoodlove thank you for the link, I’ve copied it into my recipes folder in my phone notes.

Here is a very simply tasty recipe. Made by my Grandma and Mum.
<warning> Unsuitable for anyone who thinks high fat meals are a danger to health
Cheese on a Plate
Pour milk into a Pyrex plate so it just covers the dipped bit in the middle.
Cover with grated Cheshire or Wensleydale cheese.
Top with sliced onions.
Sprinkle dry mustard over the top.
Arrange some streaky bacon round the sides of the plate.
Place under hot grill for about five minutes.
Turn bacon over, replace under grill and cook till brown on top.

Serve with fresh bread.
?

I've been buying quark since I started going to Slimming World. It's cheap to buy and I much prefer it to natural yogurt. This morning for breakfast I had banana, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries topped with quark and a bit of honey. It was lovely.

I actually do have most of those. But I also frequently Google alternative ingredients. You can make a great Quark/ricotta substitute by straining natural yoghurt through cheesecloth or a fine sieve

Was it Prima?

I've never even heard of most of them !!

Gosh I have salt, pepper and cinnamon in my cupboard. Soy sauce from a Chinese take away, but that is it. I live on Cheeses, yogurts, fruits and salads. pasta and Jacket Potatoes. Love my food, but it has to be plain and simple for me.

I too have never heard of any of those items, although Mr L is the more adventurous cook in the house. We've also had a larder clear out since the beginning of lockdown, and were amazed at what we came across

Thanks for the link Missfoodlove I shall try that one out. (It didn't show the method on the link, but I googled it without a problem.

I have asked Mr L to try out the Spicy Korean stir fry - so thank you for that lolarabbit. GNs are a mine of information!

Old fashioned wholesome food depends on what you were raised with - I have a few friends who think it’s hilarious that kimchi has become such a must-have ingredient when it’s one of the first thing their parents taught them to make!

Deeply missing visiting the Chinese supermarket during lockdown - I can buy everything online, but there’s something so much more authentic about going somewhere that’s stocked by the people who cook with it on a daily basis.

When I was living in Germany, I went on a "quark diet", which was very successful. It was really cheap and versatile. It can be mixed with herbs and used like a cream cheese on crispbreads or mixed with fruit or lemon juice and eaten as a dessert. Unfortunately, it isn't that cheap in British supermarkets.

Just cleared out of my fridge several items I bought for a specific recipe, used once, then saw on the jar that the item has to be “discarded 7 days after opening. “ Wish you could buy these one- off items in smaller sizes, it seems so wasteful
If the recipe freezes I batch cook, but sadly this is not always the case.

You can always freeze the ingredients, even in their jars!

mimismo

I'm the same. I bought a famous '5 ingredients' cook book but, living in the centre of Spain, I usually found that at least 2 of the 5 ingredients were impossible to procure locally. The book is gathering dust on my bookshelf!

Yes, I am very disappointed with this cook book. I live fairly remote and can’t get most of the ingredients