A German storecupboard meal - a favourite of my (German) DH is Eggs in Mustard Sauce. Hard-boiled eggs, peeled, halved and still warm, on a bed of rice, with a simple white sauce, flavoured strongly with mustard. I prefer to flavour the sauce with curry, however, and he's quite happy with that, too.
As for the "adding stuff to Philly" trick, I recently tried out a recipe which mixed pesto with cream cheese. The actual recipe was a bit of a faff, but the DGC enjoyed it:
Kebabs made with
- tiny, boiled and peeled potatoes, cooled right down. These are then wrapped in strips of Black Forest or Serrano ham, which has been spread with the cream cheese and pesto mixture.
- cherry tomatoes
- basil leaves
As I say, the kebab lark was an awful faff. The potatoes hadn't cooled right down, so I just rolled up the ham and cheese spread and stuck them on the skewers separately, or the cream cheese would have melted and run out. But the taste of the pesto mixed with the cream cheese was fantastic.
Pesto on its own is too intense for my taste. We have loads of basil in the garden and I have already frozen 20 small packs of pesto this year.