Pasta has to be the ultimate convenience food. When I’m tired and haven’t got the energy to spend hours tinkering in the kitchen, I just reach into the store cupboard for a packet of dried pasta and fifteen minutes later, supper’s ready. The kids love it and it goes with just about everything, so its great for using up cooked meats and veggies and odd bits of cheese.

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The husband laughs at my obsessive list writing, but I have to write lists as my brain is like a sieve. Writing lists gives the illusion of being organised, even though I am apt to loose my notebook. Of course Christmas is the perfect excuse for indulging in lists – especially when it comes to food. Planning christmas meals and writing shopping lists gives me a fighting chance that with a bit of luck I won’t forget the bread sauce, and I’ll only buy what we need.

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Sunday night always involves cheese in our house. After a big roast dinner, I really look forward to the evening when we can collapse in front of the telly and tuck in to cheese and biscuits. I have an absolute weakness for cheese in all its forms – which probably explains why I’m terrified to get on the bathroom scales.

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Amy Fleming wrote in the Guardian Online yesterday that “one of the secrets to hassle-free packed luncheoning seems to be to cook stuff for tea that you’ll want to eat again, at work, the next day.” Spot on. Using up last night’s supper means you can pack up your lunch without having to think – always a bonus – just open the fridge, grab and go.

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I don’t know if it’s the Irish gene in me, but we eat a lot of potatoes in this house. This means there is always some variation or another of cold potatoes in the fridge. They’re cheap and the ultimate comfort food. Here are my three favourite leftover spud ideas…
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I’ve discovered there is such a thing as a free lunch! Anything that’s free – particularly if it’s edible – sees me first in the queue. I am now a dedicated ‘free-luncher’.

The most useful thing I’ve picked up from free-lunching is using up leftovers at lunchtime. Every night I forage through the fridge to make the kids’ lunchboxes. Normally there is something left over from supper, or the weekend’s dinner, that can be transformed into a far more exciting alternative than the usual cheese sandwiches. Lunch is now a bit of an event in our house!

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I hate fireworks – all that banging and whooshing and the compulsory “Oohing” and “Aahing”. I spend the whole time with my hands over my ears. But I absolutely love the idea of Bonfire Night. Crunching through thick piles of Autumn leaves in the frosty evening, all wrapped up in big jumpers and woolly scarves, your breath leaving dragon trails in the air.

Even better than that though, and a good deal warmer, is the food. Bonfire Night is made for earthy flavours, hearty robust stews, warming soups, and things that are mulled, baked, roasted and toasted. 
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What’s the Ultimate Rescue Food? The one ingredient that transforms just about anything into a main meal. An ingredient that means you can empty the fridge at the end of the week and it will spin your leftovers into a fabulous feast. The magic ingredient that pulls it all together.
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OK, so how am I going to make two wrinkly courgettes, a couple of cooked chicken legs and some cheese into supper for tonight? This is the kind of question I end up asking myself every morning when I open the fridge. Should I close the door on the problem and hit the shops?

There must be loads of people who face the same dilemma every day – finding ways to make your budget stretch further means jazzing up your leftovers to feed a hungry family. Short of starving the kids, which I’m told is illegal, sometimes you are forced to create something out of nothing.
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Now that we are about to enter a recession, most of us can’t afford to throw away perfectly good food. I had a quick look around the web to see how other people are coping with the rising cost of food bills. Surprisingly, I didn’t find anything that showed me how to transform that bunch of black bananas into a million quid! However, I did find a family who’ve started tackling the problem…
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