IN MY LATE TEENS THE JOB OF SUPPER-MAKER UNEXPECTEDLY LANDED ON MY LAP, AND LIKE MOST TEENAGERS I HAD NO INTEREST IN, OR CONCEPT OF, PLANNING. THE SATURDAY SHOP MADE SENSE AS FAR AS SUNDAY LUNCH, BUT INVARIABLY BY TUESDAY EVENING, MY DAD AND I WERE SITTING DOWN TO A MEAL OF THINGS I’D THROWN TOGETHER – AND BELIEVE ME, IT WASN’T ALWAYS THAT PRETTY.

Apart from an innate love of the kitchen, the other thing I inherited from my mum – crucial to making something out of nothing – was a good larder, quite literally. Like any good homemaker (and I’d like to be clear that you don’t need to have kids to be a good home-maker), she had accumulated a store cupboard full of pulses, pastas, biscuits, baking goods, tinned veggies and the like. So before you read on and think that there are recipes in this chapter where you can make a three-course dinner out of a packet of frozen peas and a couple of gnarly cheese slices, turn to p.12 where you must first learn the art of a good larder.

Now, with at least the bare necessities of a larder in place, we are ready to proceed: this chapter is dedicated to all of those who meant to get to the shops today but didn’t quite make it, whether you were too busy brokering power-deals or just got stuck in your pyjamas. These recipes are for big-hearted folk whose friends drop round early evening, are still there at suppertime and there’s now’t about. Or for the home-worker, when no sandwich delivery company has turned up. Or the kids are suddenly starving … as are their four unexpected playmates – and you’ve just got back from holiday.

There are many occasions where even the best menu planner gets caught with their trousers down, and being ready for them, in terms of having both a recipe or two to draw upon and a few handy ingredients in the house, just makes your life that bit easier. It saves you bucks by not ordering expensive takeaways and, bearing in mind we’re not going for Michelin stars here, these are all useful and scrummy recipes to be able to rustle up.

If there’s one area where now, twenty years on, I’m still Throwing Stuff Together, it’s puddings: not being one of the world’s great pudding eaters, I just forget that for some, dinner isn’t dinner without a bit of sweetness – it’s amazing how the right flourishes can pass off a few sliced oranges and a drop of rosewater as a gourmet Middle Eastern dessert.

My aim with this chapter is to give you an injection of ideas and then adapt them depending on what you have around – because that’s the reality of how life works. Even when you’re planning for the unplanned, you still need to have a Plan C, and that is called your imagination. Ideally you will always have some semblance of freshness in your house – an ageing courgette, a slightly shrinking bulb of fennel, a few onions, spuds and garlic at the very least. Cabbage takes a decade to die. Some kind of herb effort is easily achieved – thyme and rosemary last for ages stored correctly in the fridge – but most universal of all is flat-leaf parsley.

Between your larder, the odd bit of fresh and the corner shop all the recipes in this chapter are within reach. So you can create something out of nothing, pull supper out of thin air and make a miracle out of loaves and fishes.