In the current episode of my podcast, I invite you to join me in my kitchen as I make a some tasty dishes using my store cupboard and freezer staples. Listen for the step by step guides and to hear what I keep in my cupboards:

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Grains and vegetables salad

Ingredients

1 cup of grains (I use a standard 200ml/7 fl oz tea cup/small mug), I used spelt grains, you can use any grains: spelt, wheat, einkorn, emmer, khorasan, rye, or quinoa

350g frozen mixed roasted vegetables

Seeds of your choice, sunflower or pumpkin seeds work well, or nibbled almonds or pistachios

Dried barberries optional

Methods

Cook the grains:

Place the cup of grains into a medium saucepan.

Full the same cup with water and add that to the pan with the grains (top image below)

Place the pan, uncovered, over a medium/high heat.

Once the water is boiling, turn the heat down and simmer for 6 minutes (middle image below)

After 6 mins, turn the heat off, place the lid on the saucepan and leave it to one side for 10-15 minutes for the grains to finish cooking in the steam (shown in bottom photo below)

Cook the frozen vegetables:

Tip the vegetables into a pan, place over a medium heat and cook until fully heated through.

Once the vegetables are hot and the grains fully cooked through, they’ll still be nicely chewy, add the grains into the pan and cook it all together briefly.

Make the sauce:

Pour some tahini into a small bowl, add a squeeze of lemon juice and some water and stir with a spoon. It will separate initially before its starts to lighten up in colour, add extra water to obtain a consistency thin enough to pour over the dish but not so thin that it disappears. if its too thin you can add more tahini.

Place the grains and vegetables into a bowl, sprinkle with seeds, and dried barberries, and drizzle with the tahini sauce to serve

Green beans, tomatoes and garlic

300g baby plum tomatoes, halved length ways

3 fat garlic cloves, peeled and sliced lengthwise

200-300g frozen green beans (also works well with frozen baby okra)

2 teaspoons ground roasted cumin

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

1-2 teaspoons Aleppo chilli flakes

Olive oil

Method

Add some oil to a medium sized pan, add the cut tomatoes and turn the heat up to medium. Cover the pan to prevent spitting all over your hob.

Cook until the tomatoes start to break down.

Add the garlic slices, cook for another 3-4 minutes.

Add the spices, stir and cook briefly. **Don’t let the spices burn.

Add the green beans, stir and cook. Keep cooking and stirring until the beans have defrosted and cook through.

Place in a dish to serve alongside the grains dish and extra sauce.

For more recipes like this, check out my food blog Foodbod.