green olives | Eat the Earth

ingredients for a storecupboard dinner

A storecupboard meal to save you. On realising that I am 2 ounces short of enough risotto rice to make the planned (and I might add for a number of days…plenty of time to check the jar of risotto rice and buy more) Pea, Mint and Mascarpone Risotto, I had a mild panic and was then saved by a couple of items that have been lounging in the fridge since Christmas. I like nights like these, when plans go to pot, but in turn make way for a creative meal to be cobbled together.

Tonight’s meal has been cobbled from: potatoes (delicious golden fleshed potatoes, ashamedly I admit from the supermarket, but grown in Hertfordshire), an onion, chorizo sausage (the cooking type, not the salami), green olives (remnants of the edible Christmas gifts), and a lump of hard Spanish cheese (brought back from Madrid by my dad).

Chop up the potatoes and parboil. Slice the onion and fry in an ovenproof dish on a medium heat. Add some sliced chorizo. And some finely chopped garlic. A sprinkle of dried herbs. Ground black pepper.

Add the drained potatoes. Stir well. Add half a tin of tomatoes and 200ml of chicken stock (from a cube). Bung in the oven (180°C).

20 minutes later, remove from the oven. Sprinkle over the green olives. Grate on some cheese. Bung it back in the oven for a further 5-10 minutes until the cheese is all gooey and golden. Yum.