What do you hoard in the fridge or back of the pantry ready for when you have an attack of the munchies?

I've a few. Mainly defensible, but I've recently rediscovered my weakness for Flapjacks.

The only non-Brit here who might really know what these are is @Ken Fabian as treacle (aka Golden Syrup) is an indispensable ingredient and there few places outside the UK where it's readily available. I have to make my own (but it's worth it).

What's your guilty secret? (No more than 2 minutes prep time at time of need, or it's just 2nd breakfast)

In the winter, oatmeal with a handful of raisins, or a heated can of baked beans ( not too often; I like them but they give me gas ).

In the summer, toasted tomato sandwich with processed cheese and mayo ( no bacon as that would take longer than 2 min ).

1 hour ago, sethoflagos said:

What do you hoard in the fridge or back of the pantry ready for when you have an attack of the munchies?

I've a few. Mainly defensible, but I've recently rediscovered my weakness for Flapjacks.

The only non-Brit here who might really know what these are is @Ken Fabian as treacle (aka Golden Syrup) is an indispensable ingredient and there few places outside the UK where it's readily available. I have to make my own (but it's worth it).

What's your guilty secret? (No more than 2 minutes prep time at time of need, or it's just 2nd breakfast)

Wait, how do you make flapjacks in 2 minutes?

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

Wait, how do you make flapjacks in 2 minutes?

I make a batch every two or three weeks. It doesn't take me 2 minutes to pull one out of the biscuit tin.

'At time of need' is the qualifier.

Likewise, I always keep a stock of whole-wheat roti in the fridge. 30 seconds in the microwave, spread with blue cheese, and wrap around a pickled gherkin. Lovely!

3 hours ago, MigL said:

In the winter, oatmeal with a handful of raisins, or a heated can of baked beans ( not too often; I like them but they give me gas ).

In the summer, toasted tomato sandwich with processed cheese and mayo ( no bacon as that would take longer than 2 min ).

Okay, let's stretch it to ten minutes. You can be doing something else while it's in the pan, and we've got to allow bacon!

Don't understand the oatmeal and baked beans though. Guess it's a Canadian thing.

Or maybe you meant just the beans. 😊

I don't have a regular emergency stand-by, but occasionally I will bake a Victoria Sandwich cake and have a slice of that with my afternoon tea every day until it's gone. I normally bake a half cake and get 8 slices out of it. Alternatively I sometimes make cheese scones. These can be frozen and microwaved up at tea time, one at a time, so probably better for the waistline as one doesn't feel one has to use them up before they go stale. But I find if I eat too much at tea time I am not hungry at supper time so I try not to overdo it.

Edited 12 hours ago12 hr by exchemist

I bake or roast sweet potatoes whole and , if there are any leftovers then they can be eaten cold the next day like a sweet .

The skin should be caramelised on the outside and are very filling and easy to just grab.

I think they taste better when cold(but some are better than others-recently one was so juicy that it squirted when cut with a knife)

6 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Don't understand the oatmeal and baked beans though. Guess it's a Canadian thing.

yeah, not together; either oatmeal with raisins, OR, baked beans.
They 'stick to your ribs' and warm you up, in cold Canadian winters.
When I have time, I'll make a batch of 'pasta fagioli' with panchetta and freeze it for later consumption.

I only use bacon on my tomato sandwich on 'special occasions' ( ie when I have the time ).
It is mostly the tomato/mayonnaise combination, especially using ripe, red, plum tomatoes, picked from the garden.
That is the 'taste of summer' for me.

Edited 8 hours ago8 hr by MigL

42 minutes ago, MigL said:

It is mostly the tomato/mayonnaise combination, especially using ripe, red, plum tomatoes, picked from the garden.
That is the 'taste of summer' for me.

Tomatoes are hard to beat on sunny days for sure. I fondly remember gazpacho from a job I had in Spain and make a reasonable facsimile by blending chilled ripe tomatoes with pickles (onions, gherkins, chilli, garlic).

I even recently tried adding a tin of sardines and couple of slices of stale bread for a more substantial treat. It works. Either hot or cold.

1 hour ago, geordief said:

I bake or roast sweet potatoes whole and , if there are any leftovers then they can be eaten cold the next day like a sweet .

My wife and her sisters regularly pan fry sweet potato chips as it's a staple here. I go more for Irish potatoes as a taste from home. Maris Piper etc won't grow here, but the German new potato Nicola does very well on Jos Plateau, and is a good all-rounder in the kitchen.

I can warmly recommend this recipe for Bombay Aloo

Like you, I'll eat half for supper warm, and then snack on the cold leftovers the following day.

12 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

What do you hoard in the fridge or back of the pantry ready for when you have an attack of the munchies?

I've a few. Mainly defensible, but I've recently rediscovered my weakness for Flapjacks.

The only non-Brit here who might really know what these are is @Ken Fabian as treacle (aka Golden Syrup) is an indispensable ingredient and there few places outside the UK where it's readily available. I have to make my own (but it's worth it).

What's your guilty secret? (No more than 2 minutes prep time at time of need, or it's just 2nd breakfast)

Yes my son used to make those for munro expeditions. At my instigation he used to include chopped dried apricots, which add some balancing acidity and a bit more flavour.

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

I don't have a regular emergency stand-by, but occasionally I will bake a Victoria Sandwich cake and have a slice of that with my afternoon tea every day until it's gone. I normally bake a half cake and get 8 slices out of it. Alternatively I sometimes make cheese scones.

A few steps above me on the baking front.

The oven I inherited has no temperature indications and a brutal simplicity that frankly scares me.

By trial and cremated error, I've got the hang of (very) crusty bread and flapjacks. But I don't yet have the nerve to try such sophisticated stuff as you. Next on the experimental agenda is parkin. See how that goes.

10 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Yes my son used to make those for munro expeditions. At my instigation he used to include chopped dried apricots, which add some balancing acidity and a bit more flavour.

I'm currently adding ground almonds, but dried apricot sounds good. Not sure they're grown here, but dried mango might do the same job.

Edited 6 hours ago6 hr by sethoflagos
Damn spell check!

39 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

A few steps above me on the baking front.

The oven I inherited has no temperature indications and a brutal simplicity that frankly scares me.

By trial and cremated error, I've got the hang of (very) crusty bread and flapjacks. But I don't yet have the nerve to try such sophisticated stuff as you. Next on the experimental agenda is parkin. See how that goes.

I'm currently adding ground almonds, but dried apricot sounds good. Not sure they're grown here, but dried mango might do the same job.

Can you not buy an oven thermometer?

If your flapjacks don’t burn I expect you could make a cake or scones in it. 180C is good for most things.

29 minutes ago, exchemist said:

Can you not buy an oven thermometer?

I'm on the lookout for one but no luck so far. Local cooking practice has something of an on or off basis.

14 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

What do you hoard in the fridge or back of the pantry ready for when you have an attack of the munchies?

Hummus, on anything structurally suitable to support a gob of it. Chopped olives on top sometimes.

Tortilla chips with a mild salsa (once did spicy, then plus-60 yr bladder vetoed).

Leftover baked potato reheated with a vinaigrette and olive oil butter.

Almond butter on GF toast or crackers or apple slices.

Guacamole, as above.

Strawberries, organic, no sugar added, but sometimes chop up some bananas with it.

Peanuts. (And they should be hard to reach for, because I don't easily tire of them)

Brazil nuts (4, or less, due to massive selenium content) - whole, or crushed onto the hummus or nut butter

Sweet potato (bravo @geordief )

Sourdough bread (rare treat, as wheat makes me logy)

Dark chocolate (who really needs to explain that one?)

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

Next on the experimental agenda is parkin. See how that goes.

Do you have parkin meters there?

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Next on the experimental agenda is parkin. See how that goes.

(Corrected quote, by clipping from original poster)

11 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Hummus, on anything structurally suitable to support a gob of it. Chopped olives on top sometimes.

Tortilla chips with a mild salsa (once did spicy, then plus-60 yr bladder vetoed).

Leftover baked potato reheated with a vinaigrette and olive oil butter.

Almond butter on GF toast or crackers or apple slices.

Guacamole, as above.

Strawberries, organic, no sugar added, but sometimes chop up some bananas with it.

Peanuts. (And they should be hard to reach for, because I don't easily tire of them)

Brazil nuts (4, or less, due to massive selenium content) - whole, or crushed onto the hummus or nut butter

Sweet potato (bravo @geordief )

Sourdough bread (rare treat, as wheat makes me logy)

Dark chocolate (who really needs to explain that one?)

Homemade? Hummus and guacamole maybe?

14 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Do you have parkin meters there?

Parkin is a very local speciality of the region I was brought up in. Can't be explained. Nothing else much like it.

The Parkin recipe reminds me of a curious feature of golden syrup. It corrodes the tin and can even leak through the joints if stored for many months, in spite of being so viscous. ( I often have some in the house for porridge in the winter months but the tin can sit untouched for 6 months over the summer.)

12 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I make a batch every two or three weeks. It doesn't take me 2 minutes to pull one out of the biscuit tin.

Gotcha

If I am allowed up to 10 minutes, my go to is usually some sort of pasta. When I cook pasta I always cook too much and most of the time I will have some in the fridge. If I want a snack, I'll do a quick carbonara (especially if I got pancetta, otherwise bacon, but do not tell the Italians) or cacio e pepe or, especially in the winter, put them in a miso soup.

1 hour ago, sethoflagos said:

Homemade? Hummus and guacamole maybe?

Sometimes the guacamole is. Ditto the sourdough. Grocery sourdough is usually a travesty here. A local artisan bakery has some good sourdough.

The yorkie parkin recipe sounds delicious - I'm partial to oats and molasses. The only dish I've had from that region is pease porridge, which was tasty and deeply filling. It was the variant which involves mixing in oats and plenty of butter, so more at the porridge end of the spectrum than the pudding end. I can't imagine it ever lasting long enough to be nine days old.

Nothing guilty ,but cold ,cooked sweet potatoes are very nice and filling(they are caramelised on the outside so are really like sweets except for being ,I assume extremely nutritious)

50 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Gotcha

If I am allowed up to 10 minutes, my go to is usually some sort of pasta. When I cook pasta I always cook too much and most of the time I will have some in the fridge. If I want a snack, I'll do a quick carbonara (especially if I got pancetta, otherwise bacon, but do not tell the Italians) or cacio e pepe or, especially in the winter, put them in a miso soup.

I just cut up an onion ,grate some cheese ,mix it into the old cooked pasta and put it in the oven.

I always used to throw out the extra pasta until I saw how easy it was to tart it up.(you can throw anything in -maybe even just oil ,salt and pepper)

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

The Parkin recipe reminds me of a curious feature of golden syrup. It corrodes the tin and can even leak through the joints if stored for many months, in spite of being so viscous. ( I often have some in the house for porridge in the winter months but the tin can sit untouched for 6 months over the summer.)

I store mine in a glass Kilner jar so avoid the problem. The manufacturers add citric acid to accelerate the sucrose inversion process so perhaps that eventually initiates the corrosion. The DIY recipe includes for a good squirt of concentrated lemon juice.

59 minutes ago, CharonY said:

If I am allowed up to 10 minutes, my go to is usually some sort of pasta. When I cook pasta I always cook too much and most of the time I will have some in the fridge. If I want a snack, I'll do a quick carbonara (especially if I got pancetta, otherwise bacon, but do not tell the Italians) or cacio e pepe or, especially in the winter, put them in a miso soup.

Definitely second breakfast territory 😄

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

The Parkin recipe reminds me of a curious feature of golden syrup. It corrodes the tin and can even leak through the joints if stored for many months, in spite of being so viscous. ( I often have some in the house for porridge in the winter months but the tin can sit untouched for 6 months over the summer.)

I think treacle does the same thing (we have tins going back decades since gingerbread is a go to here when it comes to baking)

Edited 59 minutes ago59 min by geordief

Focaccia with a bed of tomato sauce, scraps of sliced black olive and tuna, mozzarella, oregano or basil. A minute to melt the cheese in the mw oven.

You can use other kinds of bread, but focaccia is best.

Very similar to the coca valenciana = the Spanish version of a pizza.

Very substantial.

Nice thread. I'm hungry!

10 minutes is easy; plenty of time to whip up something.
Even 2 min is kind of easy.
How about less than a min, or 30 sec.

Am I the only one who keeps a large jar of peanut butter in the fridge, and when feeling peckish, will indulge in a couple of spoonfuls ?