Nigel Slater's new cook's survival guide

• Try to cook only as much as you'll eat today and tomorrow; come the third day you won't want it, however much that casserole/curry/soup is supposed to improve with keeping.
• Remember that there is nothing quite so useful to have around as a cold roast chicken. You can feast off it for the next couple of days.
• Overestimate the amount of potatoes and rice you will eat. Anything not eaten today will be fine tomorrow. Think sauté potatoes and fried rice. Think bubble and squeak.
• Underestimate the amount of pasta you will eat - there's always a temptation to cook too much and reheated pasta is horrid. Remember there is no such thing as a nice pasta salad, despite what women's magazines would have us believe.
• Try to keep at least something in the store cupboard, say olives, pasta, tinned flageolets, olive oil, anchovies, tomato passata, wine, coffee. This way you will never come home to no supper, even if you skip the shops.
• Pillow packs of ready-prepared salad may seem expensive but the alternative - several types of lettuce in the fridge - will prove more expensive in the long run. What is wrong with a green salad from just one type of lettuce anyway? It's all in the dressing.
• Frisee, the mop-haired pale salad leaf, keeps almost as well as an iceberg lettuce and is much more interesting to eat. Try it with bits of hot bacon and a mustard dressing.
• Ignore anyone who tells you that you shouldn't drink alone.
• A bag of pasta, a lump of Parmesan and a bottle of olive oil are probably the best friends you will ever have. It's another supper for those nights when you cannot be bothered to shop.
• Always keep a bag of frozen peas in the house. It will get you out of no end of trouble.
• Poached fruits such as gooseberries, damsons and rhubarb may seem a time-extravagant dessert just for one but remember that they can be eaten the next day for breakfast, too.
• Two cannot live as cheaply as one. It is a myth put about by people trying to justify a decision they have just made.

From Nigel Slater's Appetite

To try some of Nigel's recipes, click here

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