I hadn’t eaten tinned potatoes since the many wonderful camping trips I went on with my family as a child. But, I recently started buying tinned potatoes to have in the cupboard for occasional meals. I find they are a useful ‘filler’ that can be added to stews and bakes or are quite tasty oven roasted with olive oil and a sprinkling of salt, with garlic and herbs to taste. The Tesco’s Value brand is one of the few Value products that seems like a good deal to me but recently I found Noliko organic bottled potatoes. They are reasonably priced and with a good texture and flavour – a real find.

I came across cooks&co stuffed vine leaves. They are not cheap at over £2 per can but they are absolutely delicious, I ate the whole can in one sitting. But eaten in a meal the can would do four or so and is a great way to add zing to plain ingredients; and as starters more than that, so pretty good value despite the price. The texture is delightfully smooth yet grainy and substantial, the flavour is not too ascorbic and the olive oil tastes of olives. cooks&co also do a range of olives that tend to be a cut above the rest too.

Never heard of it before but it, Tesco brand, was heavily reduced, I hope not a sign that it is discontinuing although it may not be mainstream taste containing capers and anchovies, but what a treat, I’m glad I stocked up. The olives are whole and juicy, I thought they were large capers but the picture on the jar would suggest not so I’m a bit confused, but anyway the overall flavour is very latte culture.

Eazy spanish onions chopped small and tinned in olive oil. OK it’s incredibly lazy, it doesn’t take long to chop an onion but these are great for the days when you’ve run out of onions. The can is standard size so there is too much for a small meal but they keep in the fridge.

So versatile really, from omelettes to bolognaise to stuffing. I made a version of courgette parmigani by throwing layers of sliced courgette, Tesco Value grated mozarella substitute, Tesco Puttanesca sauce and Eazy onions, together in a baking dish – took all of 10 mins to get into the oven and went down very well.

I bought Tesco Value mozarella substitute to try it. I didn’t check the price, I have yet to come across a Value item that isn’t cheap. After a few days in the fridge the shreds were melding together and the raw taste is not good but in cooking and for gratinées it’s pretty good unless you’re after a strong cheddar or ementhal flavour.

Sometimes I veritably crave tinned sardines, maybe something to do with the biorhythms of my brain. Anyway, one brand I tried is John West Wild Scottish in Olive Oil. The box is deceptive. The latin translation, silver card, aesthetic embossed picture of the wild sea, and personalised photo on the back makes the packaging look similar to the small gourmet companies. But the photo turns out to be not the fisherwoman but the artist of the embossed picture, who Tesco have apparently “always taken a great interest in her paintings”.

The sardines are tiny, subtley fishy and very smooth, I didn’t detect a bone. It’s probably eating babies because there are no sustainability claims, but if it weren’t I would definitely repeat purchase.

I’ve always loved carrot cake. For my son’s birthday he asked for not a chocolate cake (I made all birthday cakes till a few years ago by the, only recipe I know, magic 4-4-4-4 formula) and I found respectorganics organic carrot cake. The Tesco version looked good too but I was so impressed with the zingy white and orange minimalist box design that I went for the premium. The company, based in Dorset, “celebrate organic food and farming through art, music, poetry and events” www.respectorganics.com

There is much to be said for the humble sandwich and plenty also about the luxury sandwich. The first consideration is bread and with the recent veritable explosion of bread varieties in the UK (still none quite match up to the crusty delight of French country breads or the wonderfully chewy, open-textured experience of Catalan and Greek breads) there is much to choose from. A favourite of mine is the new range of seed breads. There are many of these on the market alongside the well-established health food brands, including mass produced big name brands and smaller organic and retailer-own bakeries.

A simple cucumber sandwich is hard to beat. In parts of north Europe, cucumber is a breakfast staple and I can well appreciate the enlivening effect that must have. For me, as the afternoon progresses, a quick cucumber sandwich is an ideal perk-me-up. Welcome additions are of course marmite (for those who indulge) and mayonnaise or even chutney (the variety of either of these products on the market is sufficient to suite every taste). Tomato sandwiches suit equally well for an afternoon snack and I have recently taken to slicing a pickled egg into a sandwich.

I have nothing against meat sandwiches – in the macrobiotic diet meat is not prohibited but the closer the meat is to primate, the more Yang is the effect of the meat on our body – beef being the obvious, well-stereotyped ’strengthening’ food, of medicinal proportions in the case of beef tea, and the very expression to ‘beef’ something up means to give substance to something and then of the course there is the archetypal image of machismo in the form of the gi-normous Texan cowboy steak. (So the macrobiotic diet moves in the same direction as the semi-vegetarian, ‘fish and chicken’ diet).

But anyway, I just find vegetarian sanwiches tastier especially now Italian coffee bars have colonised the UK – paninis with roast vegetables being a favourite, and then there’s Pret a Manger (wo’ss tha’ awl abaa’?), humus and rocket, goat’s cheese and something are both very tasty. And today I went into McDonald’s for the first time in ages – excluding breakfast – and was delighted to discover the new melted cheese and roast vegetable brown roll. True the cheese is processed but it was yummy.

The basic lentil stew can be made in 40 minutes from dried green lentils, brought to the boil and left to simmer. Onions and carrots can be kept large and added at the start or sliced and added later. A bit of shoyu or tamari (soya sauce) to serve with is delicious but even better is a bit of miso added at the end of simmering. Macrobiotics add seaweed in the cooking and non-macros may like a few mushrooms or potatoes, or virtually any other veg can be added including peppers, but the basic lentil, onion and carrot version is a sensation of pure nourishment. Putting whole grain rice on to boil at the same time as the stew makes this a not overly labour-intensive meal. A super quick version is to put sliced carrots/other veg on to boil first and add a tin of (drained) lentils at the end.

The possibilities for bean and veg stews is virtually endless but there’s no doubt that some combinations are more sumptuous than others and are worth remembering such as: Kidney Bean, Walnut and Spinach. Aduki beans are recommended for the benefit of kidney functioning but I have found them more suited to substituting for mincemeat in ’shepherdess pie’ and such, rather than for stews. Butter beans make interesting flavour combinations with Mediterranean veg and strong flavoured veg such as fennel. Borlotti beans are nice and ‘meaty’ with a solid texture and slightly savoury taste, which make hearty winter stews with root veg.

Cannelloni beans can be quite hard to the bite but along with flageolet beans (always a pretty sight on the plate) make a fine stew with most veg and are the basis for cerba di fasoli or fasola, an east european soup made (I think) with pork stock and bacon fat a bit like the english pea and ham soup but there the similarity ends – the flavours in pea and ham soup are overwhleming whereas fasola is subtle and only slightly spicy. With the arrival of many Polish people, supermarkets have started stocking a range of Polish foods, Pudliszki Fasola amongst them and at £1.27 for a large jar it is good value, and a valued discovery – and I think one version is vegetarian. Pudliski also do delicious stuffed cabbage in a jar.

When the children were young and my budget was tight, I started to think of the cost of meals rather than the cost of individual foods or rather to think of the value of the food cost, the role of the food in our diets. In the supermarket I would calculate how many meals a product would provide -

- a packet of four quarter pound burgers for instance would count as two meals. Such burgers tend to retail at around a minimum 50p each mark making the main component of the meal (the centrepiece in Douglas-speak) around a pound sterling, which if served with carrot and bread would have minimal additional cost, whilst with chips or another processed product the additional cost might be 50p-£1 more. For many years meal prices ranged in £1-2 bracket. Clearly beans on toast would come under that but as my children were never big baked bean fans I couldn’t resort to that too often although egg on toast has always been popular.

And at the other end of the scale are the luxury meals – lamb chops which we all love and nowadays, sushi – expensive, but I calculate based on the nutrient content. I feel the same about ready prepared fruit. They are too expensive ordinarily but when they are on offer I can justify the expense by nutrition – a pack of fresh fruit chunks for instance is a rapid way to increase vitamin intake so irresistable are the chunks, making the product seem a good deal less expensive than if I were to continue to view it as an exotic or luxury item. Many prepared veg are also so delicious that they are eaten with relish – mashed (pureed) carrot and swede, green beans and parsley butter, potatoes of various guises peeled or ready wedged I regularly buy if they are reduced.