I have two approaches to preparing a dish.

The first is to study the recipe well and then make sure all the ingredients required for its fulfillment are ready and correct. I would not dream of starting on a shepherd’s pie, a Lancashire hotpot or a trifle if the items for its preparation were not there. Clearly this means logistical shopping.

The second is to scout around the kitchen and see what is there to concoct a dish. It’s amazing what one can find.

These days we have relied very much on the second method and have come up with some interesting results. For instance, yesterday we combined pastina, the miniature pasta used for making broths, with basmati rice to produce a dish we delighted in when in Egypt, kosharee.

Today we lacked a desert for our lunch but soon discovered it was there in the darkest recesses of our kitchen ready for our delectation.

First was a bowl of Bird’s custard made from a powder smuggled across the English channel.

I remember the time when this product had a competitor with a label portraying Shakespeare. It was called… yes you’ve guessed it… Bard’s custard powder. I think it didn’t last too long on our store shelves.

Second was this jar of strawberry jam.

Third was this tasty cinnamon biscuit only available here during Christmastide courtesy of the german branch of Lidl.

Fourth was a dash of spray cream.

Combined they produced this spontaneous dessert.

If our off-the-cuff gastronomic creations please then they get written up and find a place in our home recipe book. It’s now filling up quite nicely with these semi-inventive dishes.

Sure recipe books are the bibles of cookery, especially Mrs Beeton’s but, after all, necessity is the mother of invention and not all of us are good at hunting that hare or catching that trout. This is particularly the case for spontaneous recipes. Better them than spontaneous combustion so spectacularly described by Dickens in his novel ‘Bleak House’.