Tinned recipe ideas and an alternative for Pancake Day?

Cher_Alumni

We recently asked what lurks in your tin cupboard? and now our resident community kitchen queen @Veriterc shares her tinned can ideas and recipes, including an alternative Pancake Day treat.

Canned fruit and vegetables are wonderful store cupboard staples that are ready to add flavour and bulk out expensive basics. and are reasonably priced.

Sealed in an airtight can in water, syrup or juice, unopened canned produce has a shelf life from canning of at least five years (officially).  Just watch out, if you want to lose weight it's probably best to avoid fruit canned in syrup or make sure the fruit is well drained.

As most fruit and vegetables undergo the canning process close to where they are picked and within a few hours of harvest, this helps preserve their freshness and nutritional value.

And tinned produce can be very useful: things like tinned tomatoes can be added to most savoury recipes, as an easy way of adding flavour, plus one of your 'five-a-day'.  And don't forget sardines on toast are full of good stuff - as are baked beans on toast! and not expensive!

Tinned soups can be used as a basis for your own 'homemade soup' and provide a quick basis for chicken pie:  

Chicken pie

Cut up pieces of cooked chicken, stir into a can of chicken soup, add a little flour to thicken the mixture, then fill a pie dish with the mixture. Add parsley, extra vegetables - even some left-over white wine to fill a pie dish.

Add pastry on top and bake for 30 -40 minutes in a moderate oven until the top is golden.  

Upside down pineapple pancakes

BBC Good food gets in on the act too. I found this Upside-down pineapple pancakes recipe on the web for Pancake Day, and thought that using pineapple rings might make a change from lemons:-

Ingredients

• 135g/4¾oz plain flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• pinch salt

• 1 tbsp caster sugar

• 125ml/4½fl oz milk

• 1 free-range egg

• 2 tbsp melted butter, plus extra for cooking

• 435g tin pineapple slices, drained

• maple syrup, to serve (optional)

Method
1.  Put the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a large bowl.
2.  Pour the milk and melted butter into a jug, crack in the egg and whisk well using a fork.
3.  Pour the liquid into the flour mixture and, using the fork, beat until smooth.
4.  Melt a knob of butter in a frying pan over a medium heat. Add two small ladlefuls of batter to create pancakes a little larger than a pineapple ring. Leave to cook for 15 seconds, then top each pancake with a pineapple ring.
5.  When the top of the pancake begins to bubble, turn it over and cook until golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1cm/½in thick.
6.  Repeat until all the batter is used up. Serve the pancakes with maple syrup if you like.
7.  Bon Appetit!

If you are looking for more easy cheap recipes, I post more on aftercancers.com  

Over to you:

• Do these recipes sound appetising?
• What will you be making on pancake day?
• What recipes do you make from tinned food?

Tell us in the comments below!

durhamjaide2001

Oh pancake day we have savoury pancakes for dinner 

L_Volunteer

Oooh, what type of savoury pancakes @durhamjaide2001?  I am a really sweet tooth! 

durhamjaide2001

Mince @L_Volunteer I have a sweet tooth as well. 

anisty

Not for pancake day but i always keep tinned mackeral and tinned corned beef in my cupboard.


Tinned mackeral is dearer than sardines but not too bad at all from Aldi and delicious straight from the tin.

For a quick meal though, microwave one or 2 potatoes in their skins and microwave some frozen garden peas.


Then take the skins off the potatoes and mash with mackeral. Stir in your garden peas. You would not believe how delicious that is!!

5 mins and low on energy to cook as it's microwave.

You could use tinned peas and tinned potatoes too if you wanted to keep all cans and just warm on the hob.


Corned beef - again fab for mashing with spuds, baked beans, peas. Slice and put in a sandwich.


Or direct from the tin as safe to eat cold as it is.  Careful not to slice your fingers off opening the can though!!

janer1967

Corned beef 

Fry some onions add corned beef in chunks the put in dish . Top with sliced tinned new potatoes then grate cheese and bake 

Tinned stewed steak top with tinned new potatoes and cover with ready rolled pastry and bake.  Easy meat and potato pie 

Sandy_123

I don't like pancakes never been a fan of them, the American fat  fluffy ones are ok though. 

The only tinned foods I use are baked beans, corned beef, tuna and mushy peas. 

Steve_in_The_City

This thread has made me laugh a bit and brought back some memories. My mum couldn't cook but her "signature" dish was corned beef stew with pancakes, so quite relevant to this thread really! I make corned beef stew to this day (it freezes well) and corned beef hash (also freezes well). But I also love to fry slices of Spam from a tin.

Years ago in the London Drinking Clubs to be legal they had to provide you with breakfast. It was always the same: Thinly sliced Spam on a paper plate with a little bit of salad. No one actually ate it! They would throw you out at dawn, drunk as a skunk, but it was all legal because we had been given Spam for breakfast.

In my cupboard I have spam, corned beef, baked beans and other beans like flagolet that I cook with. Tomatoes, Carnation Evaporated Milk, Mushy Peas, canned fruit, occasionally crab (although I normally buy it fresh), and if I am running to it financially, canned salmon.

When I was a little boy I loved canned cream with jelly! You can't buy canned cream anymore in this country (as far as I know), but you can buy it in Egypt. I was asked to take part in a promo vid for Luxor.  So out of fun I asked how much I was going to be paid (out of nothing)! So the guy in charge said "I will buy you a bar of chocolate and a bar of butter". Well I am so cheap the chocolate sealed the deal! But I asked if I could have a can of cream from the English shop instead of a bar of butter. He said he would buy me two cans of cream! So for my acting debut I got a bar of chocolate and two cans of cream! I wonder if Elizabeth Taylor was ever as expensive as me....