This may be the easiest recipe you’ll ever follow. It will be if you are given half an hour’s warning that your dream lover/long-lost friend/eccentrically generous uncle/adolescent son/make up your own is soon to arrive and is ravenously hungry.

You look around and all you have is some random vegetables and pasta, plus a few spices and dried herbs.

This is your solution.

It takes neither skill nor time to cook, doesn’t cost much and is very flexible — you can substitute beans of whatever kind for the peas and other veg in season for the carrots.

Oregano, or even parsley, will do instead of basil. And the pasta can be any kind really, though a shape with a good flat surface works best.

Ingredients

• 220g/½lb garden peas (frozen are fine)
• 220g/½lb carrots, diced
• 440g/1lb mushrooms, chopped small
• 140g/5oz egg noodles (flat ones, or any small, flat pasta shapes, work best)
• 75 ml/2½fl oz single cream, ‘light’ cream or soya cream
• ½ tsp cumin
• ½ tsp ground coriander
• Pinch turmeric
• Tsp dried basil
• 2 tbsp soy sauce, shoyu or tamari (in ascending order of preference, but also cost)
• 250 ml/9 fl oz stock
• Tbsp oil or butter

What to do

Fry the mushrooms in a little oil or butter along with the cumin, coriander and turmeric.

At the same time, boil the carrots and peas in the stock for 10 minutes.

Add the mushrooms to the stock and veg and turn heat right down so that the liquid barely simmers.

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the pack and, when it’s ready, drain it and add the contents of the simmering pan, the cream, the basil, the soy sauce, shoyu or tamari.

Serve with crusty bread, grated cheese — if you have them in, of course.