What to cook when you have fifteen minutes and no plan

This is not the night for anything improving. This is the night for food on plates before the mood turns.

What to keep in, so this is always possible

• Pasta, rice, and tortillas
• Tinned tomatoes, tinned beans, tinned tuna
• Eggs, always
• Frozen peas, frozen sweetcorn, a bag of frozen spinach
• Stock cubes, garlic, an onion
• Hard cheese that keeps for weeks

Six of those and you are never fully stuck.

The fifteen-minute list

• Pasta with tinned tomatoes, garlic and whatever cheese is in the door of the fridge
• Fried rice from last night's rice, a beaten egg and a handful of frozen peas
• Quesadillas — tortilla, cheese, beans, anything else that wants using up
• Omelette and toast, which is dinner and nobody is going to argue
• Tuna pasta with sweetcorn, which children eat and adults pretend not to enjoy
• Beans on toast with an egg on top, unimprovable
• Soup from a tin with cheese toast cut into strips for dipping

The rules for this particular night

• One pan if you can manage it
• Frozen vegetables count fully — they were frozen at their freshest and require no chopping
• Something on the table beats something impressive
• Nobody needs to know it took fifteen minutes

A tin of beans on toast eaten together at the table is a better dinner than something elaborate eaten in shifts at eight o'clock.

The night after

If this happens three times in a week, that is information rather than failure. Something in the week needs changing — the shopping, the shape of the evenings, or how much is on you alone.

But tonight, it is beans on toast, and that is genuinely fine.