We’ve all been in this situation: no food, no will to go and get any and no cash to order in anything nice. What do you do? Today I’m dispensing with the idea that dinner will be a well thought out affair. This is war against emptiness – empty cupboards, empty fridges and empty wallets.

For the two sweet recipes, I have to salute dear Nigella. If you do one thing this summer, make her no churn coffee ice cream. I made it two days before the photo shoot and we barely had any left to shoot. It was so good that the photographer broke his diet and my trusty assistant, Gillian, was forced to take the remains home with instructions never to let me make it again.

It is fudgey and trashy with the perfect amount of coffee flavour that you want in coffee ice cream. My inner health goddess shuddered when I saw what was going into it, but Nigella was very firm. Don’t mess with the ingredients: follow them to the letter. So I did. And, boy oh boy, it’s good.

This olive oil cake was inspired by Nigella's recipe from her latest book, Nigellissima, and it is particularly good if you can't eat flour. Serving it with this ice cream makes it makes it completely fabulous.

The little spinach mounds of relative goodness are just the ticket for slovenly wenches like myself. This isn’t just pantry or larder food – which gives the impression of vague organisation – the main ingredient for this comes from the freezer. It’s likely that the only thing you’d have to purchase is a tub of ricotta. The rest is more than likely to be found in your fridge and drawers. If you don’t have parsley, no problem. Cheddar rather than Parmesan? Fine. And if the last time you used nutmeg was for eggnog when Wham had the Christmas number one, don’t worry.

dkemp@irishtimes.com