Thought I'd start a thread for those fed up with fancy recipes, costly ingredients and lots of faff making something.

For anyone on a budget, students away from home for the first time, or just anyone who wants an idea for something simple, cheap and delicious.

My simple, cheap and delicious is jacket potato, butter, cheese.

Enjoy.

tin of tuna, chopped up cucumber, spoonful of mayo.........mix in a bowl and eat

The three ingredients I always make sure I have in the cupboard for emergencies are a tin of tuna, tin of chopped tomatoes, few handfuls of pasta.

Rice, mixed frozen veg and an egg gives you a very cheap fried rice meal.

Dried noodles, mixed frozen veg and whatever sauce you have to hand gives cheap noodle meal and better than a Pot Noodle.

The above two can be pimped up with whatever leftovers you can find the the fridge.

Three ingredients? That's tough.

Spaghetti
Olive oil
Garlic

Or:

Spaghetti
Bacon
Chopped tomatoes

In both cases I'd be very tempted to cheat and add some chilli when your back's turned.

Pitta pizzas :
Pitta bread, tomato puree, cheese under grill (better with a smidge of olive oil and maybe chopped onion but fine by itself)
Make that maximum five ingredients and it's a bit more do-able.
Onions, tin of tomatoes, rice, 1 veg (courgettes, fennel, peppers anything) and spice (cumin or chili)

Corned beef hash...corned beef, potatoes and onion. Cheap and easy to do but tastes lovely. A good old standby.

Naan bread
Cheese
Tomato Ketchup

For dessert, I can get it down to two.

Bananas
Peanut butter

Slice the bananas and freeze them on a tray.
Whiz in a food processor until they turn creamy.
Add one tablespoon of peanut butter per banana, and blend.

Great for using up over-ripe bananas.

Pasta
grated cheese, ideally a hard cheese
olive oil

Yorkshire Puddings
Sausages
Gravy

For when I can't be arsed to cook from scratch:

Packet Merchant Gourmet Beluga Lentils
Jar Tesco (or Waitrose) Biryani Sauce
Sachet of coconut rice (or Caulirice)

I always add a variety of sauteed diced veg (carrots, parsnips, cauliflower, celery) to the lentils, but as we're only to choose three things you'll have to do without.

Spot on! With loads of fresh ground peppers and spices (I put black, white, red and brown peppercorns in a grinder with coriander and cumin seeds, flaked dried chilli, and some allspice) AND chopped sun-dried tomatoes.

Also delicious is pasta (conchiglie/shell) with frozen peas and soya cream to which you add, at the last minute, 1 dessertspoon of balsamic vinegar. Yum!

Herbs, spices and condiments surely should not count as ingredients for this exercise, and I think I would include garlic and chilli under that heading.

Bacon
Roll
HP Sauce

Or Spanish omelette.

Olive oil
Potatoes
Eggs.

And in fact almost any omelette with any two ingredients from cheese, spring onion, ham, mushroom, tomatoes, peppers....

I was thinking this, surely everyone has a dried herb/spice cupboard and things such as oil. It's not like every meal you cook you buy a new bottle of olive oil.

Some great ideas here for the Simple Cheap Delicious thread.

Herbs and spices and condiments can be freely added and not counted as one of the main three. After all we still want Delicious not boring and bland.

Another of my SCD favourites is

Tinned salmon

Sliced tomatoes

Sliced pickled beetroot.

Lovely for a light meal on a hot day and not too unhealthy either.

Alright, in that case I'm sticking with my suggestion of spaghetti, olive oil and garlic and awarding myself bonus points for only using one ingredient

I like the omelette idea. Ham omelette with chips! Only I'm crap at making omelettes so I will let café rouge cook it for me (they're the only outfit round here that doesn't incinerate omelettes).

You could make a decent curry under these updated rules:

Chopped tomatoes
Onion
Meat
(Cumin seed, coriander seed, garam masala, garlic, chilli, salt and pepper all free)

The drawback is that you won't have any rice or bread to go with it, but I could live with that.

Some other thoughts:

Bruschetta (bread and tomatoes, with oil, vinegar, garlic and herbs all free)
Fajitas (tortillas, meat and onion, with spices free)
Chicken noodle soup (chicken, stock and pasta, with herbs free. And garlic and chilli too, because I put those in everything that can accommodate them and most things that can't)

You could also do one of my previous offerings properly now, and make a bastardised version of an amatriciana: bacon (or lardons or pancetta), finely sliced onion, spaghetti (with free garlic, chilli and herbs). I think I've mentioned before on here that this is my all-time winner in the "best flavour for least hassle" contest, but be careful about calling it an amatriciana because the people of Amatrice will issue a fatwa against you.

Edit: shit, that won't work; I forgot the tomatoes. OK, replace the onion with passata or chopped tomatoes, but try to sneak in some sliced onion when Cassini isn't looking.

Rice

Onions: finely chopped

Sausage: Ones own favourite banger or something smoked from the deli counter, again chopped up.

Presuming herbs, spices etc are allowed...

...chilli paste, salt, and any herbs and spices one fancies.

Cook the bangers (if required) or chop up the smoke sausage, Boil the rice, rinse, put in a bowl and have a break/glass of wine/watch telly/read the paper.

Come back when hungry, chop and fry the onion, adding any necessary condiments.

When the onion is soft, pile in the rice and sausage and stir until hot.

Put on a plate, sit down and snarf.

Hobo Hamburgers

Tear off squares of tinfoil.

Put a seasoned hamburger patty*, sliced onions, potatoes, salt and pepper on each one.

Fold the sides in and roll the edges on the top together.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350 and your whole meal is there.

You can add pretty much whatever you like to the foil packets, mushrooms, peppers, etc.

*ground meat of your choice, ground poultry meat works well

Wombat you could probably make an omelette but like a frittata sort of thing. Pour the beaten egg into a preheated frying pan, when it starts to set add some chopped ham and top with cheese (for the 3 ingredients), then place under a hot grill till golden and sizzly.


Failing that there's always ham, egg and chips.

Eggs
Butter
Salt&Pepper

Scrambled eggs in microwave in around a minute and its really satisfying.

The frittata idea is a good one; I will try that sometime. I usually just make scrambled eggs instead (this applies even when what I'm trying to make is an omelette - scrambled eggs works as a plan B when I cock up the omelette).

Ham, egg and chips is my favourite pub stand-by. Lovely with a nice pint.

I've thought of another one: pancakes! Eggs, flour and milk, with free sugar and lemon juice. This would actually be no use to me cos I like my pancakes with cheese and lemon juice, but it would work for many of you.

Quesadilla. Tortilla, flour or corn, doesn't matter, Jack cheese, salsa. Heat the tortilla in a skillet, flip it over and put the cheese on. Let it melt. Top with salsa. Fold over and plate..

Bread
Butter
Chips

Bread
Butter
Bacon

Can't beat a butty!

Cheese
Baked beans
Bread
And if allowed, a smear of marmite on the toast

That all sounds good to me !