Resourceful and creative starters …

… or a lunch – or a supper!

Here's another idea that can be whatever you want it to be!

Two essential items for your freezer – a bag of scallops and ditto king prawns.

Add a good quality stir fry sauce to your list – you don't have to make a sauce from scratch if it's not your strong suit. Black bean works well, so does Hoisin and spring onion.

This is a versatile stir fry using ingredients to suit your own taste – how much veg you use is entirely up to you – fly by the seat of your pants!

Here's my suggestion and a guide for a starter portion :

Scallops and King Prawns, stir fried with

broccolini, sweet peppers in black bean sauce

My scallops were frozen and the cooked king prawns too - on the morning of the evening required, I took them out of the freezer. I allowed 3 medium sized scallops and six king prawns per person. Make sure you box and fridge both to defrost until required later in the day.

I chose broccolini – sometimes called tenderstem broccoli - because of it's colour and because it's finer than the grown-up alternative and is therefore perfect to blanch and refresh, dry, box and fridge ready for later. I buy it in 200g/7oz bags – don't forget to trim it to an even size.

I sliced the sweet peppers to a similar size so they'd stir fry evenly and chose vibrant orange and yellow – perfect with the green of the broccolini. I use baby sweet peppers for stir fries, available in 300g punnets. I used three of each colour, approximately half the punnet.

You can make your own black bean sauce if you wish – there are good quality shop bought versions out there too – the choice is yours – I use Sharwoods Black Bean Stir Fry Sauce - 195g. A good quality shop bought makes sense in that it's in your store cupboard – perfect for those unexpected visitors!

This appetiser is ready to roll later and will take minutes to stir fry and serve.

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