This recipe for potato gnocchi with miso and green peas is one of my emergency recipes, that is all the ingredients are things I keep in the freezer or pantry all the time. I can make this even if I haven’t been shopping for weeks and have no fresh ingredients in the house.

Buttery carbs mean it’s certainly not the healthiest meal I make, but it’s a rich and filling meal that’s ready in less than 10 minutes. There are worse things I could be eating than a homecooked meal that includes a full cup of vegetables.

Today I really needed a recipe this simple. I didn’t leave work until after 7pm then accidentally jumped on an express train which skipped my stop, meaning I had to double back and didn’t get home until 8pm, by which time it was raining. Not only was I soaked but all my washing on the clothes line too. Altogether I didn’t have a whole lot of energy to spare for cooking.

I could keep whinging on about how busy this time of year is or how I just got back from holidays and my local supermarket is closed – but realistically this is stuff that happens in life. This is why I need emergency recipes and the ingredients on hand.

I have been experimenting with gnocchi in the microwave for a while, and you can read about my earlier failures here. This recipe finishes the gnocchi off in a frypan, the butter and miso paste create a rich creamy feel. In a blind taste test, it would be hard to pick the gnocchi which were microwaved or boiled.

The main trick here is to make sure you have a nice flat Tupperware container, so you only have one layer of gnocchi. If they are piled on tops of each other the gnocchi can stick together.