It started about two weeks ago when the temperature dropped and most of the population had gone to ground in response to the rapidly-developing COVID-19 pandemic.

At that time chicken breasts and thighs in supermarkets were rarer than hen's teeth.

We had every type of Ayam curry paste in our pantry excluding green and coriander is the only herb we've never been able to grow like a weed in the veggie garden. Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme are thriving far better than even Simon & Garfunkel themselves.

We did have pork mince, puff pastry, fennel seeds and the above-mentioned sage on hand.

Instead we settled on Donna Hay's pork, cranberry and sage sausage rolls.

We didn't have cranberry sauce but they tasted all the better for using JimJam Food's quince paste.

Therein, lies the beauty of making do with what you've got in the pantry during a pandemic; sometimes it's an improvement - not always, to be fair - on the original.

But if you're trying to stay in, you really do need to think outside the box.

In this way, last week we made taco seasoning from scratch after we found we were fresh out of it.

Basically, it's a concoction of every spice we already had in the cupboard.

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When my daughter was given her Year 8 food technology project at school midway through Term 1, it was light years ago in supermarket evolutionary terms.

You could have still picked up toilet paper, hand sanitiser and paper towel back then, easy-peasy.

Beef mince and chicken tenderloins were not the rarity they've become now.

Three weeks ago when we shopped for her grocery list (it was before ScoMo and the supermarket bosses had a proper go at panic buyers), we had to buy a fresh whole chicken as there were no breasts, legs, thighs or tenderloins.

We told her we'd show her how to break down the bird.

Even though she thought it was a "disgusting" idea, she ran it by her food technology teacher, who was impressed she had worked out a way around her food supply issue.

When we couldn't get rice to go with her dish, however, we had to put off the project for a week.

Eventually, we got some basmati rice, which made our daughter's day.

Since when were teenagers happy you got some rice in the grocery order?! Times have changed. Like they say, it's a rapidly-evolving situation.

When my daughter finally ticked off her food technology project - which happily doubled as a Saturday night two-course family meal recently - we were left with almost a whole cauliflower and three heads of broccoli.

I turned the greens into broccoli, spinach and coconut soup but the poor-cousin-cauliflower got pushed to the back of the crisper drawer.

Every time I opened the fridge the cauliflower taunted me to do something - anything - with it.

When fruit and vegetables are delivered to your home weekly and you're only doing a shopping sprint every eight or so days, you don't want to waste anything.

Eventually I turned the cauliflower into korma to go with a beef rogan josh dish. We were out of lamb but we had half a jar of the Indian curry paste in the fridge door. (I had to wrestle my daughter at breakfast for the last of the plain yoghurt to save it for that night's korma! Food security is worth fighting for!!)

But if there's a silver lining to social lockdown (on top of saving lives!), learning to substitute recipe ingredients, minimise food waste and teaching your kids to break down a whole bird must be among them.

I've been shopping recently so we're all good for yoghurt now but, once again, I forgot the curry paste.

I'm still craving Thai green curry.

No doubt, someone can deliver it!

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