Naughty Steps

With any recipe we read, we should always try to adapt so that we can use what we have rather than what the recipe says we need. The more experienced we are, the easier this becomes, but generally veggies are leaf, root or the podded variety, the onion family varied, meat is meat, stock is stock, pasta is pasta, assorted pulses are interchangeable and grains are grains. Even pastry is - basically - pastry. So normally easy enough to make substitutions as long as we keep to the same 'type' of each ingredient. Using a lot of substitutions, the flavour/texture might not be quite the same as the original recipe - but could even be better.
The more we can adapt a recipe to use up what we have, the more money we will save. So keep experimenting!