Thursday, 20 August 2015

Cooking at uni: meal planning, food shopping and easy recipe ideas

I've already done a post on cooking at uni, but for today's post, I'm going to get all boring on you and talk about how awesome meal planning is. Maybe it's not the most exciting, but is sure is useful.

Side note: I'm not a doctor or a nutrition expert. I'm a student. I just didn't want to exist solely on pot noodle all year.

If you have at least a vague idea of the meals you're going to make, you won't waste food or money and you'll buy only stuff you need. You don't need to be too strict on this, but it can help, especially if you're on a budget.

My meal plan was simple, as I usually ate: toast and fruit/yoghurt for breakfast, packed salad for lunch and then changed up what I had for dinner each day. So, all I really needed to plan was the evening meal.

Each week, you're supposed to have a variety of meat, fish and vegetarian dishes. Obviously the meat is going to be more expensive, so I only usually had it a few times a week, having eggs or fish other days.

I usually bought a few different types of vegetables for salads, along with edamame beans (cheap protein) I also put pasta in my lunch for carbohydrates. Sometimes I'd add avocado, but only if I was feeling really fancy (avocados are dead expensive)

Buying 'basics' vegetables, buying larger quantities or buying loose vegetables like carrots can often turn out cheaper. Also check your local market. Check the price per 100g to see which option is the best value for money.

Also, baking was surprisingly cheap and fun :) I only did basic things like brownies, but it was such an easy way to impress people and make friends ^^

Here are a few recipes which I cooked all the time:

Spaghetti bolognese

Katsu curry (I only made it with katsu as a treat though... Meat is expensive)

Jacket potato and salad

Pasta (every students standby meal)

Omelette

Shepherds pie/cottage pie

Other types of curry