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In this part, I’ll talk a bit about what to eat, and how to stay alive on little money and even less effort.

Meat

Meat doesn’t actually need any sauce or complex accompaniment to taste half decent. This is one of its major advantages for student cooking. It also normally only takes up one pan or oven, and can be cooked quickly (frying or grilling) or without too much supervision (roasting).

Okay, so some readers won’t eat meat at all, but frankly I’ve always been a carnivore and probably always will be. So here’s some of the things I learned about meat as a student:

Season meat – it makes it taste better. To season meat, cover it completely in as much seasoning as seems appropriate (easy to learn, after the first few tries) then cook it however you were going to anyway. Salt and Pepper is pretty much the easiest, cheapest seasoning available, but you can get specialised steak or chicken seasoning from supermarkets. Be warned, as these aren’t always an improvement on salt and pepper. Alternatively, you could experiment with a wide variety of different things¹.

Frying steak, pork chops and chicken legs and thighs are your friend.All of these are pretty cheap, half decent bits of meat which cook quite easily. Pork Chops will normally fry or grill, and Chicken Legs and Thighs will oven cook. A lot of my friends just bought chicken fillets, but these actually kinda cost a fortune, and probably don’t taste any better.

Watch out for turkey season. Now, this was always a (dubious) treat when I was in uni. From time to time, Turkey producers would have far too much turkey, and sell massive 1.5kg joints for about £4. This is a hell of a lot of food, is not unpleasant (at least, not until you’ve just consumed 1kg of it), and will keep you in turkey dinners, sandwiches, and if you’re feeling energetic² soup.

Gravy If you’re not a confident cook, do not attempt to make your own gravy; this is an advanced skill. However, if you put in some vegetables with meat you’re roasting, the juices can make them taste better.

Vegetables

It’s a time honoured tradition for students (especially male ones) to try to avoid eating any of these. I was no exception. However, about once a month I would get sudden cravings or feel ill and strange. At these times, I reasoned that perhaps my complete avoidance of vegetables was to blame. Here’s some of the ways you can get round the whole problem of eating vegetables:

Gorge on spinach. I’m ashamed to say it, but this was my first solution to the veg problem. About once a fortnight, I’d buy a large can of spinach, heat the contents in a saucepan then just eat the lot. This would be done independent of meals (I didn’t want to sully the meat).

Peas. Peas taste okay, require just a bit of boiling in a pan (which is then very easy to wash), and can accompany just about anything. They’re also cheap and come frozen in large amounts.

Can’t someone else do it? Let’s face it, vegetables with no effort applied don’t taste as good as meat does. However, they’re a lot cheaper. One way round the problem of cooking inability here is to just buy a salad or vegetarian dish from someone who knows how to make one (salad bars, supermarket, café’s etc.). It’s much cheaper than buying prepared meat.

Roast them with meat. Ah, now, this is actually a good solution. Vegetables don’t taste great, and involve extra effort, however, carrots, parsnips, onions and small potatoes take a similar time to roast as meat does. What this means is that for minimum extra effort you get to eat a bit more healthily. You do normally need to wash vegetables, but when roasting them you can normally leave most of the skin on. This occasionally produces a slightly bitter “rustic” taste, but you can grow to like it.

Alternative solutions. I heard of one guy with a porter’s job at a hospital taking to eating slightly out of date coma patient food. Once again, I wouldn’t advise it.

Next week I’ll talk about fruit and general staples, including the Potatoes of Doom story.

¹ I used to go with: Steak and Mustard (quite good), Chicken and Mixed herbs ³ (good), everything with Tobasco Sauce (results vary), Chicken with Irn-Bru (less good).
²,(which you won’t be if you’ve eaten nothing but turkey for the last 2 days)
³ They come in a box labelled “Mixed Herbs”