Cooking Healthily at University

So it’s the start of a new term at university and the start of a new year.

Just like everyone else, after all the food I ate over Christmas, I’m trying my hardest to be healthy and not to eat everything in sight. I’ve even got some of the biscuits I was given as a present left!  However the presence of these biscuits and the lovely Christmas / New Year fruit cakes that my Mum and Grandma made me, have meant that I’ve been avoiding baking!

As you can imagine, as I’m in uni, I eat on a pretty tight budget; but that doesn’t stop me trying new recipes and discovering new food blogs. I only eat small portions of meat, so that immediately makes it easier to stick to my budget. Plus, I love hunting for the reduced things in M&S!

I thought that I’d share a some of the recipes which I’ve used over the past few weeks.

Lunches:

For 3 days out of 5, I have to take a packed lunch into Uni, so I gerenally opt for either some roasted vegetables with couscous or a pitta or try and make a salad. When I’m at home I tend to eat quite a lot of soup (it’s filling and really warming on a cold winter’s day). Here’s a few things I’ve made.

Pearl barley and puy lentil salad with sweet potato, broccoli and roasted baby tomatoes, with a spicy mustard vinaigrette dressing – from What Katie Ate

Lentil salads are always a good pack lunch call for me as they fill me up quickly and I stay satisfied for ages

Carrot soup with crisped chickpeas – from Smitten Kitchen

I only did the chickpea accompaniment for this, the soup was beautiful and froze brilliantly

Couscous with harissa chicken chargrilled zucchini and crunchy nutty salad – from What Katie Ate

I’m doing a variation on this for my packed lunches this week (the variation being a necessity, as I could get hold of some ingredients due to snow).

Dinners:

Me and one of my house mates share dinners on week-nights. Normally I make something quick and easy but other times I’ll do something faffy so that I don’t have to do my work!

Gnocchi in tomato broth – from Smitten Kitchen

I just used the gnocchi from this recipe and made my own tomato sauce (like here). It was my first time making gnocchi and it wasn’t the best I’ve tasted but it wasn’t too bad for a first attempt.

Garlicky kale and white bean stew – from My New Roots

I couldn’t get hold of kale so I substituted it for some spring greens and it worked really well (although I used less garlic than stated and it was still very garlicky!).

The biscuits are nearly gone so hopefully I’ll be doing some more baking soon! I got a Great British Bake Off recipe book for Christmas so I should be doing some things from there and I want to have another play with my piping set!  Work will get done though, I promise!

V x

The sound track of my cooking: The Les Mis soundtrack (musical and film – I went to see it in the cinema yesterday and bawled my eyes out / mimed the words to every single song).