Call2Call's top student recipe ideas.

Healthy

Fruit? Veg? They don’t have to be boring. Keep illnesses at bay with some of these important vitamin-full foods once in a while. Your body will thank you for it.

Simple stir fry

Ingredients
1 carrot, chopped
1 onion, sliced
1 pepper (any colour), sliced
1 large piece of meat (chicken , beef, pork, fish)
Soy sauce
Vegetable oil
Hot chilli sauce
Lemon juice (If cooking with fish)

Method
Heat up your wok/large pan. Slice up your meat into inch square pieces. Put 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 1 tablespoon of oil into the wok. Quickly toss up your vegetables and drop them into the wok. With a wooden spoon, drizzle the soy sauce over the veggies. Put the chopped meat into the vegetable/soy sauce mixture and toss them in gently with your wooden spoon. Gently stir the ingredients together until the meat is cooked. Don’t leave the stir fry alone for more than 30 seconds or it will start to burn. When the meat is half cooked, add a tablespoon of the chilli sauce and stir. Add some more according to your taste and plate up when the meat is filly cooked. Sit down and enjoy!


Quick

Time is precious. It takes long enough to shop for groceries, walk home, get them through the house, then put them away. Phew! Who has time for cooking anyway? Forget about having to wolf down some more cheese on toast. Here’s a tasty recipe, relatively healthy and takes no longer than 15 minutes to cook. Bonus.

Tomatoey rice

Ingredients
175g rice
Jar of tomato pasta sauce or bolognese sauce
1 tin sweetcorn
Mushrooms (optional)
Bacon (optional)
Chorizo (optional)

Method
Boil the rice for ten minutes. Two minutes before it’s cooked, put the rest of the ingredients in a saucepan and simmer on a medium heat. Mix together and enjoy!


Cheap

Spent all your student loan? Debating taking out another credit card? At least eating needn’t be expensive. Keep your bank manager happy with this extra cheap meal. The bonus is it costs next to nothing to add an extra person…

Herb-y Rice

Ingredients
Rice – any kind will do – about 70grams per person
A knob of butter
Mixed herbs (any will do)

Method
Boil rice for 10 minutes. While cooking, mix butter, herbs and salt to taste.
Once cooked, rinse rice to remove starch. Add herb butter mix and enjoy!


Easy

Now wonder how your mum could 'whip up' a roast dinner for 4 every Sunday and make it look easy as pie? It’s not so simple, especially when cooking for others on a budget. This is so easy. If you’re a marmite hater, not a lover, then replace with Bovril. Or ready-made pesto sauce.

Marmite pasta

Ingredients
2 tbsp marmite
1 tbsp butter
45g grated cheese
100g pasta

Method
Cook the pasta according to the packet. While the pasta is cooking, mix together the marmite, butter and cheese in a bowl to form a paste. Once the pasta is drained, add the paste and stir ensuring that all pasta becomes covered.  Eat and enjoy – this dish is addictive!

Feeds a few

...and once the word gets round how good you are in the kitchen, no doubt friends will 'pop round' at meal times. Surprise them that you’re ready with a dish to feed the masses.

Cheap chilli con carne

Ingredients
1 white/red onion (finely chopped)
1 red/green yellow pepper (cut into thin strips)
1 red chilli (chopped)
500g minced meat
1 tin if baked beans
1 tin of kidney beans (in chilli sauce)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
Salt
Pepper
Oil (olive or vegetable)
400g rice
2 large bags of tortilla crisps

Method
Fry onion in a hot large wok/frying pan for 2 minutes. Add minced meat and break meat up as much as possible. When meat has completely browned, add the sliced red/green/yellow pepper and chopped up chilli. Straight after this, add the chopped tomatoes (let it cook for 2 minutes while stirring). Add the kidney beans in chilli sauce and stir together (let that simmer for roughly 10/15 minutes on a low heat). While the chilli con carne is simmering, put your rice into boiling for 10/15 minutes, add salt to the water and only stir once. After the first stir, leave well alone! Remove rice from the heat and drain the water in a colander. After everything has simmered for 15 minutes, put your baked beans into the chill con carne mix, stir and turn the heat up to medium. When this has cooked for 3 minutes your chilli is ready! Split into thirds -one third rice, one third chilli con carne and one third tortilla crisps. Yum!