To ask for student friendly recipes

[MrsBean88]

Inspired by another thread about struggling parents and uni students.

Does anyone have some cheap but filling student recipes that can be passed on? Jacket potatoes with beans and tuna pasta seem up there with the cheap meals!

Fajitas
shepherds pie
corned beef stew
spag bol
curry and rice

Fried rice is versatile and cheap. You can whack in various things depending on what’s available/going cheap. And it’s a good way of using up leftover rice from a different meal.
Macaroni cheese (especially if you do a one-pot stovetop version where you cook the pasta in milk and water and then just chuck some cheese in towards the end).
Lentil soup.

In the summer before uni I taught each of my DC to cook the staple favourites such as mac and cheese, spag bol, fajhitas, and curry. It's surprisingly difficult if you cook yourself. I had to start with basics like how to dice onion.
They went armed with recipes they had practised.

Just as important is how to shop. I dragged them round a supermarket and showed them how things are displayed/marketed/ promoted. How to choose the freshest, cheapest options, what can be substituted in a recipe. Using pulses and lentils for example instead of meat or to bulk out a meat dish.

Why don't they teach some of this at school along with financial management?

Chickpea and spinach curry, naan breads made with SR Flour and cheap yoghurt

Lentil soup and Dahl. Several recipes to change it up. With rice or naan.

bean chilli - I make a huge batch which can be frozen/used for several days in a row with different meals - with rice, with sweet potato fries/jacket sweet potato, as tacos, fajitas, stuffed peppers, quesadillas.

curries. Pasta. Shepherds pie.

You think schools should teach your children how to prepare vegetables and shop?

@Sargass0

Yes, it used to be called home economics and was compulsory.

Schools used to teach Home Ec. That was in the days before Maths, English and Science were deemed to be the only thing people needed to study and all of the other subjects got squeezed out. You would be hard pushed to find a Home Ec/ Catering classroom in many schools now.

This is great. I bought it when I left home and still use recipes from it today.

www.amazon.co.uk/Really-Useful-Ultimate-Student-Cookbook/dp/1760634212/ref=sr_1_5?crid=35VXVLQBRH69B&keywords=ultimate+student+cookbook&qid=1659881464&sprefix=ultimate+student+c%2Caps%2C93&sr=8-5

I've been teaching my teenager now to prep and cook stirfries, lasagne, non-hot curries, bolognaise sauce (meat and veggie), roast veg, one-pot dinners. I am trying to help him become the most popular house-share mate ever So have been also teaching him how to clean!!

But good idea about the shopping.

Surely rather than complaining that schools don’t teach this, the thing to do is teach your kids this stuff as you go along. My toddler ‘helps’ with dinner prep most nights, and I’ve been actively teaching my 12 year old how to cook meals he likes. My eldest could cook a range of meals he loves long before he was 16 - the hardest thing was teaching him to clean the bloody kitchen up after cooking himself oyakodon.

I'm rather perplexed. Haven't the young uns' heard of the wonders of Google? It's a big world of information out there you know...

But then I suppose the learned helplessness allows to demand the weekly pocket money for that bit longer...

It was also utterly useless. I learned absolutely nothing of use in home ex back in the day. Nothing at all.

I taught myself to cook as a teenager mostly with the aid of ready steady cook. 🤣

No not my children because I taught them.
Many DC are brought up on fast food and ready meals, which means they leave home not knowing how to cook. You often see threads on here from people who have never been taught the basics. It's important if money is tight as home made meals are cheaper. Learning to cook is as useful a life skill as geometry. You might say they could learn online. It's possible but much easier if taught by someone.

They did do several years of cookery lessons and never learned how to prepare a basic meal. I remember them making sandwiches in cookery.

It would be lovely if parents taught their children to cook and shop, but many can't do it themselves. It is a real shame that there is no space on the curriculum for life skills - not every child is lucky enough to have parents who can or want to do this.

Your kids got to university age - and got into university - and didn’t know how to go shopping? 🙄
And you want schools to teach them that at the expense of what other learning, exactly?
I don’t want my kids’ geography or art hours cut because your kids needs to be taught at 17 that a shop has products and prices.

Really? State secondary here, and not a single one of my nieces, nephews and friends’ children in other schools do not have Home Economics (Food Tech as it seems most popularly termed now) on the KS3 curriculum. Granted it gets less time that maths - and most other subjects - but not one of them in any of their schools doesn’t have it at all.

Sorry to derail OP - there are loads of websites and influencers out there doing budget meals - forget students specifically. Send your child on a TikTok expedition to find some! Better to engage them.

Madeley Pie is easy enough to make:

Tin of stewing steak
Tin of peas
Tin of potatoes
Herbs
Instant mash
Cheese (optional)
Dash of red wine (optional)

Slap all the tinned stuff and herbs in a pyrex dish and mix. If you want to impress someone, add a good splash of red wine. Top with instant mash (and grated cheese, again if out to impress).

Bung it in the oven at some temperature for a period of time - doesn't really matter how hot or how long, within reason.

Eat out of the dish to save washing up.

Shame on those who have let their kids get to the age of 18 without knowing how to cook at all. But assuming you have -

Most important thing to teach your kid is that there is little point cooking one portion. If they are cooking, they might as well cook a bit more, portion and freeze the rest so when they don’t want to cook they can just pull out something from the freezer.

Also to bulk out meat with veg and lentils.

also how to cook rice (from cold water) and pasta (from boiling)

also that lasagna is a pain in the arse to cook and clean up after, so never attempt it in digs

otherwise introduce them to mob Kitchen (videos of simple but good cooking) and let them get on with it.

The Whisk app is great for finding recipes to suit all sorts of diets/budgets etc. It has 'communities' that help you find recipes that suit you. Lots of communities for student and cheap meals.

Testine - are the children actually cooking? Or do they spend much of the time designing packaging? My school went from having five fully equipped Home Ec rooms to one. At KS 3 they were on a carousal with all of the other tech subjects, art and music. At best they probably got 8 hours of Home Ec a year.

We used to offer both Home Ec and Catering at GCSE. That has not run for some time - only one specialist teacher in school and not enough interest apparently. Hardly surprising given how little decent Home Ec they experience in lower school. Childcare, textiles, design tech have also all but disappeared. Music and art are hanging on - just about.

It is a real shame that many students do not get to have a truely broad curriculum. Yes, of course maths, Englsih and Science are important - but there should be space for other subjects too.

And yes, I agree that parents should be teaching the basics such as shopping, budgeting and cooking - but the fact is many don't

Lots of student cookbooks available.
2nd hand and up to date

I sent mine off with a few of them
Plus some home recipes.
Left them to it.
They survived.

Nosh 4 Students