Easy/Healthy Meals for One - Daughter off to uni!

[whoreandpeace]

I'm preparing a list of our family favourites for DD who is off to uni shortly and chose self-catering (more flexibility with her course etc) accommodation.

I would also like to include some healthy and quick meals for one for those times when she isn't eating with flat mates and I have about four ideas so far. Thought you lovely MNers would be able to help. What is a quick, easy and not too expensive meal that you might put together for yourself (already have baked potatoes, omelette, wraps etc).

Any ideas for what to do with one chicken breast? Or a couple of eggs?

She likes a lot of veggie stuff too.

Any advice gratefully received Thank you.

Almond nut risotto.
Fry an onion plus a couple if cloves of garlic in a teaspoon of olive oil. Cook until onion is transparent. Add a tea spoon of cumin,ginger and ground coriander. Add a couple of veg stock cubes. Add a hand full of almonds and a good handful of sultanas and a small cup of brown rice and a half a pint of water. Cook gently. Season with black pepper.
Tuna omelette.
Cook two egg omelette. Stuff hot omelette with small Tin of Tuna mixed with mayonnaise. Serve with mixed leaf salad.
Chicken and pasta.
Cut breast into strips and fry in small amount if oil with a bacon rasher also into strips. Open small can of cream of mushroom soup ( you can add some fresh mushrooms chopped and fried with the chicken) pour soup on top of chicken, stir and add cooked Tagliatelle.

I lived on stir fries but another idea would be a chicken skewer - soak stick in water for thirty mins and add courgette, onion, cherry tomato and chicken and grill add serve with rice and sweet chilli sauce or peri peri

Curry is always great and I could make a fillet stretch to two meals with tonnes of mushrooms and veg as I was always strapped for cash

Sweet chilli

Soup - homemade with potatoes

mini grill? bacon, one egg, beans and sausage

Risottos/stir frys/currys are super easy.
Mac and cheese/cauliflower cheese
Chillis
Sausages and mash
Home made wedges
Fajitas/quesedilas/enchiladas

Chappati or wrap. Bit of pasta sauce on top. Bits of whatever is around veggie wise - spinach is good. Crack an egg in the middle. Grate cheese on top. Bung in oven until egg is set.

Omelettes, scrambled eggs, stir fry all quick and easy and cheap.

Probably the best thing to do is teach her to make soup. Big pot put some in a flask for lunch, starter for tea and a mugful for everyone when they get back from the pub.

cous cous make it with water as you do
have jar of Sacla pesto in your cupboard, add a good tablespoon per person, stir, add a pinch of salt if you like prefer, stir in a small can or 1/2 can 400 g of any beans add some cubed feta cheese (1/4-1/3 of a pack) can add chopped cucumber as well

I'm going to teach DS Spag Bol and chilli this week.

Wow - some great ideas here. We shall try some of those this week. I love how simple they all are. Lucky other DCs go back to school this week so we have a couple of weeks to try some out.

Demelza - is that chilli and spag Bol for one? I can do bulk but not for one! Please share if you have a recipe for one.

This is one I tsught 13 year old F&F

Chicken & Spinach pasta.

Cook a chicken breast or chivken breast strips (we boil in water it you can oven cook or stir fry it.

Cook some pasta.

Fry an onion & add a pack of passata, pinch of mixed herbs, pinch of garlic.

Microwave one portion of frozen spinach & add to the passata. Add the chicken strips & pour over the drained pasta.

13 year old Dd.

A recipie she learnt at school was to make a marinade of honey, tomato ketchup, soy sauce & allspice. She used it to marinade chicken drumsticks, cooked them in the oven & served with rice & frozen peas & sweetcorn.

noodles + something. Nests of noodles are in convenient one person portions. It's not very orthodox, but a bit of scrambled egg, some fried peppers and onions and that's an easy meal for one... Soy sauce for her box maybe?

I had a lot of cous cous and veggie curries when I was a student. Using cheap sources of protein eg lentils, beans, chickpeas in a meal are good.

If she has access to a freezer, yes to frozen spinach. Goes into lots of things and keeping veggies fresh used to be a bit of a challenge for me...

Easy Chicken or veggieccurry

Chop and fry an onion in a wok or large saucepan (add a couple of cloves or garlic and some chopped ginger root and/or chilli if you fancy them)
Add a chopped chicken breast and fry that up a bit too
Pour on a tin of coconut milk
Add a small tin of sweetcorn, some frozen peas, sweet potato, green beans - whatever veg you fancy.
Stir in a couple of tablespoons of curry paste (I use Patak's Korma paste) - more or less to taste.
Possibly also add a chicken or veg stock cube
Simmer for 20 mins or so until chicken is cooked. The coconut milk will evaporate down to a sauce consistency.
Sometimes I stir through some spinach at the end.

I also do a veggie version of this with cashew nuts or red lentils.

Sorry, the amount of veg and coconut milk in that will probably make that enough for 2 - or one person for 2 days??

Very quick veggie "courgette carbonara"
Cook enough pasta for you
While it's cooking grate 50g or so of hard cheese and a courgette
Drain pasta when cooked and return to pan. While it is still hot stir through cheese, courgette, a couple of tablespoons of Philly and possibly some garlic purée. Put the lid back on the pan for a couple of minutes. The cheese etc will cool and melt in the residual heat.

Another v quick nice pasta sauce is Marmite and keychup stirred through hot spaghetti.

A portion of pasta, 2 tbsp of philly and 1/3-1/2 pack of evpnomy smoked salmon bits from Sainsbury's.

Have can of 3 bean soup in the cupboard. Warm it up and eat with a portion of cous cous.

That courgette carbonara sounds lovely, BikeRunSki.

Stirfry - a pack of the made up stirfry veg will prob make two meals

Filled pasta (tortellini) with pesto - I often add some frozen peas or sweetcorn into the boiling pasta for some extra veg/sweetness. She could added some fried chicken too if it's a veggie pasta for example.

Jacket potato with various toppings - beans/cheese, tuna etc.

Hope she settles in well