Wednesday 17 July 2013

Uni Cuisine - Bread Pizza

This is such an easy dinner for when you only have a few things left in your fridge and not enough money for a food shop. Its cheap, easy and takes about 5/10 minutes to prep and cook. I haven't put quantities on this but they depend on how many pizzas you are planning to make. I made mini pizzas and took some photos, they're not amazing as I'm no photographer but I hope you'll like the recipe nonetheless xx

Ingredients

  • Sliced white Bread 
  • Tomato puree
  • grated cheese
  • Your toppings (this could be anything like; ham, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes etc)
Method

  1. Cut the bread into pizza shapes. You can cut this yourself by just removing the crusts or cut into a circle. Tip: I sometimes did this with a small bowl or rim of a pint glass!
  2. Spread one side with a small amount of tomato puree
  3. add your toppings - cook first if necessary
  4. Add the cheese
  5. Pop into the grill for about 5 minutes or when the cheese has fully melted
Serve with chips or salad (depending on how healthy you want to be) 

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Food essentials!

So everyone needs food and there are some things you need to buy and keep in your cupboard for many reasons. You may need things that are essential for certain recipes and you may need stuff for when money is tight and you just need to eat. These are things that I think everyone needs in their kitchen cupboards but I must stress not everyone will agree with everything I put but this is just my opinion on what's essential.

1. Instant noodles - the ones from oriental shops taste the best and are only about 30p 
2. Baked beans - because there will be a week at some point in the year when you can't afford fresh food :P
3. Eggs - good for making simple dinners like omelettes or good hangover food like scrambled eggs
4. Soy sauce - adds flavour to a lot of recipes
5. Stock cubes
6. Pasta- quick to cook and there are loads of different things to put with it
7. Chopped tomatoes
8. Garlic
9. Ketchup
10. Salt and pepper
11. Spices and herbs - e.g. Chilli powder, paprika, basil, oregano etc
12. Tea/coffee/hot chocolate 
13. Cereal
14. Things for toast- like jam or Nutella
15. Bread - freeze half the loaf so it doesn't go mouldy 
16. Tuna
17. Ready made sauces- for example curry pastes, pasta bake sauces or sweet and sour sauce
18. Cereal
19. Oil
20. tomato puree
21. Worcester sauce
22. This last one is something I use a lot in my cooking but its not necessarily essential - Sweet chilli sauce

Monday 15 July 2013

Uni Cuisine - Spaghetti bolognese

Here's a simple recipe for bolognese sauce that I think everyone needs to know. Not everything in this recipe is essential and some stuff can be substituted or left out completely, make sure the recipe is something you really like. This recipe either serves two people or you can freeze half of it to eat another day!

Ingredients 

  • 250g beef mince
  • 2 rashers of bacon
  • 1/2 onion
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 4 mushrooms
  • 1 stick of celery
  • 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
  • dried herbs
  • salt and pepper 
  • tomato purée 

Method

1. Chop up half an onion and one clove of garlic. Add oil to a saucepan and wait for it to heat. Once it's hot add the onion and garlic and start to brown them
2. Chop up the bacon into small pieces and add to the pan 
3. Once the bacon is almost cooked add the mince. But before you add it make sure you break it up before it goes in the pan or it will all clump. Stir everything until all of the mince has gone brown
4. Add the chopped celery and mushrooms and stir until the mushrooms change colour
5. If you really want to impress and have some red wine in your kitchen at this point you can add a splash of it to add some flavour to the sauce
6. Add the tin of chopped tomatoes and stir them in
7. Add salt and pepper and some dry mixed herbs for flavour. Taste the sauce and keep adding these ingredients until it tastes how you like it. You can also add tomato purée to thicken the sauce but this part isn't essential 
8. Wait about 20-30 minutes for the sauce to reduce. At this point you can cook up the pasta which takes about 10 minutes
9. Serve the pasta and sauce then maybe add some grated cheese on top and even some garlic bread

Monday 8 July 2013

Uni Cuisine - Stuffed Peppers

This recipe can be altered to everyone's own taste and can just be made to use up things lying around in your fridge. It can also be altered to be a really quick recipe or a recipe to impress. I'm going to give you the recipe for the filling of the stuffed peppers and all of the instructions which overall takes about 45 minutes to cook. However if you want a quicker, easier recipe buy some instant flavoured rice, any you like and skip to step 7 so it'll only take around 10 minutes. This recipe serves one but there is probably going to be spare filling and enough for 2 or just a rice dish to heat up for lunch the next day

Ingredients

  • 1 large bell pepper - any colour
  • oil 
  • 1/2 cup of rice
  • 1 vegetable stock cube
  • mixed herbs
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • any cheese (I normally use cheddar or, if I can afford it, mozzarella) 
As I said before you can use any veg for the filling but this is what I normally use
  • 1/2 onion
  • 1 large carrot
  • 3 or 4 mushrooms
  • a handful of frozen peas
  • a handful of any cooked meat (I use chorizo but you could use ham or bacon and the meat isn't essential)
Method
  1. Heat some oil in a pan and add chopped onion and garlic and begin to brown them
  2. Add all the other chopped vegetables to the pan (other than the frozen peas)
  3. Turn on the kettle and crumble the stock cube into the jug. Add about 300 or 400 ml of water to the jug and stir it in
  4. Add the rice to the pan
  5. Add the stock
  6. Add herbs and salt and pepper to taste and leave to reduce for around 20 minutes. About 15 minutes in add the chopped meat and the frozen peas
  7. Cut the pepper in half length ways
  8. Drizzle the skin of the pepper with oil and place the halves on a baking tray
  9. Stuff the peppers with the rice filling and add grated cheese on the top
  10. Place them in the oven at about 180 degrees for about 10 minutes or when the cheese has melted and started to brown

Uni Cuisine - Stir fry

Stir fries are so easy to cook and only take about 5 minutes. And even though I'm giving you a recipe it can be changed in any way. I'm going to show you a chicken stir fry with a homemade sauce but you can use sauces in jars or sachets. Also you could use different meat like pork or beef, tofu or no meat at all and you can also use different vegetables or cook rice instead of noodles but just take its cooking time into account

Ingredients

  • 1 large chicken breast
  • 1 packet of ready to wok noodles
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 1/2 red onion
  • 1/3 bell pepper
  • a couple of baby sweetcorn
  • a couple of sugar snap peas or mange tout
  • a few florets of broccoli 
  • 2 carrots
  • 3 or 4 mushrooms
  • oil
    For the sauce (quantities to taste)
Mix all of these in a jug and keep tasting it 
  • orange juice
  • dark soy sauce
  • peanut butter
  • tomato puree
  • Sweet chilli sauce
Method
  1. Heat some oil in a wok and add onion and garlic 
  2. Add the chicken and keep stirring until its completely cooked through
  3. Add the vegetables that take longer to cook like the sweetcorn, pepper, carrot
  4. Add the other ingredients like the mushrooms, broccoli and mange tout
  5. Wait until everything has cooked through and then add the noodles
  6. After a minute or 2 add the sauce and cook for another 3 or 4 minutes and then serve

Uni Cuisine

So before I moved away to Uni so many people told me I'd be living off beans on toast for the rest of my life. But I'm here to tell you they're wrong!!!!! I may not be the best cook in the world but I know its important to eat well at university or even if your just living on your own. So over the summer I'm going to be uploading some simple recipes that I cook every week or so and they're really easy. Please comment as well if there is anything you want to know how to make and want me to give you an idea how, from something simple like scrambled eggs, to burgers for a bbq or chilli con carne to impress your friends :) Hope these posts inspire you guys to get cooking!
Alee
xx

Wednesday 3 July 2013

Results heaven/hell

So exams are over and summer has begun! But if you're anything like me you're worrying about upcoming results!!! Well all I can tell you is there's nothing you can do now so just relax and enjoy your summer. And if on your results day you get the grades you need... WELL DONE! The work was worth it and it may mean you can move on to sixth form, uni or a new job so you'll have a reason to celebrate. But I know some people will be disappointed with their results and wonder what to do next. All I can say is don't make any rash decisions and seriously consider what you can do to make your situation better... Maybe you could organise a remark, resit or maybe find a way to still achieve a lot with the grades you got. People may stress how important exams are at school etc. but from my experience a bad grade isn't the end if the world! There is always a way to make life work in your favour so keep smiling, don't worry, and GOOD LUCK to you all :) 

Alee xx