Great Cheap Eats (for students or just for saving cash!)

It's University time in the UK and millions of Freshers will be leaving home for the first time, armed with a saucepan, a frying pan and a magic marker to label up their food in the fridge.

A few lessons from my time at University (many) years ago...

• There will always be someone who steals your food.  It's not worth getting too stressed about if you can.
• Eat fresh stuff as much as you can.  If you live on tinned food, you will get run down.
• Chinese supermarkets can be great places to stock up on pre made sauces.
• Lentils are a great store cupboard stand by and mean however poor you are you can make soup or a curry.  
• If you live in a shared house or flat, even if you don't cook together, suggest to your housemates you share staples like rice, pasta, washing up liquid etc, even big bags of potatoes.  Otherwise it gets a bit ridiculous and the economies of scale can make it all cheaper.
• Nothing brings people together like food so batch cooking can be a way to make friends with new housemates if you offer them a bowl too.
• A slow cooker might not be the most obvious bit of student kit but University was where I got into slow cooking because it makes the most of cheap cuts.

So here are a few recipes which will hopefully make your Mum smile that you've not completely fallen to bits and been unable to cope (even if you do go home to visit with bags of dirty washing.)

Is what people eat anybody's business?

I read Kirstie Allsopp's "twitter row" about eating today.  For those of you who missed it, this is what was said:

Just saw a guy have a glass of coke, a cappuccino, a croissant and a ham & cheese sandwich for breakfast #OurNHSistoast #worldgonemad

— Kirstie Mary Allsopp (@KirstieMAllsopp) September 28, 2016

So what happened next?  Predictably the world went mad.  Most of the responses were negative.  How very dare she comment on this?

Kirstie Allsopp Twitter Photo

Grilled halloumi with herb vinaigrette

Halloumi is a great quick meal, there is something surprisingly deliciously salty about the squeaky cheese.

Chickpea and Spinach Curry

I make no claims to be an authentic Indian chef, but this is going to university time of year and it's also coming to the end of the month.  All of us could do with a decent curry recipe which costs pence and tastes great whether you're a meat eater, a vegetarian, a vegan, gluten free etc.

Game stew

Now autumn feels like it's properly here.  I love summer but the first flushes of autumn with stews, pies, traditional puddings are like the coziness of coming home.  Autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, at the end moving into winter, the crisp cold, maybe snow.  The older I get the more I look forward to every season and everything it brings.

The dried mushrooms in this massively add to the flavour.  Without them, it wouldn't be the same, it wouldn't have the depth of flavour so I really would give it a go.

This was going to be a game pie and it would be fabulous to make into a pie filling if you prefer.  I was just too lazy and my son liked the smell of it so he wanted to taste it straight away (it was a hit with the 6 year old too!)

Chicken Salad

A lovely chicken salad with crunchy apple and celery.  It's so filling and delicious.

My top 10 apple recipes

The apples on my tree are reaching their fantastic crisp ripeness.  There is nothing like a delicious crisp apple straight from the tree.

But apple trees can be prolific, even small ones but the joy is that apples are so versatile.  Great in salads and in cooking.  Here are a few ideas.

A cheeky antipasto of figs with blue cheese

I've just come back from Italy and the figs are just starting to ripen.  It made me think about blue cheese with fruit, sweet, sticky honey and the bitterness of walnuts.

Is it an antipasto?  Is it a dessert?  Is it a snack?  I suppose it could be any?  Either way it works.  Add some crusty bread or rocket to make it into more of a meal.

What's in season in September?

Ah September... as we drift into this month summer starts to fade and become a distant memory.  If we're lucky in the UK we'll still have a few warm days but generally the cardies are going on and someone in the family starts looking wistfully at the heating controls.

But this month is also a season of bounty.  Everything from home gardens to hedgerows are groaning with produce.  The wild blackberries are still bountiful and what better than apples to have with them?

Fruit and Pumpkin Seed Breakfast

I feel like I'm on a one woman mission to convince everyone that breakfast doesn't have to be cereal or toast.  This is my latest invention with some lovely pumpkin seeds.  I do love a breakfast which has layers of flavour and texture.  Pumpkin seeds add crunch and are a great source of fibre, protein, iron and magnesium.  Also you've had two of your 5 a day (or 7 a day) and you've only just opened your eyes.

Fish Soup with Gurnard, Mussels and Chunky Summer Vegetables

It feels so wrong to just call this "fish soup".  This is an awesome fish soup, a soup delicately flavoured with thyme, a touch of spice from chorizo and chunks of delicious fish and shellfish.  I'd had a hard day when I came up with this recipe.  A day where I needed to cook for myself something really good, something which would really make myself feel loved!

My idea started at the fish counter where there were a few mussels left at the end of the day.  Some fantastically fresh looking gurnard and an idea was born.

Smoked Salmon with Glazed Green Vegetables

I'd never tried lightly smoked salmon before.  This is sold as a fillet of salmon and unlike normal smoked salmon, it is intended to be cooked before eating.

Smokey flavours like smoked bacon are fabulous with vegetables like cabbage, peas and beans so I chose to pair them together in this very simple dish.

Chinese Style Prawns with Green Beans

I currently have a glut of green beans.  My green beans or "French" beans have grown so rampant that the wigwam of canes currently supporting them has given up and they have sadly fallen over my slightly disappointing courgettes.  Nonetheless I'm still trying (and failing) to get the wigwam upright again but still getting a bounteous harvest from them.  Fortunately I am absolutely in love with fresh green beans.

How to keep up your exercise when away

It's holiday season and it's very easy to stop exercising at this time of year.  Either because it's too hot (it's never too hot to exercise) or because "I'm on holiday".  It's also felt like I've been away on business quite a lot recently which could make things more difficult to squeeze in a workout.  My view though is there is always a way to fit in a workout.  A combination of a little bit of preparation and some common sense and you can fit in a workout almost anywhere you are in the world.

What's in season in August?

August is in full flow and the tomatoes and courgettes are still adorning our plates.  Also due to different methods of growing the UK strawberry season now extends far beyond Wimbledon fortnight but here are a few things coming into season now.