3 Lunch/Dinner Ideas For A Student On A Budget!

Tomato Lentil Pasta

Tin of green lentils - 60p

Italian Passata - 70p

Whole wheat Pasta - £1.20

=£2.50

1. Boil the pasta in a sauce pan of water until soft.
2. Drain the lentils from the water in the tin and cook in a saucepan for 5 minutes.
3. Add the passata to the lentils and leave to simmer for 5 minutes on a low heat.
4. Serve together whilst still hot.

Tortilla Pizza

Wholemeal Tortilla Wrap - £1.00 (pack)

2 Tomato - 65p (pack)

Italian Passata - 70p

Spinach - £1.00

Mozzarella - 50p

=£3.85

1. Chop up one tomato and blend in a food blender, transfer the blended tomato mixture into a saucepan and simmer on a low heat with one table spoon of passata. (if you don't have a food blender, chop the tomato up small and bring to a simmer, take a fork and break it down into a paste type mix)
2. Once the tomato mixture has thickened on a low simmer, spread onto tortilla wrap.
3. Add the toppings you wish onto the top and put it in the oven for 10 minutes at 180 degrees.

Fish Pie

Sweet Potato - £1.50 (pack)

Red onion - 80p (3 pack)

Tinned Tuna in spring water - £1.00

=£3.30

1. Peel, cube, boil then mash the sweet potato.
2. Cut the onion to your choice of size.
3. Drain the spring water from the tuna and mix the chopped onion with the tuna.
4. Layer in an oven proof dish with the mashed sweet potato spread on top.
5. You can add any toppings like grated cheese or herbs to add more flavour.
6. Chuck it in the oven ( not literally) for 20 minutes at 180 degrees.

 

 

(All the ingredients I used and bought were based on prices at the supermarket Sainsbury's)

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This is a pretty simple recipe that can be 'sassed' up by any other ingredients of your choice but for the main dish ingredients I have put together a little recipe for you. 

AND 

2 chicken breasts

1. So the first step is to peel and chop your sweet potato into cubes, not too small but not too big, then put them onto boil. Just to make them softer before adding it to the rest of the dish
2. Chop up the rest of the ingredients and dice the chicken. 
3. Using oil, (I used coconut oil but you can use any type of oil) fry the onion and pepper al dente (oh fancy vocab shan) then add the chicken and fry until the chicken is cooked throughout. 
4. Take your peas and broccoli and put them onto boil for around 5 minutes. (until starting to soften)
5. when the chicken is cooked through, add your quinoa with 1 -2 cups of water to the chicken and let it simmer until the quinoa is cooked. 
6. The 5th step can be quite tricky to work the quinoa:water ratio so if you don't want to do it that way, cook the quinoa in a separate pan, drain it, then add it to the chicken, onion and pepper mix.
7. Next, add your sweet potato, broccoli, spinach, peas and kale into the mix and let it simmer away for 10 minutes on a low heat. 
8. Serve it up still hot and enjoy!

You can literally add any vegetables you want into this dish, and also you can use vegetable stock for the quinoa to simmer in for extra flavour. 

This dish works perfectly with frozen vegetables which means can easily be affordable us students out there because most of the time frozen veg is cheaper than fresh veg, but can be just as nutritional! ( its just the quinoa that can be a tad pricey, well for a students budget anyway...) 

This amount lasted me for 4 meals, I just dished it into tuppa wear and put it in the fridge for the next couple of days.

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A Pompous Porridge Brekkie

This is a quick and easy brekkie for all you students that have woke up late and only have 20 minutes before your lecture starts...

Ingredients:

• Grab some rolled porridge oats
• Pour 300ml of milk
• Slice a banana 
• Grab a handful of Blueberries
• Sprinkle that cinnamon 

1. Throw ( not literally) the porridge oats and milk into a sauce pan and bring to the boil on the hob and keep stirring until a thick consistency ( or however you like your porridge).
2. Pour into a bowl and chuck your banana and blueberries on top, sprinkle that cinnamon and get eating!

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This is a superrrrr way to re gain your energy after a workout as a post workout snack or just a small snack in-between meals. It takes 5 ingredients to create these balls of energy and goodness.

Below are the ingredients you will need with a jolly simple and easy method. 

• You can use any nut butter, I just prefer almond butter to peanut butter.

• You could also use agave nectar instead of honey. 

• I used double chocolate whey protein powder from My Protein 

• Put all the ingredients into one bowl and mix together until the mixture starts to stick together.
• Grab some mixture and roll into small balls, they don't need to be super big because they're just little snacks, but you can roll them whichever size you would like.
•  This mixture made about 15 balls that were quite small. 

• I like to put the protein balls in the fridge or freezer after just to keep them cool and less sticky. I have heard they can last months if you keep them in the freezer, I haven't tried that yet but mine normally last 1-2 weeks in a fridge for post workout energy or snacks.

Happy Energy Snacking!

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How To: The Glorious Green Smoothie

Check out the video below on how to make my Glorious Green Smoothie!

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Healthy Ice Cream For Breakfast?!

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This is a suuuuper easy recipe to change up your normal breakfast especially as it is summer now (yes, English weather it's summer, do what you gotta do!) so ice cream for breakfast sounds pretty fab if you like ice cream!
This is not my original recipe but it's just ideas pulled from other recipes and made into a quick and easy recipe I use for breakfast

 You'll need: 

•  2 chopped bananas (or 1 depending on how much ice cream you want)
•  A choice of your own ingredient, I have used frozen raspberries but you can use anything to add flavour like cinnamon, Cacao powder or another type of fruit, anything! 
• Some toppings (nuts, dried fruit) 

 How to: 

• Chop the bananas before you go to bed and put in a freezer bag in the freezer for the night
•  In the morning whack out the food blender, and put your frozen bananas in with the other flavouring ( I used frozen raspberries)
•  Blend it all up, it takes a while to go into an ice cream like consistency, just leave it blending while your sort out your topping
• Once it's in a smooth consistency put it into a bowl and chuck your toppings on, and yes mine is ever so slightly 'Instagram ready' ( slight perfectionist) but it's just as good to chuck them on top
• Finally, grab a spoon, a glass of water and dig in!

Granola Galore!

Recently I have become a very big fan of having granola for breakfast because of the energy that the nuts and fruit give. So I thought I would give a home-made granola recipe a go that has a lot less refined sugar and other nasty's in, that some of the shop bought brands have in them.

If you want to try out this recipe its super easy to make and will normally last for about 1 week/2 weeks if put it into a airtight sealed container. 

Ingredients:

2.5 Cups of Rolled Oats

3/4 Cup of Honey

1/4 Cup of Vegetable Oil or Coconut Oil

1/2 Teaspoon of ground Cinnamon

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract 

45g Brown sugar

Mixed dried Fruit and Nut - however much you prefer to put in

1.Preheat oven to 180ºC (356ºF)

2. Mix the rolled oats and Brown sugar in a mixing bowl and add the Honey, Vegetable/Coconut Oil, Vanilla extract and Cinnamon into the mix and stir all the ingredient together.

3.Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and spread the oat mix evenly over the baking tray.

4. Put in the oven for 15 mins

5. Chop the dried fruit and nuts into your required size and mix together in a bowl

6. Take the oats out the oven and mix the fruit into the oats on the tray

7.Put back into the oven for another 20-25 mins but stir occasionally to prevent the top burning.

8.When the oats are golden brown take out the oven and allow to cool for an hour, they may still feel soft when you first take them out but when they cool they will harden into a granola type texture. 

9.Seal the granola into an airtight container.

The fruit and nuts I put into my Granola were:

Raisins 

Currants

Apricots

Chopped walnuts

flaked almonds

Mid Morning Smoothie Recipie

1 handful of ice 
1 handful of strawberries 
1 banana 
1 handful of frozen blackberries 
Adding water is optional for a smoother blend

Breakfast Option

I like to mix it up a little bit and change up how I eat what my body needs so I decided to warm my blueberries up to make like a blueberry coulée that I put on top of natural yoghurt and a banana.

Saturday Morning Breakfast

So the gym opens a little later on a Saturday which means I get a lay in and can spend more time on my breakfast.
Today I’ve put together:
1 poached egg
2 slices of roasted sweet potato
½ an avocado and ½ a tomato mashed together
Handful of spinach

A lot of people have bread instead of sweet potato but because I’ve totally cut bread out my daily diet I didn’t have any so I opted for sweet potato which works just as well

All Things Green...

Anyone that knows me, will know how much I love my smoothies and juices esp green ones, so this is the average green smoothie I normally make at home.

I use the Breville Blender which at first was a total impulse buy but has definitely become a worthy impulse buy, it’s super awesome and not expensive. I got mine off amazon for £22 but they usually range from £20-£35 depending on the type you get mine is the Blend-Active Personal Blender. It’s so easy and convenient, the bottle it’s all blended in is the same bottle you can drink it from, you just change the lid from the blade blender lid to the drink lid, with very little washing up (always a bonus for a student).

In this smoothie, I have put in:
1 handful of spinach
2 table spoons of low fat natural yoghurt
Half an avocado
Handful of ice cubes
1 Apple

It’s not the sweetest of smoothies so you could add lemon juice or honey for sweetness but I prefer mine unsweetened.

The smoothies can also be quite stodgy so I sometimes add either skimmed milk or water to loosen the mixture to make it blend better into a smoothie.

You can put anything in a smoothie and make your own recipes I try to make at least 2 or 3 of these type of smoothies a week because it’s a fab way of getting the greens in your body in a different form to just eating them in meals.

Breville Blend-Active Personal Blender - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Breville-Blend-Active-Personal-Blender-White/dp/B00DGLUW4E

Pre gym breakfast:

Sainsbury’s own blueberry whole grain wheats
Sainsbury’s own Greek yoghurt
1 banana
Handful of blue berries
Honey.

If I don’t have all these ingredients I’ll just have the blueberry whole grain wheats with skimmed milk