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Cooking Tips for Students!

5 June 2018

Because we’re students, we don’t always have enough time to make the perfect three-course dish. That is why we would like to give you some tips on how to make easy, but nice dishes for a night in alone, or with your friends. Some of them you might already know by heart, but this is just to give you some inspiration. We will divide this into different main ingredients.

Sometimes we really don’t know what to eat anymore, and we get tired of the same pasta all the time because it’s the only thing we know how to make. The ingredients in this blog are simple and available in every regular supermarket. Check it out!

Meat dishes

  • Chicken pesto pasta with spinach

Ingredients (for 2 persons):

  • 160g pasta by choice
  • 300g chicken
  • 400g spinach
  • 4 tbs pesto
  • Pine nuts
  • Pepper and salt for taste
  • Optional:
    • Grated cheese
    • Sundried tomatoes

Preparation (15 minutes):

  1. Start with cooking 2 liters of water in a small pan. Cut the chicken into pieces and season it with salt and pepper. If the water is ready, put the pasta into the water and make sure you start a timer for 9 minutes (everyone should know this already).
  2. Start with baking the chicken. You could use another pan to cook the spinach, but you can also wait for the chicken to be done and then put the spinach in the same pan. The spinach will shrink faster if you’d use separate pans. The chicken should be done in about 8 minutes, that is when you can throw everything together in one pan, the pasta included.
  3. Put the 4 tablespoons of pesto into the pan, together with the pine nuts. You can let this pan rest for 1 minute on a low pit so the ingredients can get together a bit. After that you will be ready to serve your pasta! You can put the cheese on afterwards if you’d like. That was easy right?

  • Chicken wraps

Ingredients (for 2 persons)

  • Tortilla wraps (package of 8 will be fine)
  • 300g of chicken
  • Chicken seasoning mix
  • Salsa sauce
  • Grated Cheese
  • Lettuce
  • 2 tomatoes
  • Optional:
    • Bell peppers (paprika)
    • Cucumber
    • Crème Fraiche
    • Tin can of corn

Preparation (15 minutes):

  1. Cut the chicken into pieces and put it into a pan after putting some baking butter or olive oil in it as well. If the chicken is done, put halve of the seasoning mix into the pan, and throw in half a glass of water in the pan afterwards. Do not cover the pan, the water has to evaporate so that the seasoning mix gets into the chicken. This will take 5 to 10 minutes.
  2. After that, you can just put the tortilla wraps in the oven and throw all the ingredients you like on the tortilla.

! You can also make this with ground beef if you prefer

  • Pesto Risotto

Ingredients

  • 1 onion
  • 1 x glug of oil – vegetable, olive or sunflower
  • 1½ standard mugfuls of risotto rice – look for arborio or carnaroli
  • 1 chicken or vegetable stock cube
  • Pesto, to taste
  • 1 standard mugful of frozen peas
  • 200 g pack ham, chopped

Preparation (15 minutes, Bake 30 minutes)

  1. Halve the onion and peel off and discard the papery brown skins. Then chop both onion halves as finely as you can and discard the rooty ends. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium hob heat and add the onion. Fry for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until onion is translucent.
  2. Add the rice and give the mixture a good stir to prevent it from sticking.
  3. Crumble the stock cube into a standard-sized mug and fill it with boiling water from the kettle. Stir to dissolve the cube and pour it into the rice saucepan. Add three further mugfuls of boiling water.
  4. When the liquid in the saucepan starts to boil, turn down the heat to low and cook for 15-20 minutes, occasionally stirring well, until the rice absorbs the liquid. Add half a mugful more of boiling water if all the liquid has disappeared but the rice still isn’t cooked, then cook it for a little longer. Repeat until rice is tender.
  5. Stir in the pesto (as much as you want), frozen peas and ham and continue cooking until the peas are hot. Check the seasoning and serve.

Vegetarian dishes

  • Salad (with or without vegetarian meat)

Ingredients (for 2 persons):

  • Cherry tomatoes
  • 400g spinach
  • 1 red onion
  • Lettuce
  • Avocado
  • 1 tin can of mais
  • Feta
  • Optional:
    • Vegetarian chicken cubes

Preparation (10 min):

  1. Put the spinach in the pan, but do not bake it too hard because we do not want it to shrink all the way. If the spinach is halfway shrinked, put the tomatoes, onions into the pan. If you want, you can start baking the vegetarian chicken at the same time you started with the spinach.
  2. Afterwards, you can put all the ingredients together (including the lettuce and avocado) to get a nice, healthy, vegetarian salad!

  • Pizza on Turkish bread

Ingredients (2 pizza’s)

  • 1 (unbaked) Turkish bread
  • Tomato sauce by choice (500ml will do)
  • Grated cheese
  • Optional:
    • Red pepper
    • Mushrooms
    • Onion
    • Spinach
    • Pineapple
  • (Not vegetarian):
    • Salami
    • Ham

Preparation (10 minutes, Oven 20 minutes):

  1. Preheat oven 220⁰C
  2. Cut the turkish bread in half
  3. Spread the tomato on the pizza and cover it with the grated cheese and all the toppings you like
  4. Bake 220 ⁰C, 20 minutes

Fish dishes

  • Broccoli with fish and rice

Ingredients

  • 3 tbs curry (kerrie)
  • 150g white rice
  • 200g codfish, tilapia fillet, pangasius fillet
  • 2 tbs cocos oil
  • 1 sprout of broccoli

Preparation (10 mins):

  1. Cut the broccoli like you’re used to, also save a small piece of the sprout
  2. Cook water and add the rice, cook for 10 minutes
  3. Meanwhile, bake the fish the way as stated on the packaging
  4. Use a separate pan to cook the broccoli for 2 a 3 minutes as well
  5. Take the broccoli out of the water, and put it in the pan with the fish
  6. If the rice is ready, put everything together in one pan and add the curry
  7. Serve!

  • Tuna melt pasta bake

Ingredients:

  • 400g penne or fusilli pasta
  • 1 x Tomato Sauce
  • 40 g tin chopped tomatoes
  • 2 x 130g tins tuna, drained
  • A handful of pitted black olives, halved
  • 3 x 25g packet of natural crisps, lightly crushed
  • 1-2 large handfuls of Cheddar cheese, grated

 

Preperation (10 minutes, Oven 35 minutes)

  1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil and cook the pasta the way you’re used to
    2. Meanwhile, empty the Tomato Sauce and the tin of tomatoes into a separate large saucepan and bring to the boil. Take off the heat and set aside.
  2. When the pasta is cooked, drain it by pouring the pasta and cooking water through a colander or sieve. Stir the drained pasta into the tomato sauce with the tuna, olives and some seasoning.
  3. Spoon the mixture into an ovenproof dish or roasting tin. Sprinkle over the crisps and grated cheese. Cook in the oven for 35min or until the cheese is bubbling and golden. Then serve!

Did all these recipes make you hungry? Towards the end of June the Juniors Committees and Bachelor Coordinators will host their annual BBQ’s again. You can sign up on our website!