Eat Like Me For A Week - Student Food Diary

Something new for all students is cooking. I know most 18 year olds have done a bit of cooking at home every so often, but I mean…actually cooking every single day, three meals a day…it’s quite exhausting! It’s also so difficult to not be tempted to cook the same easy thing every day, like shoving chicken nuggets and chips in the oven! I had an action plan before I came to Uni that I was going to batch cook and I would say I have stuck to it too.

Here is what I eat in a week including recipes and tips!

Monday:

I normally do my food shop at Aldi on a Monday which is basically already the best day of the week. There is nothing better than seeing a full fridge (well, shelf of the fridge).

I tend to get Aldi own cereal so that I can have this for the week for breakfast.

At the moment for my lunch I am loving having a fishcake with a bit of spinach and cucumber (I freeze the fishcakes so they last longer).

For my tea I make the easiest salmon dish which lasts for the next day too. Before I came to Uni I invested in a cheap, small blender which I use to make bread crumbs from a slice of bread. I then mix 2 tbsp Pesto and 1 tbsp of parmesan cheese with the breadcrumbs and add a dash of salt and pepper. This then goes on top of the 2 salmon fillets. I add more parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs on top of the mix and this goes into the oven at 200 degrees C for 20 minutes. I pair the salmon with different things every time for a bit of variety. Sometimes Mexican rice, sometimes a naan bread and if I want to treat myself, I can either make some mash really easily with a potato (chopped, boiled and mashed with butter and milk) or quick oven chips. I also love having spinach and cucumber with this and season with some Cesar salad dressing.

Tuesday:

When I have Uni like I do on a Tuesday over lunchtime, I tend to buy either in the cafeteria in Uni itself, or I pick up a cheap meal deal from a supermarket on the way up to save faffing in the morning trying to make things to take.

For tea I will warm up the salmon that I cooked the previous day and pair it with the same salad, but a different carb option.

Wednesday:

My lunch will either be finishing off the pack of fishcakes I opened in the freezer, or sometimes I treat myself to a mini lunch-sized pizza from Aldi which I can shove in the oven and have with salad.

I’m not going to lie; I do have a cheat day sometimes. Wednesdays are usually the days we go on nights out, so I don’t really want to be cooking anything too difficult or time consuming. This is when I end up cooking something with chips, or something out of the freezer (I will explain this later).

Thursday:

I am back at Uni on a Thursday for a full day so this is also a day where I buy from either the Uni cafeteria or a meal deal on the way up to Uni.

Thursdays are also a day where Jacob comes for tea. This means I will make a proper meal in which I can also freeze portions. For a spaghetti bolognaise I will chop an onion and 2 cloves of garlic in my blender and fry until browned. I then add 500g of beef mince and fry until no longer pink. By this point I put 100g pasta per person on to boil. I then add 2 tins of 400g chopped tomatoes with 2 tbsp tomato puree and 2 beef stock cubes to the mince. As my own little healthy addition, I try and blend a few different vegetables in my blender to almost a puree; usually I add 2 carrots and 2 red peppers. I leave this with the lid on to simmer for around 15 minutes. A minute or two before serving I add 2 tsp dried mixed herbs. I also usually serve this with garlic bread.

For the amounts I have described, this serves between 4 and 5 people so I normally have 3 portions to put into tupperware boxes and freeze for other days when I have less time to cook.

Friday:

For lunch on Fridays I have been making an easy and quick tuna pasta with either peas or sweetcorn and a bit of light mayo. By the time I have had a lie in and actually got myself out of bed it can be past lunch time because of the late time I had my breakfast so this keeps me going until later in the evening. I make enough to keep in the fridge for the next day.

At tea I normally get a portion of something out of the freezer again for just myself.

Saturday:

I finish off the previous day’s pasta for lunch either at the flat or if I’m at work I take it to work. Sometimes if I have work mid-morning where I would be working too much past lunch to only eat breakfast, I will just have a fishcake before I go and last until when I finish work which would be 3ish and then finish the pasta then.

Jacob comes back for tea on a Saturday and I try and make a treat tea for us to have. Fajitas is a go-to and I make this using a fajita kit. I buy 600g chicken breast and cut into small pieces. I fry this until it is cooked in a tiny bit of oil and then add chopped red onion and peppers to sizzle. I use the seasoning from the kit for the chicken mix and add a bit of salsa for good measure from the pack too. I cook chips whilst the chicken is cooking too and serve with tortilla wraps from the kit, salsa and cheese and sometimes treat us to nachos too for a Mexican night.

Sunday:

Boring I know, but I do love a good soup and bread for lunch sometimes. You can get great premade soups from Aldi which are so quick and easy to warm up.

For tea, I either finish of the fajita mix if me and Jacob have left any or I do end up get a portion out of the freezer again. What ends up happening is over the weeks when I cook and freeze 3 portions once or twice a week, I always have portions of different meals in the freezer so that I am always eating a proper home cooked meal that I made myself. That is if I don’t decide Sunday’s are treat days and shove something in the oven once in a while.

There are so many different teas I can make; these are only 3 different ones I make in one week. I make different ones each week, some that I can freeze and some that I can’t but will make smaller portions. If anyone is interested in any more student friendly recipes or a different week’s food diary, then let me know!

Thanks for reading. Keep smiling and have a great day! Liv xxx