A Lazy Girl's Guide to Healthy Cooking

I hate keeping an eye on something ‘to make sure it doesn’t burn.’

I hate cooking. Just putting it out there before we proceed.

This is in no way a hobby. Unless we are talking about chocolate, I see food simply as a necessity. (When it comes to chocolate, it is obviously a passion.) 

I find cooking really boring, and I hate standing next to a pot and watching it ‘simmer’. I hate keeping an eye on something ‘to make sure it doesn’t burn.’ No thank you.

My hatred of cooking even extends to pasta. Yep, the food known as the easiest thing to make, the love of all students everywhere. I think it takes too long to cook. I take the term ‘al dente’ to its extreme and often leave the pasta cooking for under five minutes because I hate waiting for it to be soft and ‘edible.’

 

An actual real life meal I have cooked and consumed. 

Having made this disclaimer, I am now going to discuss some recipes I have found that I can just about deal with cooking. Despite my chocolate obsession, nay, my chocolate devotion, I am actually trying to keep a balanced diet and eat healthily, meaning I can no longer just rely on my half-cooked pasta with a sprinkling of cheese.

Although I’ve never actually met anyone who hates cooking as much as I do, I’m sure there must be other lazy chefs out there, so if you are one of us, please, put down the rock hard spaghetti, and read on. 

Nom nom nom 

(I have included effort level because let’s be honest that’s the only thing that matters. I have also done illustrations rather than taking photos because my food often looks pretty grim.)

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STUFFED PEPPERS

Ingredients: (You will notice I can never be bothered for measurements, so I suggest just bonking everything in and hoping for the best)

-       Two bell peppers

-       Bulghar wheat or couscous or rice

-       2 spring onions

-       Feta cheese

-       Cherry tomatoes

-       Pesto

-       Coriander

-       Olives

-       Garlic

-     Lemon

Method

- Cut the peppers in half, drizzle in a smidge of oil and put in the oven for about 10 minutes       until cooked

- Cook the wheat/couscous 

- Mix all the other ingredients in a bowl

- When the couscous is done add to the bowl

- When the peppers are done, put the mixture inside

- Drizzle lemon over

- Take a photo

- Consume

Cook Time

-       About 20 minutes

Effort Level

-       5/10

-       Pretty darn good effort level. I’m a fan of this one. Minimal effort and it’s very filling and healthy.

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QUORN EXTRAVAGANZA

Ingredients

-       Quorn chicken pieces (or actual chicken if you’re a carnivore)

-       For this I pretty much use all the vegetables in the fridge that I want to get rid of in one go, everything goes well in this recipe, but some good ones would be: carrots, broccoli, sweet potato, baby sweetcorn, sugar snaps, red peppers, mushrooms

-       A tablespoon of oil

-       1 Onion

-       2 cloves of garlic

-       Chickpeas

-       1 can of chopped tomatoes

-       1 tablespoon of curry paste

-       (If you are feeling extra fancy you can also cook rice and eat them together)

Method

-       Fry the onion and garlic in oil
-       Chop all the vegetable up and chuck them in
-       After a bit, put in the quorn and mix around
-       After another little bit, put in the chopped tomatoes and chickpeas and curry paste
-       Have a good mix until everything is cooked
-       Nom nom nom

Cook Time

-       I have to say, this is a long one, maybe 50 mins to an hour even. Yep, shock, horror.
-       It takes a while to chop up all the vegetables and even longer for them all to cook, particularly the sweet potato.
-       You can cut cooking time by putting some of the veg in the microwave to soften but I always forget to do this until they are in the pot and it’s too late. #ohwell. #noragrets.

Effort Level
-       8/10
-       Yep this dish is high maintenance. Wears perfect eyeliner to a lecture type of dish.
-       In my mind a dish that takes 50 minutes is a dish that has taken 45 minutes too long to make.
-   But it is super yummy, healthy and gets rid of all the vegetable in the fridge you only bought to look good at Sainsburys alongside your mega size galaxy bar.

(Instagrammable rustic mason jar not included in the recipe) 

BREAKFAST SMOOTHIE

This will give you loads of energy for the start of your day. The oats are really nutritious and will fill you up more than just a plain fruit smoothie.

Ingredients: 

-       Oats

-       A smidge of honey (but leave this out if you’re really healthy)

-       Frozen fruit

-       0% fat yogurt

-       Some milk

-       2 teaspoons of peanut butter (unless you have an anaphylactic boyfriend who ruins all your attempts at making your recipes more interesting). 

Method:

•    Chuck it all in and use a mixer to joosh it until smooth.

Cook time:

-       Like 5 minutes

Effort level:

- 6/10
-       Okay, despite this taking no time at all, I am still giving it a high effort level, because it’s a breakfast smoothie so you have to wake up earlier than you would usually to have enough time to make this before uni.
-        I mean the mixer thing is really loud for early in the morning.
-       But, still worth doing if you have a bit of time before a lecture.

Well done, Hudi, hold the frying pan with oven gloves. Now you look competent. 

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SUPER EASY STIR FRY

Ingredients

-       Tablespoon of oil

-       1 clove of garlic

-       1 teaspoon of ginger

-       2 spring onions

-       Almost any vegetables can go in this. Carrots, peppers, broccoli, courgette, baby sweetcorn.

-       ½ mug of water with a vegetables stock cube

-       2 tablespoons of soy sauce

-       Ready to use noodles

Method

·      Heat the oil in a frying pan or, if you are very fancy, in a wok

·      Fry the garlic, onion and ginger

·      Add all the other ingredients

·      Cook until they are cooked

·      Stir in the noodles and continue cooking for a minute

·      Eat

Cook Time

·      25 minutes

Effort Level

- 4/10

·      Not bad, actually! The only effort is chopping up all your vegetables but this doesn’t need any finesse so you can do it whilst watching Made in Chelsea (which is the only measurement I need).

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SWEET POTATO AND MINT THINGY

Okay, this recipe seems really strange and I have been mocked for cooking it before. But, my dear lazy cooking friends, it is actually really yum, I promise. And you get to eat a lot of sweet potato which is really healthy.

Ingredients

-       Sweet potatoes

-       Mint

-       Limes

-       Tamari sauce (or soy sauce if you’re not this extra).

-       A sprinkle of salt

Method

-       Cut up the sweet potatoes and stick in the oven until cooked
-       Grate 2 limes to get the zest and then squeeze 3 limes to get the juice (the grating takes forever but is a good arm workout, so you don’t have to go to the gym as well, right?)
-       Into the bowel of the limes put in chopped up mint and two table spoons of tamari sauce and mix
-       Once the sweet potatoes are cooked, sprinkle with some salt and cover in the minty mixture
-       Consume

Cook Time

-       Ages. Which is the one problem with this recipe. Why do sweet potatoes take so long to cook!? If you plan ahead (which I always fail to do) then this is fine, because you can just stuff the potatoes into the oven for 40 minutes and do something else with your day for a bit. The actual lime and mint mixture only takes about 10 minutes to make, mainly because grating 2 limes is actually tough.

Effort Level

- 6/10

-       As I may have mentioned, the lime grating is a task. Planning your day around putting sweet potatoes in the oven is also an effort. But all worth it as the actual cooking is non existent.

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MUSHROOM, SPINACH AND FETA FRITTATA

Probs the most complex of these recipes, this one actually makes me feel so talented that I could open a brunch café.

Ingredients

-       6 Eggs
-       Chopped up mushrooms
-       Chopped up spring onions
-       1 clove of garlic
-       A blob of oil
-       A sprinkle of parsley
-       A shedload of spinach
-       A blib of milk
-       Feta cheese (obviously can minimise the calories by controlling how much feta is in this.)

Method

-       Chop up the spring onions, garlic and mushroom and fry until brown
-       Add the spinach and parsley
-       ‘Whisk’ the eggs and milk. (But actually just mix around a bit with a fork, this isn’t Masterchef.)
-       On goes the feta
-       Let it cook for about four minutes
-       Put into a baking tray and into the oven
-       Let it cook for about fifteen minutes until it’s all set and risen
-       Eat eat eat

Cook Time

-About 25/30 minutes

Effort Level

-       4/10

-       Actually so easy to do, all you need to do is chuck everything in and mushrooms are absurdly fun to cut up.

So there you have it!! I know it’s not that mind blowing but hey, it’s an improvement on pasta, right?

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What I’d Tell My Fresher Self

Stop thinking it’s the make or break of Uni life. 

In a few short weeks it’ll be a year since I rolled up to the University of Bristol, boxes full of gleaming new pots and pans, with bags full of washi tape to create jazzy designs in my new bedroom. So I thought I’d mark this anniversary by thinking about what advice I’d give to my Fresher Self to improve on those first few scary months…

My fresher bedroom 

Put less pressure on yourself

Freshers is probably one of the most built up weeks of life ever. Expectations of socialising, clubbing, drinking… Thinking you’ll find the New You. When you build anything up this much it’ll always be pretty anticlimactic. I wish I could tell myself to stop thinking it’s the make or break of Uni life. There were many many more weeks afterwards where far better things happened, far more mental clubbing occurred (shout out to Lakota) and far more valuable friends were made.

Spent the entire drive pushing my boxes off me 

Sign Up to Sports

Most people would tell you to go to societies, and I’d agree it’s a great way to make friends. I signed up to a few but dragged by feet when it came to team sports, as I’ve never been any good. But the first week is often when other unsure people will go, making it a good time to trial stuff without feeling like the only marshmellow on the netball team. (Also places fill up in sports teams so even if you want to join, you sometimes can’t)

Genuinely how I'd imagine netball tryouts. 

Get A Plant. Ok this is a tad of a random one. I've always wanted a plant in my Uni room, they look so nice and it's like having a less needy pet. But I was so busy at the beginning making sure I got enough water and sunlight that I couldn’t keep another being alive. By 2^nd term it seemed stupid to get one if I was only gonna kill it come exam time. So yeah, get a plant and give it a friendly name like Herbert, so you can talk to it when you’re lonely I mean so you’re more inclined to hydrate it.

Speak to More People. The most cliché of all fresher’s redo lists. It’s the obvious one, because everyone wishes they’d socialised more. By the time you get to Christmas or so, you feel everyone’s in their groups and you can’t change yours, so you’ll always look back and wish you’d got out there more.

Representing.

But also, don’t get offended by rude people. There’ll be some people in Freshers who literally seem to not want to meet anyone new. When you introduce yourself to them they will seem confused as to why they’d care, AND they don’t even fake a laugh when you say your name sounds like a jumper. They could just be socially awkward and will warm up to you. But some people aren’t worth your time. I wish I could go back and reassure myself that I’m not a complete social potato, and it’s ok to not get on with everyone.

Exploring the city's culture is a great way to feel at home and get out of the Uni Bubble 

Explore the city. Getting to know where you live is probably one of the best ways to feel comfortable in your new home. Also, it really helps to get out of the Uni Bubble, where it can sometimes be pretty overwhelming. So I’d recommend grabbing some new friends and going to a street market, board game cafe or taking in the city’s culture in a museum. As cringe as that may sound, it’s important to know that a city isn’t just the university, and a few streets away from your campus is a whole other world. And when you need time to yourself it’s good to have a favourite place to go to get some peace and quiet and spend a bit of dolla on a distressed wooden picture frame for your bedroom (looking at you, Clifton Arcade).

Stop saying it’s all amazing. I witnessed something in the first few months of Uni. Everyone says they are having The Best Time Ever. But often, when it comes to around January, many people start admitting that they felt lonely or insecure or just bored with their subject. I think it’s time we started addressing the taboo, and admitting to friends when things aren’t so great. It’s tough to acknowledge when uni isn’t all you expected, but chances are your friends will have gone through something similar.

I wish I could tell myself that I would make some great friends here, Freshers isn't the make or break. 

It’ll all be okay, and soon this will seem like home. It’s all so exciting, but for the first few months I felt it was a whirlwind and I just could not get a steady grip on anything. Everything moves so fast and at the beginning you can’t imagine ever feeling like this is your home. But before you know it, you know the best clubs, the fastest routes to your lectures, and where to go for late night binge eating. And then you’re writing a blog a few weeks before second year and freaking out on a whole other level.

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We Went to FARA

Dear Ellie, please don’t hurt me for wearing your clothes.

Yep, my first hardcore haul blog. 

Not to insult Bristol as a whole but its vintage shops are a bit problematic. Yeah, they contribute to your entire student aesthetic and solidify your place at the Uni more than your UCAS form, but they are also extortionately overpriced. I mean, my dad has boxes and boxes of 70s oversized jumpers, and he doesn’t make me pay £60 to wear one. Then again, he has not called his striped shirts ‘repurposed’ or ‘upcycled’ so do they even count as wearable?

FARA Shelf aesthetic on point. 

I’ve managed to last a year in Bristol without buying anything from a second hand shop or a vintage shop, but I think people may start noticing my chunky knits are from Marks & Spencer rather than ‘ sometime in the 70s-90s.’ Also, it has recently come to my attention (eg. Dina told me) that SOME SECOND HAND SHOPS ARE REALLY CHEAP. Which is kind of a big deal for some nearing the dreaded negative numbers on their bank balance.

It looks way classier than your average charity shop 

With this in mind, Dina and I ventured off to FARA. We were highly keen and went not only to the branch in Pimlico but then also to the branch in Angel. FARA are a chain of charity shops that sell affordable second-hand and vintage clothes and have cool bric-a-brac  which contribute to the overall eclectic décor. Also (obvs more important than the edgy décor,) they are a charity that provides support for Romania’s neglected children. So in a nutshell: good clothes, good deeds.

I mean look at those jazzy boots hanging from the ceiling 

Sidenote: we stuck our head into their Retromania branch in Victoria and, even though it’s very cool and retro and vintage etc etc, it is very much not within our budget (aka the clothes are over £10), so if you too are looking for cheaper options, stick with their normal second-hand-type shops.

This is what I got and a bonus bit of analysis…

Cropped farmer (get it) 

1.     Cropped Plaid Shirt. Cost: £3. Pretty self explanatory. What do you do when you have 4 plaid shirts already? Buy a cropped one. Where would I wear this? Either to be a cropped farmer, or, alternatively, all the time as casual wear.

Haha, teaches you to call tails and not heads. 

2.     Doodle Shirt. Cost: £9.80. One of the pricier of my haul, but come on how adorable are the hot air balloons!?  Dina actually wanted this too, so we tossed a coin for it. The look in her eyes at the moment I got it has made me concerned for my life, so I actually wrote this whole blog as public evidence in case I go missing. Where would I wear this? I would either wear this as Dina tries to take it off my cold dead bones, or to look particularly adorable on the daily, or to fly away on a hot air balloon one day and be matching with the sky.

I would wear this in a hot air balloon and match the sky. 

Just me noticing I'm wearing a jacket. 

3.     Reversible bomber. Cost: £24. Ignore that it is over £10 which was my budget per item, because money doesn’t count when it is reversible and silky and embroidered and amazing (if Mr Santander is reading this, I respect money, please can I have a bigger overdraft). Where would I wear this? For when we inevitably don’t get into Lola Lo’s next term, and we have to change our outfits to go in disguise.

What? No, I did not know certain members of the crew were banned from this club?  

My face as we sneak past the Lola's bouncers with my disguise. 

4. White lace. Cost: £6. Where would I wear this? If grandparents/ parents are reading, I would only wear this as underwear. Aka, will wear on nights out and hope people can differentiate between my transparent skin and the lace. 

Oops.

5. Black body. Cost: £2. Where would I wear this? If I want to pretend to cover my midriff for once on a night out. I have just noticed that the label has the name ‘Ellie’ written on it in red, and literally looks like the writing in a horror film. Dear Ellie, please don’t hurt me for wearing your clothes.

Please don't hunt me down. 

I really hope you grew out of this rather than died in it

6.     Mesh top. Cost: £3. Because would any Desperately-Trying-to-Be-Edgy clothing haul be complete without this? Where would I wear this? When I’m trying to look like oranges that have become emo.

Seriously don't know why mesh is a thing but I like it. 

The shopping experience was probably a 6/10, with 1 being pulling knickers out of the student laundrette and contemplating stealing them (something I have indeed done) and 10 being going to Westfield when it first opened and realising there is a heaven made for shoppers. Here are the reasons why it was not a 10/10…

Firstly, I wanted to get something off the mannequin and the shop assistant asked me ‘will you buy it or just try it?’ which is pretty much the stupidest question to ask someone when they have not tried it on. A second shop assistant then told me ‘It’s a size 4’ very pointedly looking at my waist. Ok, I am not a size 4, so fair enough, but no one has the right to tell me that, as I may feel like a size 4 in my soul. Needless to say, I did not ask her to take it off the mannequin and the size 4 top lived to see another day.

Secondly, there were only two changing rooms, which made it quite an ordeal having to wait for the room to become free whilst also juggling a billion different plaid shirts.

Thirdly, in the Angel branch, there was some pretty questionable music. The verses sounded like someone playing a panflute with their nostril. The choruses seemed to be a man yodelling quite badly. However, as I stood waiting for the changing room, balancing my clothes with every limb, it actually started to grow on me. I kind of think it’s the future of music. So I’ll add on a point for that. Shopping experience: 7/10.

We've all been thinking it. 

Total dolla spent: £47.80

However. As we have covered, it doesn’t count if it’s two items mooshed together, because it isn’t a piece of clothing, it is a scientific phenomenon. And if it has doodles on it, is it even a shirt, or is it an artistic investment? Also the universe will pay me back for going to a charity shop and giving money to children. So by my calculations, I’m actually owed money. 

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