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 Have The Arts Got To Do With Freshers Week?

Originally published on Epigram. 

As the most mellow and soothing artist of all time, Bob Ross, once said ‘you need the dark in order to show the light.’

Although he probably wasn’t thinking of Freshers’ Week when he said it, this quote can easily be applied. In the first week of Uni, there may be some highs and lows. The one thing to make sure you have more highs than lows? Well, art of course. Here’s the many ways art can guide you through the first week.

 The Art of Room Décor

Probably the most important one. Did you even take a gap year if you don’t have a tapestry hanging over your bed? Do you even have any friends if you don’t have photos of them perfectly blue-tacked on the wall? Are you even able to study if you don’t have Instagram-worthy stationery arranged on your desk at the start of term? Make sure to get this one right as it will define you forever. That’s a lie, no one pays as much attention to your bedroom as you do, and deep down you’ll know that, but it won’t stop you from Pinteresting colour schemes for weeks before hand, and asking your parents desperately if they have any old records you can display on your shelves to show you’re musically knowledgeable. 

... Winnie the Pooh pillows and Impressionist paintings are cool, right? 

The Art of Self Reinvention

This is it folks. You’ve known pretty much the same people since you were 11, and most of your friends remember the time you wet yourself in the middle of a club like a cast member on Geordie Shore. Never before have you had such an opportunity to reinvent yourself and start over. Be who you want to be. This is a fine and important art, how to present yourself exactly how you want without coming across as too try-hard. Wear frames with clear glass in them to come across as ‘bookish’. Wear fake tan every day but tell people it’s natural. Wear t-shirts with obscure band names or geographical places to seem cultured. Except on the fourth day of Freshers you’ll get smashed playing Never Have I Ever and tell all your flat mates the weeing story and all your hard work will be for nothing.

The first Never Have I Ever will reveal all. 

The Art of Fashion

You’ll spend a good few hours contemplating what to wear on the first night out, and will borrow so much from your flat mates that you all enter SWX wearing an amalgamation of everyone’s wardrobes. You’ll soon decide all the clothes you wore back home aren’t Bristol enough and you’ll head for the vintage shops on Park Street. By November, you’ll realise you’re broke and maybe £80 isn’t that reasonable for a sustainable reworked revamped vintage shirt with a hole in the pocket. Anyway, by TB2, you’ll have given up completely on looking good for Uni and you’ll have finally resorted to rolling out of bed, into your coat and out the door.

The Art of the Arts

The only thing on this list that’s actually artistic: the arts in Bristol! Get acquainted with Banksy, go to a play, drag someone to listen to a free performance on Gloucester Road. Not only will the activities make you more rounded and arty –always a good goal- but they’ll be a great way to meet people and have something to do together, other than going to Spoons. It’ll also help to know a little bit about the graffiti culture in Bristol because it’ll invariably come up at family functions when an uncle tries to come up with something they know about Bristol. Yes, it’s where the ‘Boris and Trump kissing’ mural was. Yes, I got my septum done in Pierced Up, where Banksy did a free artwork. Yes, my Dad’s gonna kill me for getting my septum done.  

The first time walking into Wills Memorial Building 

The Art of Self Love

And in amongst all of this stressing, shopping, Pinteresting and aspirational living, you’ll need to make time for the trickiest art of all, actually staying true to yourself throughout! Don’t be too hard on yourself if you can’t find your feet at first. The best bit about Freshers’ is everyone is doing exactly what you’re doing, and by the end you’ll have realised your new mates might also be artists of their own reinventions. Wait it out and you’ll see that under their £100 Fila jackets, most people are also wondering how to navigate the highs and lows.

Bob Ross also once said ‘just go out and talk to a tree. Make friends with it.’ I’d recommend maybe not doing that in Freshers’ Week.

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