Student Recipes

You know those times when you have been completely skint and had to survive the last week before payday with about 5€!! As TT is full of students and most of the people here have been students at some point, I was wondering what other peoples 'Budget' cooking meals are or have been.

Mine -

1 Can of Gulaschsuppe (I think it tastes a bit like oxtail?)
1 bowl of Pasta(any shape)
Pepper

Method -

Cook the pasta, drain it, add the pepper, add the soup, heat it...eat it!!

Cost 1,20€

To be honest, it's really cheap to make homemade curries. You just put out an initial cost for all your spices - about 20 EUR - and then you've got most of your supplies for a number of different meals. All you really need later is meat or veggies and maybe some coconut or other miscellaneous items, Usually one batch of curry makes several meals, too. Naan bread isn't too difficult to make, and flour's cheap.

Mine was

1 box Store Brand Mac and Cheese $0.25
1 can Hormel Chilli $0.58

Good stuff!

Jam sandwiches:

Bread
Jam

Pasta, butter, pepper. Washed down by a glass of "Eau du Tap"

Cajun beans with rice or cornbread or pasta or nothing.

Think I lived on 3 dishes: tuna pasta, veg soup and pork in cider

Tuna pasta
Ingredients:
1 tin of tuna in oil (cheap as possible)
Pasta (according to level of hunger, also as cheap as possible)
Onion (garlic if you have it)
If available: single cream, coffee cream or mayonnaise

Boil pasta
Chop onion and soften in a pan with some of the oil from the tin of tuna
Tip in the drained tuna and mash together, heat through.
If you have any cream/coffee cream/mayo plus a dash of water, add it now.
Drain the pasta and mix together with the tuna mix.

That's dinner for under 1€
To make it more glam, stick the pasta and tuna mix into a baking dish and crumble a bag of salted crisps over the top and grill until golden.

Veg soup
Ingredients:
1 stewpack/Suppengrün bunch of veg

Chop up peeled veg, boil in water to cover until cooked (a stock cube would be a welcome addition). You can add some tinned tomatoes if you have any or puree it if you like smooth soups.

Pork in cider
Ingredients:
1 pork chop or pork steak (I used to buy the ones from Iceland for £1)
Leftover flat cider from my then flatmates (usually Strongbow)
1 apple
Onion

Peel, core and chop the apple, chop the onion, stick in a small pan with the pork steak, barely cover with cider and poach on a medium heat until apple is soft and meat cooked. Take the onion, apple and pork out and keep warm, reduce the sauce my boiling until it is thickened. Pour over the other cooked ingredients. Nice with spuds. You could add some cream to this sauce if you wanted to or do it in the oven.

Pasta (50 cents)
Onion (20 cents)
Canned Whole Tomatoes (50 cents)
Mozarella (50 cents)
Basil leaves (from basil plant-free or one time purchase of 1-2 €)
olive oil
cream (50 cents-and some left over fro coffee)

Heat oil in pan, and diced onion and sautee until golden

Add whole tomatoes and heat until they separate and I cut with wooden sppon until it is a sauce.

Heat water with salt and cook paste.

Add a bit of cream and Mozarella and at the last some hand torn Basil leaves to taste and pour over cooked and drained pasta.

Eat.

For any of the pasta dishes, you can add a garlic / herb bread loaf from Aldi or Penny Markt as a nice side dish for 0.39 cents, and if you're on your own, just split the loaf in half and it will last two pasta meals.

Mine:
I tin of tuna
I tin of baked beans

Method:
Mix and eat

Very nutritious.. and delicious

where to eat out on a student budget? most times i don't have time to (or want to) cook.

@treehugger

I hope that you actually heat that mixture because if you don't, well you're braver or hungrier than I am.

The ultimate cheap dinner as an student in Ireland was a bag of yellow pack peanuts from Quinsworth washed down with a pint of milk. The feeling of wanting to explode didn't fade for at least three hours.

You can always eat at lunch at the student Mensa on Schillerstr by Pettenkoffer str. They do not ask for student ID and the meals are large for around 2 euro.Mensa Link

When I got my mensa card, I had to talk them into believing I'm a student, since I don't have a student ID card. They might ask for it, but if you push them, they'll let you have a card.

That may be true at the other Mensas, but they do not have that policy at the one I described as many faculty eat there without an ID, they never ask. But at the other one from LMU, they do require an ID. Here you just pay cash, so you can not even use your mensa card.

@Yeti
If it is a hot day, then I don't. It's good both ways but if you buy the cheaper beans they can be a bit watery, so a dollop of tomatoe puree is required for the more tomatoey flavour.

Another gem: Toast with marmite with beans and cheese. mmmmmmmmm

baked potato and baked beans

beans would be refined with whatever herbs and spices came to hand and maybe some chopped up salami. Grated cheese on top if the funds would stretch !

I can almost smell the dorm agaín !

Never underestimate the power of the dark side !

Treehugger: yep, that last is a classic

Yeti: heating things costs money too yer no...

Cheapest/Easiest Mexican Rice:
Rice and Salsa mixed together. Can go instant and mix in the salsa after its cooked or if you use a rice cooker/pot method add the salsa to the uncooked rice.

Goes well with either Red Beans (all mixed together) or as a side to Black Beans with Melted cheese on top.

PS: pieman a "jam" sandwhich were I come from is simply two pieces of bread (no filling) smashed/hjammed together

scrambled eggs

A toasted vegemite and cheese sammich.

The three things I ate for cheap in school. Rice, pasta, and potatoes.

It is also because of college that I no longer can eat Ramen noodles. Back then you could get them for 4 for a dollar. When I left the states I saw them in an advertisment 8 for a dollar.*shudders*My roommate to change it up would eat it uncooked on top of a graham(sp?) cracker. I kid you not. He is also the same guy who would worked for Johnson&Johnson corp in the summer. They would spray his arm with bug repellent and then stick it in some sort of glass container filled with a thousand bugs. Man the things we would do for money in school...

Agreed. When you are getting your spices, buy your rice in bulk too. Weeny, weeny bit of sauce and shitloads of rice feeds half the bloody world.
Other good advice is think ahead - though if you are left at the end of the month with €5 in your pocket, your ability to do that is clearly already ratehr impaired. Buy some seriously cheap cut of beef, but buy about a kilo, and get a recipe for a really long slow cooked dish - a curry, casserole, stew, daube, whatever - then just freeze it. Cheaper cuts mean more flavour, mean less need to buy other flavours, mean cooking in bulk makes sense, means more beer money. Cannot go wrong with a long cooked oven dish, any monkey can cook one, you can find loads of really easy recipes, and they are always cheaper. And they are actually good, nutritious food. Even with no money, mixing a bloody tinned soup with pasta is something I would probably not even give the dog...