Library packed lunch (for those of you spending all day in the libary and not a penny to your name, eat cheap and healthy with this tasty packed lunch idea)

Honey and cinnamon cous cous with chicken and peas (& enjoy with roasted veg and tomatoes)

(enough for 3 meals)

Ingredients:

75g blanched almonds or cashews

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

125g couscous

1 tablspoon runny honey

250ml chicken/vegetable stock

Roughly a third of a pack of chicken pieces (or make your own, if you have time!)

Quarter of a bag of frozen peas

The grated zest of half a lemon

A squeeze of lemon juice

1tablespoon of chopped mint

salt and pepper

To make:

1. Gently roast the cashews/almonds (chop them once they are roasted). Meanwhile soften the onion and garlic in the olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

2. Once the onion and garlic have softened, remove from the heat and mix in the cinnamon.

3. Add the honey to the chicken/vegetable stock and mix in.

4 Pop the peas on to boil for roughly 5 minutes, then drain and rinse with cold water.

4. Pour the stock over the couscous, just covering it (it should be roughly the right ratio) and leave to soak it up for 10 mins with a lid covering it. Then fluff it with a fork and transfer it to a bowl and leave to cool.

5. Finally, add the chicken and peas to the couscous and mix it all together. Grate the lemon zest into the cous cous and squeeze in a good amount of juice too.

6. Finish with a sprinling of parley or mint and some black pepper.

You can now ‘pin’ Alice is in the kitchen again so you can have it at your fingertips!

The unbeatable Banana bread recipe (hummingbird yet again…if you find one better - let me know!) ps: maybe throw some choc chips in too, if you’re a huge fan of chocolate like me.

Ingredients
250g soft light brown sugar
2 eggs
200g peeled bananas, mashed (the riper the banana, the sweeter they are)
280g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
140g unsalted butter, melted

A 23 x 13-cm loaf tin, greased and dusted with flour

1) As always - preheat the oven to 170C.

2) Put the sugar and eggs in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment and beat until well incorporated. (If you’re a student like me and a freestanding electric mixer is a bit flashy, use your own strength, or a electic hand whisker - just as easy. Once the eggs and sugar are mixed, beat in the mashed bananas.

3) Add the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon and ginger to the sugar mixture. Mix it thoroughly until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the egg and sugar mixture mixture. Pour in the melted butter and beat until all the ingredients are well mixed. (Add in the chocolate chips now!)

4) Grease a loaf tin and pour the mixture in. Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes hour, or until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool slightly in the tin before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

You can’t go wrong with a Classic Jacket Potato

I know it may seem silly to pop these recipes up but we often forget how easy and yet how fulfilling a jacket potato for dinner can be. So I thought I’d share two of my favourite fillings with you all.

Cooking the potato (leave lots of time for this…)

1. Poke some holes in your potato with a fork and if you’re feeling extra keen rub a little olive oil and salt onto the skin. Pop the baked potato in the oven at ~ 200c (depending on the strength of your oven!) Leave it in there for an hour and 20 minutes for a medium sized potato. (Again this may vary depending on the size, prod a fork in and if it comes out easily and feels soft inside…it’ll be ready, rather easy, I know.) Once it’s ready, slice a a criss cross through the middle and pop some butter and a pinch of salt inside and leave to melt.

Tuna n Red Pepper (and spring onion if you like this)

Ingredients: Serves 1

A small can of Tuna

2 Spring onions, sliced

A quarter of a red pepper, diced.

(Mix them all together and pop them in your potato and grate the cheese on top.)

It’s very self explanatory so I won’t bore you with details. It’s lovely served with a few pieces of lettuce and some tomatoes.

Or … Baked Beans and Cheese

Ingredients

A small can of beans

Broccoli and Spinach leaves

(Cheese)

1. With five minutes to go before your potato is ready: pop your broccoli in the pan of water and bring it to the boil and then boil for cerca 4 mins (Check to taste.)

2. At the same time, pour your can of beans into another pan and gently heat them up.

3. Finally once the beans and broc are ready, rescue your potato from the oven (split it open, fill with butter and salt to taste) and pour your beans over your potato. Grate lots of cheese on top and serve with the broccoli and uncooked Spinach. Delish.

Set yourself up for the day with a delicious brekkie of:

Porridge with banana, raisins and a drizzle of honey

(For 1)

Ingredients

I normally say about 1 cup 1.5 cups of porridge oats

1/2 a banana

A splash of milk (optional)

Handful of raisins

Drizzle of Honey

1. Pop the porridge in a pan and add a finger and a half more water above the oats. Bring it to boil and then turn it down to simmer. Keep turning it so it doesn’t stick to the bottom. It usually needs about  5 minutes. I then pour in a splash of milk to add a little flavour, mix it around a wee bit and take it off the stove.

2. Pour your porridge in a pan and add the banana, raisins and a drizzle of honey and Bob’s your uncle. (tastes great with a cup of earl grey too.)

Cheap and cheerful Roasted veg with chickpeas (courtesy of the Vegetarian Student cookbook by Ryland, Peters and Small…a.k.a student cooking bible)

Whizz up this quick, easy and cheap meal to cheer up those library blues!

Serves 4 hungry students

Ingredients

12 small mushrooms

2 ripe tomatoes, halved

1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced into strips

1 red onion, cut into wedges

1 small fennel bulb, slibed into thin wedges

1 whole garlic bulb, split into individual cloves (do not peel!)

1 tsp salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

400 g tin of chickpeas, (drain and give ‘em a quick rinse)

2 thyme or rosemary sprigs

Now for the fun part:

1. Preheat oven 180C.

2. Pop the mushrooms, tomatoes, red and yellow pepers, onion, fennel and garlic cloves ina large roasting tin. Sprinkle the salt over the top and the the oil too. Toss it all together and leave to Roast for an hour. (Check on it and toss it every now and then.)

3. Later add the chickpeas and thyme sprigs. Pop it all back in the oven and roast for another 30 mins, until the edges of the veg are starting to crisp a little bit.

Tastes delicious served with cous cous and a glass of red wine!

Sweet potato, spinach and coconut curry (serves 4/5) (Courtesy of the guardian! It tastes lovely with some rice and naan bread)

Ingredients:

60ml groundnut or sunflower oil
2 white onions, diced
800g sweet potatoes, chopped into 5cm chunks
1 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp tumeric
500g whole leaf large spinach, roots cut off and well washed
50g ground almonds
2 green chillies, sliced thickly
1 tin of coconut milk
Juice of half a lime

To make it:

1 In a wide, heavy-based pan, soften the onion in the oil for about 5 minutes- with a lid on! Stir in the sweet potato chunks, curry powder and tumeric and fast-fry with the lid off until it begins to stick to the bottom.

2 Slowly stir in the spinach, handfuls at a time, adding the ground almonds (if you have them) and chilli. When all the spinach is in the pot and beginning to wilt, add in the coconut milk and some some salt. Stir well and pop the lid back on.

3 Keep it at an active simmer, stirring from time to time for about 20 minutes until the spuds are cooked. Take the lid off and let the curry reduce down to a thicker consistency (another 10 minutes or so). You can prepare the rice whilst the curry is cooking!

Hope you enjoy it.

Blueberry pancakes with banana, honey (/golden syrup?) and bacon - perfect Saturday morning wake up (good old BBC food adapted slightly!)

• 135g plain flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• ½ tsp salt

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 2 tbsp caster sugar

• 130ml/4½fl oz milk

• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

• 2 tbsp melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking

• 1/2 a punnet of blueberries
• 2 bananas
• honey/maple syrup/golden syrup
• 1 pack of smoked bacon

Get started:

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, gently whisk together the milk and egg, then whisk in the melted butter or olive oil (the latter is easier!)

2. Pop the bacon in the grill (make sure you leave the grill door ajar), grill for 5-10 minutes, turning it over after 5. Once ready, turn the grill off and leave in the grill to stay warm.

3. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and, using a fork, beat until you have a smooth batter. Any lumps will soon disappear with a little mixing. Let the batter stand for a few minutes.

4. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a knob of butter. When it’s melted, add a ladle of batter (or two if your frying pan is big enough to cook two pancakes at the same time). It is pretty thick so try to quickly spread the pancake out with another spoon, keeping them smaller is easier, pop some blueberries into them while one side is cooking. Wait until the top of the pancake begins to bubble, then turn it over and cook until both sides are golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1cm thick.

5. Repeat until all the batter is used up. You can keep the pancakes warm in a low oven, but they taste best fresh out the pan.

Carrot and Walnut cake (The fabulous Ottolenghi recipe…it’s worth the hard work!)

Ingredients

Extremely tasty, gooey and quick brownies (once again, thank you Hummingbird bakery…) This is my favourite dessert to whip up and if they’re particularly gooey they are delicious straight out of the oven with some raspberries!

Ingredients

200g dark chocolate (70%, roughly chopped)
175g unsalted butter
200g caster sugar
130g plain flour
3 eggs
icing sugar, to decorate

1. Preheat your oven to 170C.

2. Boil the kettle and pour a little water in a pan and start to heat gently on the hob. Now, roughly break up your choccie and pop it in a heat proof bowl with the butter. Place the heatproof bowl over the simmering water and allow the butter and chocolate to melt. (Make sure the base of the bowl does not touch the water!)

3. Once the choccie and butter is perfectly melted and smooth, remove them from the heat and mix in the sugar. Now slowly add in the flour. Finally, beat the eggs in a separate bowl and then add the beaten eggs to the flour, sugar, chocolate and butter mixture. Mix well! Now gently pour the mixture into your greased baking tin, hopefully a smallish tin maybe roughly 30cm by 20cm.

4. Pop the tin in the oven on a low shelf and bake for 15-25 minutes depending how gooey you like them! Keep checking them and pop a knife in the middle to judge the texture. Like I say, gooey is great but it makes it harder to serve. I would advise either eating them there are then but accept they will be super gooey, or save them for later and let them cool off before trying to remove them from the tray! Enjoy these delicious treats!

Tomato, Aubergine and Mozarella pasta bake