Quick Pasta Carbonara (for 4 people)

Preparation time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 10 mins 

Ingredients

400g dried spaghetti
2 tbsp vegetable oil
200g diced ham
3 eggs
3 tablespoon single cream
salt & pepper
3 tbsp chopped parsley
4 tbsp parmesan cheese

1. Cook pasta in large pan of salt water until al dente.
2. Beat eggs, cream, parmesan and parsley in bowl.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry ham until it goes crisp.
4. Turn heat down low and add drained pasta and cream mix to ham – stir until combined.
5. Remove from heat and stir until eggs are lightly cooked and creamy, serve immediately. For a vegetarian option replace ham with mushrooms.

For tasty winter comfort food, which effectively feeds four people for under a fiver and only takes 10 minutes to make, carbonara is hard to beat. All the ingredients are cheap and easy to have hanging around. By the time the pasta is boiled, the sauce is ready to be mixed in with minimal mess. It’s difficult to go wrong, even if cooking is not your strong point – just be careful not to overheat at the end and coagulate the eggs. Try with bacon for an extra kick.

Total cost: £6.27

Good for: Comfort eats

 

Green Lentils con Chorizo (for 4 people)

Preparation time: 15 mins (excluding lentils)

Cooking time: 60 mins

Ingredients
1 chorizo sausage for cooking
1 onion peeled and diced
1 head of garlic peeled and chopped
2 medium sized carrot peeled and diced
1 large potato peeled and diced
1 bay leaf
2 tbsp olive oil
salt

1. Soak the lentils overnight in water until they soften.
2. Finely dice the onion, carrot, garlic and chorizo and pan-fry in two tablespoons of olive oil for 4/5 minutes. The chorizo will release paprika-coloured flavouring – don’t drain this off.
3. Add the bay leaf and cover with water mixed with a stock cube.
4. Simmer for 40 minutes.
5. Add the peeled and small diced potato and simmer for a further 20 minutes.
6. Serve with toasted garlic bread or top with a nice pork chop for a more substantial meal.

As the picture (left) suggests, this is a somewhat misleading title for the “One I Prepared Earlier”. The dish did have a touch of the classic vegetarian food look – murky and bland, though without the moral benefits. For a student with an essay deadline fast-approaching, the overnight lentil soak makes it less than ideal for a quick fix. However, with some fine tuning, a patient cook and a bit of ketchup, the dish would be great for those who favour lentily, near-virtuous goodness: perfectly decent, and certainly cheap to make.

Total Cost: £5.52

Good for: Virtuous diets

Vegetarian Breakfast (for 4 people)

Preparation time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 35 mins

Ingredients
450g potatoes
220g button mushrooms
3 tomatoes (quartered)
4 eggs
2 tbsp chopped parsley
salt & pepper

1. Fry the potatoes in a pan.
2. Leaving the potatoes on a low heat, fry mushrooms, tomatoes and eggs.
3. Season the potatoes with the parsley, and serve immediately.

What happens when you get a Varsity team into a kitchen, devoid of most cooking equipment, to make breakfast? You get burnt mushrooms, eggs cracked in mugs, a fried egg that looks like a shrivelled hand and the photographer relentlessly shouting for cups of tea amid the mayhem. Aside from all the chaos, the recipe for the vegetarian breakfast was relatively easy to make. Fry potatoes, fry tomatoes, fry mushrooms, fry eggs. Frying potatoes, however, will take you ages - boil them first. If you excel in frying breakfast-related produce, have a budget of £2 per head for four people and are suitably hungry then the Vegetarian Breakfast is the breakfast for you.

Total Cost: £6.40
Good for: Fatty Veggies

Words by Anna Harper, Natalie Lawrence and Tanya Iqbal. Recipes by Sam Frost and David Harcroft.