Student Poker Blog

Before I came to Uni I wasn’t much of a cook. I knew how to cook, but I didn’t really know any recipes for a decent meals, and so I was kinda stuck for a week or two when it came to cooking food. I found a love for Fray Bentos pies, which are pies that you cook from a tin and work out great as a meal. I mean you can just literally open them up, stick them in the oven and 20 minutes later you have yourself a meal with hardly any washing up and fuss, all for just over £1. But after a while things became pretty tiresome and I needed to find some ‘proper’ food to cook, instead of living on pies and whatever I could put on toast and eat.

Turns out that some decent meals really arent that hard to cook. Cooking rice and pasta is simple, and most of what I cook can be made with either of these and in around 20 minutes with minimum amounts of pots and pans to clean. I know a number of people that are still managing to live off ready meals and such, but these aren’t really sizeable enough for me and the half decent ones are expensive. Therefore being able to cook meals for myself is working out nicely. So here are my top 3 meals as a student…

1) Spaghetti Bolognese
This is so much easier to cook than I expected. I know how to make it using all the individual ingredients, like using the tin of tomatoes, onions, oregano and all that, but I find it much easier to just use a jar of Dolmio. I much prefer using Dolmio over Ragu because I find it tastes a little bit nicer, but I will use Ragu from time to time if its on offer like 2 for 1. I also use the pasta shells rather than spaghetti, as they’re easier to stab and pick up with a fork, instead of cutting and twiddling around like you have to with spaghetti. So maybe its more like ‘Conchiglie Bolognese’ rather than ‘Spaghetti Bolognese’.

2) Curry
This one isn’t specific, as I like all different types of curry. Again I don’t cook these from scratch because its so much easier to just throw the sauce on top of the chicken and cook away. I only really use chicken as the meat for my curries, as I hear its harder to cook curry with beef or lamb. I’m a big fan of chicken anyway so I’m pretty happy to stick with that. I usually opt for the ‘Pataks’ sauces range and go for either Korma or Jalfrezi. There are a number of other sauces to choose from that I might have from time to time, but these are my favourites for now.

3) Burgers
This one will probably change in the near future when I find something better to replace it with, but for the time being I am really enjoying the burgers, sometimes with chips or wedges. You can get really some decent size burgers from places like Lidl, and they are a decent price too so you can really get your money’s worth. The burgers have also got to be in buns, thats pretty much a neccesity as bun-less burgers really don’t cut the mustard. I usually have some relish to go with it, but if I haven’t got any then tomato sauce works out fine.

So thats my current top 3 meals at University. Looking at it I could probably be a lot more adventurous, but its only been 4 months so I’ve got plenty of time to try new things out. Also it probably could be a hell of a lot healthier, so maybe I should look to have something low in fat from time to time to balance things out a little. But anyways, there a little insight for you on my current eating habits. I’ll give it an update when I’m cooking real classy food like lasagne and all that. Let me know if you have found anything really easy to cook and tastes nice, I’m open to all suggestions.

We’ve heard it all before, about how all students are lazy and are out to get drunk as much as possible and lie in bed for as long as possible. But are students really that lazy? Although thinking about it this statement pretty much hits the nail on the head, I feel that students don’t get as much credit for the work that gets done in lectures and behind closed doors. When people think about students, they will normally think of them as being lazy, tax-dodging, drunk, poor and numerous other flatteringly descriptive words, but theres never really much said about the work that gets done when needs be or the extra effort in other things outside Uni, such as sports and societies.

Lets not forget the real effort it takes to go to 9am lectures after a heavy night drinking. The students that make these lectures are the true warriors that have the exceptional will power to fight through sickening hangovers whilst still being half-cut at the same time. Thats determination right there. Even so, the 10am and later lectures can still be a big struggle to get to and require ten times the amount of effort than would be normally needed if you were not drinking the night before. So the people that accidentally mix both their social lives with lectures and still manage make it work, really can’t be all that lazy with all the effort that is put in.

Furthermore, most people tend to overlook the fact that students are actually studying at some point in between their drinking and tax-dodging endeavours. You have to have a certain level of ability to be in University in the first place, and none of the courses can really be called all that easy. There is a lot to be learnt and a number of exams to sit each year that aren’t going to pass themselves. At some point a lot of revision and studying takes place, which can often be time consuming and hard work.

Outside of lectures are the sports and societies that a large number of students take part in. Fitting these in around a busy drinking schedule isn’t an easy task, but for most students they can make it happen. So when you combine this with all the work that gets done in the day at University, you will find there isn’t a great deal of time left to watch tele and procrastinate and do nothing. A lot of hours in each day can be pretty productive, and probably on the same level as most working people with full-time jobs. So maybe students aren’t that lazy afterall.

This whole post isn’t really a debate about whether or not students are lazy, because I know for a fact that a great number of students can be hilariously lazy at times. I mean I love sleeping until the last minute before I have to get out of bed and stumble to lectures because I spent the night before staying up ’til stupid o’clock in the morning on msn and eating pringles. But you know, when I’m revising and doing coursework I like to think I can be really productive and manage my time well, as can most University students at the end of the day, otherwise they probably wouldnt be there. So yeah, not really a rant, but I’m sure students deserve a lot more credit for their efforts than they get.