Back to School: Desperate Student Dinners

Weetabix with tomato sauce and fried onions on top. It was an epic food fail.

Chocolate Chip Pizza… It’s amazing, really. Get a plate of cooked, salted oven chips and cover with grated cheese and chocolate. Whack under the grill and when it’s all smooshed and melted together, cut into slices for a little piece of heaven…. Mmmm… This is the basic recipe, we’ve been known to add marshmallows, tomatoes, peanut butter or anything else lying around (nothing to do with coming home drunk and hungry, honest….)

Instant mash potatoe with ham and cheese mixed in put in a sandwich yummy

Pizza butties! nom nom nom!

pasta, curry sauce and instant mash. i couldnt swallow one mouthful it was gross!!!

All you need is a pack of 11p noodles and a couple of slices of bread and butter and you’ve got noodle sandwiches, which are amazing in desperate times!

Brown sauce sarnies saw me through student days

I once had lemon sorbet on buttered toast…why? The only two items left in my house before I finished my second year (might have had a few drinks too).

instant noodles and hamburger in a can (chopped up) and stirred through with ketchup and Tabasco sauce

tomato ketchup on bread and jam and bread if really desperate. 0therwise anything on toast, eggs, beans, sardines etc

Mayonnaise sandwiches. So good!

mine as a student used to be a chilli con carnie pizza

Marmalade and marmite sandwiches – it is the salty / sweet combination

Ketchup sandwich

Once and once only I had the weird idea that putting blackberry yogurt on fried bread would be a good idea…It wasnt it really wasnt, I dont know what possesed me to even try

Crisp sandwiches have always been a favorite, I find roast chicken flavour to work best

I boiled a dippy egg in a a kettle the stove was out of action and I was desperate, remarkably it was edible but don’t recommend it:-)

Cheese on toast can be converted into a croque monsieur just by doing two slices and popping ham inbetween. Superb!

One guy in our halls nearly burnt the place down heating up a can of beans

Rice with cheap frozen mixed veg and either ketchup or sweet chilli sauce. basically whatever counted as a sauce from the cupboard.

Popcorn mixed with cheap cornflakes to make up a sufficient bowlful & hot milk with chocolate squeezy sauce on top (I have a sweet tooth!)

My former housemate used to take a packet of own brand noodles, and just mush a processed cheese slice into them.

One day I came home to see him making the same for his girlfriend at the time. He turned to me to try and settle a disagreement, and said “If you were making the same thing two days in a row, you wouldn’t bother to wash the plate, would you?”.

I grimaced, looking at the crusted-on slime and said “Uh…yeah, I would.” to which he replied “You’re only saying that because SHE’S here.”

7 years on, and he’s not really changed, to be honest.

best food as a student having a party all clubbing together to buy 3 x 12 inch cheese and tomato pizza’s eat as much as you can,all go home, wake up next afternoon and find 2 or 3 slices left, heaven mmmmmmm

Mashwiches (Mash Potato Sandwiches) were invented in my mould ridden kitchen during my second year. It was unfavourably called “the poor man’s chip butty” in its early stages but alas the Mashwich was born. it goes well with pretty much anything and the delicious carbs saved me (literally) in the early part of Feb. For a real treat melt some cheese into the mash and make a Toasted Mashwich.

Mash potato mixed with ketchup – it went a shocking pink colour!

Wraps with onion rings, fries and bbq sauce. Literally the only three ingredients left in the house

tequila and ginger biscuit chicken, seriously…it came from an actual student recipe book!

You can’t beat beans on toast for a cheap and tasty student meal, Pot Noodles are great as well ;o)

Ewwww!!!

Someone once told me that cooking spaghetti and tossing it with olive oil and herbs makes a tasty, cheap and quick meal. So I tried it- but instead of drizzling a little oil, I added a massive glug, stirred it, poured some more on top, and then proceeded to try my ‘delicious’ creation. Greasy is not even the word- I think I still have a coating of oil in my mouth that I can’t shift to this day.

When we were students, my boyfriend made a disgusting cocktail of vodka, fruit juice and crushed digestive biscuits :X It looked just as chunky on the way back up…

Pasta in gravy on white cheap bread.
Pasta sandwiches, for the carb hungry.

Vinegar. Poured on stale bread. Them was rotten days,

Brown sauce sandwich with pot noodles and curry sauce!!

Cheese on toast , with crunchy nut peanut butter under the cheese. Only tried it the once.

Sugar butties

Best sandwich ever, cheap and amazing. Toast, fried red onion, bacon and peanut butter! My ex used to make me this when I used to do overnights with essays! It sounds disgusting but it’s absolutely the best sandwich in the world!!!

Plain rice and a tin of microwave-heated chopped tomatoes…. salt for seasoning.

Cheerios and Bisto gravy

Most regular dinner for me would be warm, not hot, sausage roll, on a bed of ketchup with thick layers of buttered bread housing the concoction

When I was at Uni in the 90s I had to share a kitchen with 11 other people and pilfering of food was rife. I went through a phase of dyeing all my food blue 1) because I as slightly odd and 2) to put people off nicking it! A particular fave was cheap ramen noodles, with grated cheese and blue food dye. I also recall eating blue smartie sandwiches…

chocolate pasta, sprinkles with cheese because i run out of tomato sauce and cheese…was too hungover and cold to go get them

Crisps on toast!!

Mushy peas mixed with boiled rice lots of black pepper… And I bit of mayo on the side….

Once had to make Smash with orange juice…….. not good !!

oh and supernoodle sarnies when i was a student, also boil cheep pasta, use the saved water to add gravey granuals & mix all together, just add ketchup.

One bagel….clove of garlic….mayonnaise. Combine. Toast bagel. Add sprouts, lettuce, tomatos, cucumber, onion. apply all to bagel, squash down and consume. Make your own: add your own toppings, sauce

Jam sponge with rice pudding on top

soup base of any kind, wing yip rice sticks, vegetables, almost cooked meat for flavor….done and dusted…cheap healthy eats

few things spring to mind, lemonade -sugar and milk mix….its frothy man.
mars bar breville toasties…mars bar chopped into 1/2 cm slices melted between to toasted slices of bread mmmm and a nutty alternative snickers breville.
jam on toast dipped into a hot mug of tea
chilli con carne in a slice of bread must be the morning after you made the chilli preferably left overs
smash with nutella mixed in and a blob of marmite and grated cheese

When weeks are short with money and all I have in the cubboards is bread, tomato ketchup and a bag on sugar they make a tastey mix.
Toast the bread sprinkle sugar over the toasted bread and apply ketchup and spread around.
Strange but so tasty

I had a tin of tomato soup but had no bread in the cupboards so I put a handful of sultana’s in with the soup to bulk it up. It was so disgusting I couldn’t eat it even though I was starving!

My best student meal used to be done on Wednesdays after rugby games where to save money we used the left over beer to fill our pot noodles and put into the microwave for 5 minutes. Beer and food in one go. The only escape from the eating is cheating rules on drinking nights.

My husband and his mate have been talking about sausages and custard for years. They were convinced it would really work. Neither of them cook, so one day when I was making dinner for both of them, I made a toad in the hole and instead of topping it with gravy, I covered it in Ambrosia custard. It was… well…. interesting. But I don’t think they will try it again!

Ramen noodles cooked in a tinny electric kettle made for mice? Noodles stuck on the inside burner…each cuppa thereafter tasted like chicken soup base….no money to replace it. DISGUSTING!

Toast sandwich 2 course- slice of bread, noodles (main course)slice of toast, sugar (dessert) another slice of bread. Cheap, easy and so disgusting to start with but then u get used to it!

French Fries with Salad Cream, Yummy taste so goooood!!!!

Gravy granules with instant noodles. The instant noodles were just those plain ‘nests’ and had no flavour sachet so I emptied the remnants of gravy granules into the pan with water and noodles, and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Boil until its basically noodles coated in thick gravy and wa-la. I actually realised at a later date that oxo cubes work much better if you crush them up, it’s just like the powder in instant noodles. I practically lived off this meal for a good few years. Stale bread dipped in it makes for a crunchy side.

My worst late night concoction was own brand chicken noodles cooked by pouring them into the kettle and turning it on, really thick smash moulded into a pizza base shape( u should try this!!) and spread with lemon curd!! Voila!! In my chef head I was thinking lemon and chicken pasta pizza…… The result was more washing up liquid and worms….. But yeah, we still ate it!! I still use mash as a pizza base substitute to this day!!

Mine was a jam sandwich with a twist….. The twist was chip shop chips, fish and curry sauce hmmmmm tasted wonderful

I once had an apple pie and gravy as I thought it was Chicken, but tasted all right just the same. Never had it again though.

Curry pot noodles with extra crunchy peanut butter always worked for me – yummy

marmite and banana sandwiches ..yummy

I was desperately hungry, with the fridge, freezer and cupboards almost bare. What I did find was a frozen haggis and some gravy granules. I needed to eat quickly so I made the gravy, poured it over the hunk of frozen haggis, and stuck it all in the microwave. It was dubbed ‘haggis soup’. The house smelt unholy for days afterwards.

Banana ketchup and mustard sandwiches and sometimes with added mayo r pretty great

I used to like tuna with cheese fried together and tons of black pepper. Also I really love onions with loads of sugar in lemon juice fried too!

Me and my friend mixed tuna with gravy It actually turned out really nice !! Also when there was nothing in the house carrot sandwich :s !! Lol x

PANFRIED DICED HOTDOG FILLED IN VALUE WRAPS WITH TOMATO SAUCE!

melted cheese on toast with marmite underneath and caralised onions on top mmmmmm

drippin butties with sugar and brown sauce warmed up in a frying pan it was all we could afford edible when desprite

I use to come home from college and make myself a peanutbutter with chocolate spread banana and jam grilled sandwich

Sausage madras in a giant Yorkshire pudding. Mmmmm

Its all about tinned spaghetti with shortbread and cheese on top

You cannot beat fried eggs on cheese on toast, topped with baked beans and brown sauce. Diamond! It’s a really cheap meal. Also, another good one is nutella (or any cheap choc spread) and peanut better sandwiches! Delish!!!

melted chocolate & vindaloo curry paste

Once we had nothing left in the house so we decided to mix pasta and syrup together was a good combination apart from being sick afterwards

Banana and pickled walnut sandwich – the bread goes a strange brown colour but tastes great.

Toast with jam and a egg together like a sandwhich with cheese on the top

Ok so I’ve eaten some rubish in my time my favourite being cheese n onion crisps with melted chocolate over them or cheese spread and strAwberry jam on toast – my major oops Skint and no food in the kitchen was last nights chilli sauce left over from the kebab spread on home made fried toast !! Do not try it huuuge fail and possibly a stomach destroying moment !!

One of my uni housemates once put everything he needed to use up on a pizza – including banana and fish fingers. We teased him so much he took it into his room to eat. He probably hasn’t changed in 13 years either…

I used to love buying a bag of chips from the chipyy wrapped in paper but when they had put half the portion out i would smother them in salt and loads of vinegar add a packet of gummy bears add loads more vinegar and salt and then had the rest of the chips added yuuuuuuuuuuuuuum! It is especially yummy when you get to the gooey hot salt and vinegared bears and all the surrounding chips are pleasantly sweet!

Pilchards on toast, with melted cheese on top and salad cream on top of that, lovely!!!

Fish and curry with friled dumplings…served with warm BBQ sauce

jelly mint sauce and satsuma sandwiches

2nd year of uni, end of the summer and proper skint. I was revising for re-sit exams and hungry. All I had in the cupboard was rice and a snikers bar. I boiled off the rice and melted in the sinkers bar at the end. Once it was cooked I had lost my appetite so I put the pan in fridge. About half an hour later I became even more hungry than before and devoured the soft starchy, brown, nutty sweet congealed mass. I still don’t know why I didn’t just yam the snikers bar.

Bacon Super Noodles, Nik-Naks (Rib & Saucy – standard), cucumber, Cheese Strings and season to taste. Note to all, the hot cucumber and the soggy crisps are definitely a no-no, Also – Cheese Strings do not react well to heat. They don’t react at all actually that was the problem.

Rice and peas with some hp sauce with diced processed cheese yum at least I thought so at the time

a noodle and fried egg sandwich munch lol

I usually have at least once a week Mash Potatoes with tomatoe soup poured over the top so nice!!

chicken curry pasta bake is superrr tasty, sainsburys own brand canned chicken curry, sainsburys own brand curry sauce and sainsburys own brand pasta, meal for 2-4 could even stretch to 6 if need be all for below £3

Next day Sunday dinner turned into an omleat nom nom

Peanut butter and pasta (with someone elses ordinary butter)! Desperate times, but I also like to be experimental because who knows, it may have been nice. Pasta was too dry on its own, shortly after that I realised that peanut butter is also dry, so I added my housemates butter to the equation (she doesn’t know to this day.) I’ve tried worse things.

fish finger risotto – rice slightly out of date ( only 18 months ) and the odd freezer burn on the fish fingers. The brown sauce didnt really help

potato waffle with slice of cheese fried egg a beef burger (not horse I don’t think but who knows) and a dash of brown sauce yummy lol

My house m8 one day had some milk and ceareal (so far normal) then adds baked beans (cold) and Bombay mix! Then he proceeds to have buttered toast with jam and scoops his Bombay mix concoction onto the toast and eats it. He assured me that it tastes delicious, and has it reguraly. I have not tried to it to this day.

Slice of bread, spinkled as vinegar, spread with butter and sprinkle on salt. Deeeelicious, good taste as well , I enjoy that all …..

I make Gravy with Milk and italian herbs, basil and oregano…actually is a family favourite now.

Caviar and Tesco’s finest champagne, oh I lived like a peasant in my student days. Tootle doo.

Own brand noodles with coco powder! Hits the spot

So we once made fish finger sandwiches, but not as many people know fish finger sandwiches to be!. We didn’t have any bread. But we did have fish fingers, baked beans, cheese and erm, honey.

So we used the honey to stick 2 lots of 3 fish fingers together, stuck them in then oven and then dumped a load of cheese a bean on top then covered with the other fish finger ‘slice’. Tastiest bread-free fish finger sandwich I ever had!

COuldnt afford milk but had se custard do made special k and custard for breakfast, had it ever since

Pasta and cornflakes bake… it was summer 1988 and the friends I was sharing a house with STILL tease me about it today, 25 years later. But even that didn’t match my attempt at mock duck a l’orange. Or, as my housemates perhaps more accurately called it, chicken in marmalade.

My sister and I always eat bovril or marmite with butter and cheddar cheese, put it in the microwave for 30 seconds and mix together. Add ready salted crispy to the equation and yum! We also buy fisherman a pies and add cheesy wits its to the top. Cheap and delicious!

A personal favourite of mine is homemade roast potatoes with coleslaw and patatoe salad and chessy pasta bake, topped of with a generous amount of gravy! Incase you haven’t realised I love cheese. Which reminds me chesse, pickle and marmite toastie a are also lovely!

The lemon curd and cheese sandwhich. An absolute winner!

Met many people who like cheese and Jam, but none as yet who appreciate lemon curd and cheese. Had to become an affiliate member of the jam & cheese gang

Any Lemon curd & cheese people out there?

i used to love burnt toast with onion, mayo an garlic granules with cheese and chocolate spread or strawberry jam on top then melt the awful cheese/jam or chockie spread under the grill

Pie sandwich! Two slices of bread and a small steak pie out the freezer. Can’t go wrong

breakfast lasagne, lol. sounds wierd but everyone likes it. use tined beans and a tin of hotdog sausages sliced up to put inbetween the lasagne sheets. top with either a jar of lasagne topper or a homemade white sauce very easy, snip up a slice of bacon and sprikle over the top. 30 minutes in oven and you’ve got a meal for 4. really yummy.

Fish fingers and potato waffles can both be cooked in a toaster. Lovely 5 minute meal when you get in drunk, with the added bonus that you can’t set the fire alarm off, waking up the entire student halls at 4am, if you forget you’re cooking and fall asleep!

Just never let the fish fingers break up in the toaster, if you leave a flake of fish in there the kitchen will never be free of that smell, and all future visitors will enquire why their toast tastes “a bit weird”. Oops.

I was absolutely starving and didn’t really know how to cook, so I raided the fridge and cupboards and discovered bourbon biscuits, cheese and salad cream in a sandwich. To this day, my friends think I’m crazy, but its still one of my favourite things to eat

One crazy time me and my friends went out and they all stayed at my house. We woke up and was so hungover but decided to make breakfast. Since I am the one always cooking I said I am going to make a slap up meal. I made fish fingers, bake beans and fried dumplins. I told them all to take three shots each of vodka (remember it is like 12 in the afternoon) so now they were drunk again in the morning (except me I made sure I had water) and I dared them to eat this creation I made of:
cheerios (cereal) with milk
fish fingers
fried dumplings
bake beans
ketchup
bread
That was all mixed up into a bowl each for them to eat.
Now some of them refused but yep I got my way in the end and yes it tasted disgusting but one of my friends quiet enjoyed it and ate the lot (I think she was too drunk to even realise the taste but that’s probably because they all took more shots than I told them to).

This happened when I was drunk. I was so hungry so I opened up a noodle packet, because I was drunk my senses was not that good. I picked up a sprite bottle wishing it was water inside because it was not fizzy. I tasted it and I was sure it was water. I was with two of my friends and they assured me that it was water aswell. Obviously they are drunk too. I boiled the “water” and put it in the bowl with noodles in it. I taste it and we all looked at each other and said the noodle is sweet. We shouldn’t buy this flavour ever again. We were so hungry we had seconds. The next day I woke up and wanted a drink. Guess what I found out. We ate noodles with sprite BOILED…. Lol

In the past ive made a dish called “slug slime” you boill up some pasta shapes, then when cooled mix in some salad cream or mayo and then add in some pineapple chunks! Cheap and quite tasty lol

Hoping to use all the tinned cupboard food before doing a shop, I made tinned spinach, mushroom, chickpea, and pineapple curry….we ended up getting takeaway pizza!

My husband eats brown sauce sandwiches… If feeling adventurous may add a pack of crisps into the equation… This is when I was away with work… much more desperate than anything I ate as a student!!!

Leftovers of a Sunday roast dinner – chicken, potatoes, parsnips, and stuffing – all chopped up and cooked with a rogan josh sauce. Lover Sunday Roast? Love curry? Heavenly mix!

Rice with lemon juice houmus olive oil n hp sauce all mixed up with a touch of cayanne pepper delucious

Tuna, smash, with a dash of mustard mixed together with a dash of mustard then a packet of prawn cocktail crisps to use to eat the mix with.. Yummers.

roll out sliced bread and cut the crust off, then mix left over fajita powder with water and spread over bread, cover with cheese, slices are the best! put in the oven 10 mins fajita cheesy delight

I used to love marmite and my favourite was marmite and chip sarnies.

I once found myself desperately hungry with only half a pack of beef ravioli, a pot of yoghurt, and my flatmate’s chilli oil with dried shrimps. I microwaved the ravioli with a tablespoon of water, let them soak it up for a couple minutes. Then I coated them in two tablespoons of yoghurt and two teaspoons of chilli oil with dried shrimps. It was so delicious that 20 years later I still make it as a treat! Add lots of black pepper on top…

I LOVE FISH AND CHIPS WITH hOT cHILLI aND cOOOOOOOL mAYO

Lasagne, Chinese style… So, I tried to make a “posh” dinner for my housemates. I bought flat pasta lasagne sheets, minced “beef” (who knows), and a jar of white/ cheese sauce. What could go wrong? Oh yes, the part where you make a tomatoey sauce to cook the mince in. I forgot to buy that so I raided the cupboard & found a jar of uncle ben’s sweet & sour sauce. Why not? It actually tasted pretty good, and my secret was only given away when one housemate said “Why are there lumps of pineapple in the lasagne?” Oops.

satay omlette! a drunken silly idea we had one night wich involved penunt butter cheese bean sprouts and chilli… was a disaster

Banana, ham, jam, peanut butter, cheese (melted of course) and nutella sandwich – Yum yum

omellette with beans cheese bacon chilli and garlic drenched in mayo