Two Student Friendly Recipes- Spicy Thai and Guac Pasta!

Hello there, how are you? How’s the Monday been?

I’ve had a choc-a-block full day of uni work and an ear infection which makes me want to crawl into bed and never leave. I thought I’d do a foodie post today because for all my student readers out there, trying to find dinners that are cheap and contain at least some vegetables are pretty rare. These two are my concoctions, of course prices may vary but I think I paid around a fiver for each recipe and managed to get 3 or so portions out of them. So all in all not bad and even if you’re not a student,you still might fancy it…

1. Thai Sweet Potato Soup 

So I call this a soup but I guess it’s more of a curry because I like to eat with rice so it’s a bit more feeling and bc I love carbs. Like I said I’m suffering with an ear infection at the moment and I really DID NOT want to cook, in fact I was half way to ordering a Dominos but I stayed strong and knocked this up for myself (Look mum I’m being a grown up!). Anyway this ones really nice for when you need something to warm you up.

Ingredients:

• 2 cloves of garlic- crushed.
• Thai red curry paste
• A packet of stir fry veg (mine included fresh chilli but you can also omit it or add chilli paste instead)
• A small can of coconut milk
• 1 1/2 Sweet potatoes (really as much as you want)
• Sprinkle of veg stock/ sprinkle of sugar/ sprinkle of salt and pepper/ sprinkle of chilli powder.
• Rice

Method:

1. So first I chopped my sweet potatoes into chunks, they were about the thickness of my thumb (if you cut them too small they’ll just turn to mash) and got them on the boil.
2. Get your rice on the go! (Tip: for every 1 cup rice, add 2 cups water).
3. Chop/crush your garlic.
4. When your potatoes are nice and soft, drain off about half of the water. Add your garlic, 2-3 tablespoons of curry paste, vegetables and season.
5. Give it a nice big stir, turn the heat down a bit and add the coconut milk and add 2-3 cups of water (to make your soup).
6. Let the soup simmer for around 15 minutes- season with chilli, garlic powder, salt etc to taste.

• Now this is not a very thick soup which is why i pour it over rice, of course if you added more coconut milk it would thicken up but then you would need to add more paste and seasoning.
• You can also add chicken- Fry the chicken with garlic, onions and curry paste before adding the coconut milk.
• Fresh coriander and basil will also perk this dish up nicely.

2. Guac Pasta 

So for once in my life I wasn’t horrendously hungover yesterday and I actually managed to knock up something semi-decent and semi-healthy. It’s the brain child of the avocado and the chicken I had going off in the fridge. This is more of a lunch as the guacomole turns it more into a pasta salad but it’s still mega tasty.

Ingredients

• 1 chopped shallot/small onion.
• 1/2 cloves of garlic (you decide how garlicy you want it really)
• 1/2 a finely chopped red pepper, 1/2 finely chopped carrot, a few sprigs of broccoli (I didn’t have any unfortunately)
• Chicken (chopped into bitesize peices)
• 2-3 Tablespoons of Fajita seasoning/Paprika
• Avocado (I know avocados can be expensive but I managed to get my hands on one for 1Euro).
• 5 cherry tomatoes.
• 1 small tub of cottage cheese
• Fresh Pasta
• Salt and pepper to season,
• Squirt of lemon juice.

Guacamole method

1. Make sure your avocado is nice and ripe, then mash it with a fork.
2. Add the cottage cheese.
3. Chop the tomatoes into quarters and add those to the mixture.
4. Add salt and pepper to taste, as well as a generous squeeze of lemon juice (I just use lemon juice from a bottle).

The rest…

1. If you are using fresh pasta you don’t need to put it on yet, however, if you are using dry pasta put that on now.
2. Chop up your vegetables including the garlic and start to fry in a pan.
3. Put your fresh pasta onto boil.
4. When the veg have started to soften add the chicken, the fajita seasoning and the salt & pepper.
5. Cook the chicken thoroughly and keep an eye on the pasta.
6. When the pasta is cooked, drain it off and combine it with the chicken and vegetables.
7. Because the pasta will still be quite hot I don’t recommend combining it with the guacamole mixture until it’s cooled down, so what you can do instead is just plop a big dollop of it on top of your pasta mix.
8. Add cheese if you wish and enjoy!

• As mentioned above if you wait for your pasta-chicken mix to cool down you can use the guacamole like mayonnaise and make a lovely pasta salad.
• Feel free to use other vegetables like peas, sweetcorn or whatever you’ve got in really.
• The guacamole will start to go a brown colour, this doesn’t really affect taste but it is best to eat this whilst it’s fresh.

Those are my culinary creations for this week, let me know if I’ve inspired you or if you have any questions feel free to leave them in my comment section. Like I said prices will of course vary but I found these quite budget friendly and a little bit more exciting than my usual tomato-pasta staple.

Lots of love,

Robyn!