Chilli is maybe not super super easy to make, but you can make a ton of it, freeze the rest and eat it every day / every other day in a different style, one day burrito, one day nachos, one day with rice, etc etc.

In winter I find soups are great dishes with minimal effort. I chop up some root veg, roast it in the oven until it’s soft then mix it with some liquid and blend it. You can use whatever you have on hand (carrots, squash, pumpkin, sweet potatoes) and you can vary the liquid as well. I usually use vegetable stock but coconut milk works well. Add some spices to the vegetables when roasting or just stick with some salt. Then just serve with the nicest bread you can get hold of and eat!

In summer, I always enjoy pasta dishes with some kind of pesto. All you need for a normal pesto is garlic, toasted nuts, oil, an Italian hard cheese and basil. Pine nuts are traditional but cashews are more readily available (and cheaper where I live). If you’ve got a lemon, squeeze some juice in as well. The last month or so has been wild garlic season so I’ve foraged for the leaves and used it in place of both the basil and garlic. Carrot, beetroot and radish leaves are good too (plus others I haven’t tried that I’m sure will also work) or you can roast beetroot or pepper and blend them into the mixture. I just serve this with some pasta, vegetables and cheese (normally feta) and you can make the pesto quite quickly while the pasta is cooking.

Slice up about a third of a can of Spam into slabs, and cook them in a pan until brown and crispy. Then cook up some basic ramen. After the Spam is done, make a simple over easy egg. Put it all together, and you’ve got a simple and pretty cheap meal thatll keep you full until Gabriel’s horn sounds

Black beans on the crock pot:

• 454g of dry black beans
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
• 4 bay leaves (big)
• 1 piece of dried kombu
• 2 carrots, sliced

Add everything to the crock pot, with 6 cups of water. Cook for 5 hours on high. Once it’s done, add 2 teaspoons of salt and mix well.

I make this every Sunday, and eat throughout the week with fresh rice, salad, nuts, and some protein (tofu or soy in my case). It’s delicious and nutritious.

Here to introduce you some of the easiest comfort Korean food: Kimchi Fried Rice!

Stir fry some leftover kimchi with some salt and some soy sauce and some olive oil(you can skip that tho). Put cooked rice after 1-2min and cook for another 3 min.

If you don’t like Kimchi’s strong flavor this is definitely the way to try. There’s plenty of recipies online and honestly it’s a recipie that just couldn’t go wrong.

As a college student, I live off of that.

the grilled cheese sandwich ease/pleasure ratio is hard to beat.

latte with oat milk + cig 👩‍🍳🤌

(suppresses appetite and tasty, honestly ditch the cig even, i haven’t eaten in days)

Pan-fried tofu and garlic with a dash of soy sauce.

Mine changes every few months, depending on energy levels. Right now it’s scrambled or boiled eggs with toast.

In the winter I was obsessed with making a cabbage & random vegetable soup. I just shredded the cabbage, cut up and sauteed various veggies in olive oil (carrots, potatoes, parsnips, celery root, etc), put in spices (pepper, thyme, paprika, bay leaf, and whatever else seemed fun), then added the cabbage and waited until it lost some volume, added hot water/stock, boiled for 30-40min. Towards the end I might add some bell peppers or broccoli or other vegetable with a short cooking time. After removing from the stove, I did a couple pulses with the immersion blender to thicken the soup while leaving whole veggie bit inside. Finally, I topped with lemon juice after serving.

Japanese curry is always a nice comfort food.

aglio olio for when I’m hungry and chicken butter masala for when I’m very very hungry lol

Rice with Rice

Lentil soup with rice. My wife calls it her favorite comfort food.

What I do is:

Preheat a dutch oven with a little olive oil over medium heat

Dice 2 small/1 large yellow onion

Chop (don’t peel) 2 small/1 large yukon gold potato

Chop a couple of carrots and sometimes a couple of celery stalks

Start the onions cooking down first (sometimes adding just a touch of brown sugar)

After a little bit I add the rest of the veggies and a lot of cumin powder

Wait until all the veggies are getting a just bit tender/browned, stirring occasionally

Add a little bit of white wine and scrape off bits at the bottom of the pot

Add 4 cups water and 4 teaspoons Chicken Better than Bullion

Add more cumin, a bit a ground cardamom, ground coriander, and garlic powder

Let it boil a bit for the veggies to get even more tender

Add 1 cup red lentils and simmer

At this point I start cooking some white rice in my instant pot, takes about 15 minutes

Just about when the rice is done, the lentils should be soft, so take an immersion blender and blend until smooth (should still be a little chunky)

Salt and add bit of lemon juice and/or white wine vinegar to taste

Serve over the rice, garnish with some fresh parsley if wanted

Ok writing it out maybe not the absolute easiest dish – but I think its pretty simple and most of it is totally on auto-pilot. Totally delicious and the leftovers are amazing too.

Here’s a carbonara dish:

Ingredients

• 500g/1lb pasta

• 1 brown onion, finely diced

• 2-5 cloves garlic

• 1 capsicum

• 1 punnet white button mushrooms, thinly sliced

• 2 egg

• 1 cup grated cheese - plus extra for serving

• 1/2lb / 100g shaved ham (or bacon), roughly chopped

• 1 courgette, grated

Steps:

1. Bring a big pot of salted water to the boil (plenty of salt) Cook pasta in pot of boiling water for until just tender (depends heavily on which pasta, check back of pack for cooking time, and take a minute or two off then eat a test piece to see if it needs more). Reserve 1 cup pasta cooking water, then drain. Return pasta to put with a drizzle of olive oil to prevent sticking. Set aside.

2. While pasta is cooking, heat a little oil in a medium frying pan on medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic, and cook for 2-3 mins until softened. While onion cooks, remove core and seeds of capsicum and thinly slice.

3. Add capsicum and mushroom to pan with onion and cook for 2-3 minutes, until just tender. While capsicum and mushrooms cook, whisk egg in a small bowl. Add cream, salt, and first measure of cheese then mix to combine. Set aside.

4. Add ham and courgette to pan with mushrooms and cook for 1-2 minutes, until warmed through . Reduce pan heat to low-medium.

5. Add 1/2 of the reserved pasta water and cooked, drained pasta to pan and stir to coat. Add egg/cream mixture and mix well to combine. If you would like more sauce, stir through more pasta water. Allow sauce to gently heat through for about 1 minute - don’t overcook or egg will go lumpy. Season with salt and a generous amount of black pepper.

To serve: divide creamy carbonara between plates and sprinkle over remaining cheese.

Personally I leave out the mushroom (no one in our house likes it) then cover in tomato sauce (kind of like ketchup). Probably some sort of crime to do this though.

I made coffee jelly recently. It was really easy to do, the hardest part being the whipped cream (my arms 😭). And when I finally got to eat it I’d realised that I found my favourite dessert. Thank you Saiki K for introducing me to this heavenly flavour 🙏 (even though it took me over a year to finally get around to making it).