Help! I’m a crap cook!

Last weekend, my mum came up to visit me. Alongside all my warmest clothes she brought

me a large quantity of vitamins because "students don’t get enough vitamin C." She is not wrong.

Picture your university kitchen on a typical weekday night. If it’s anything like mine, it’ll be

full of your flatmates, who have all realised they’re starving at exactly the same time,

struggling for space around the (probably quite grim) hobs. Maybe half of you are boiling

your pasta whilst the others are contemplating whether or not beans on toast for the third

night in a row is an acceptable choice.

Trust me, I get it. Cooking isn’t easy and after a long day of lectures, the last thing anybody

fancies is standing and stirring an elaborate dish for hours, only for it to be demolished in ten minutes. But what if I told you that there was a simple way to get that vitamin C and eat

healthy, exciting meals with very little cooking and effort required? Enter, the humble

roasting tin.

The beauty of roasting tin recipes is that the oven does all the work for you. All you have to

do is chop up some ingredients, chuck them in a tin and ta-da, that’s you done before the

oven has even finished warming up. Then simply bung it in the oven and forget about it for an hour whilst you start that piece of coursework that you really cannot put off any longer.

So now you have the tin, but what, I hear you asking, do I actually put in it?

The answer is pretty much anything. This is a great way to get those all-important

vegetables in, as well as grains and pulses, protein, or even puff pastry, creating a tart or

gratin that will be the envy of all your friends. Some of my personal favourites include

vegetarian chilli, all-in-one dhal and miso-glazed salmon when I’m feeling particularly fancy.

Still hunting for inspiration? Rukmini Iyer has a great range of books, including lots of vegan and vegetarian recipes, that are quick, cheap and simple yet full of flavour, leaving you to ponder why you ever settled for a pot noodle. Plus, the beauty of these one-dish dinners is that they leave you with virtually no washing up!

So next time your parents call you to ask if you’re eating well, you can smile smugly at the

phone and answer that yes actually, you are.

Edited by Larissa Hurt