1 girl, 1 shopping trip, 1 week... how I found it

I wanted to take a minute to say a little more about my foodie challenge during my summer waitressing in Cornwall. I've done my last shift and I'm back into the comforts of home. I'm surrounded by full cupboards and more utensils than I could wish for, and yet somehow I miss my simple Cornish lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, it's always wonderful to be home to see my family, I just miss the challenge a little bit, I liked knowing that everything in my cupboards was mine and I knew what I wanted to do with it. It was also good from a health point of view as I only bought enough food for the meals and snacks that I'd pre-planned, so I couldn't just grab an extra bowl of cereal at midnight or reach for the temptingly full biscuit tin (both things I do far too often at home).

I didn't manage as many posts as I'd hoped as the first month was a big ol' learning curve in many ways - one of which being my diet. I only really got into my cooking stride in the latter half of my time there - I initially spent far too long on the student-style cereal and vitamin pill diet... I always professed I would never do this but, early on, there always seemed something more exciting to do than shopping or cooking - namely surfing. And with erratic shift hours, I was always reluctant to cook late at night after a long shift. After a week or so of this, my body was just crying out for proper nutrients - a friend was eating in a similar way to me and became a little poorly, to which her doctor responded "no amount of vitamin pills is a sufficient alternative to eating properly" So off to the shops I went, returning laden with fruit and vegetables. The problem with this was that I went shopping with no real plan and just bought things randomly. All lovely things, but when you have no 'store cupboard essentials' to fall back on to turn these raw ingredients into recipes, you end up doing expensive emergency food shops to buy all the things you never thought of before - often resulting in food wastage of some of the earlier purchases... and the price soon rockets upwards. Also, a lot of the things I bought required long cooking times and/or kitchen appliances that I didn't have... see below!

 

So that's when I decided to create the £20 challenge for myself. I planned the week's meals within a budget of £20, including breakfast, lunch, dinner (I admittedly only made one big meal each day to cover both lunch and dinner and just picked at it when I could) and a couple of snacks (fruit, nuts and natural yoghurt)... and no presumed store cupboard ingredients... I started my time in the staff house with two empty shelves in the kitchen, so that was my starting point. I factored olive oil and salt into the first week's budget and consequently assumed its availability in the second week, but I didn't assume any other leftovers. I also wanted the recipes to be pretty healthy, and they had to be quick and easy to cook in a kitchen with limited space and appliances. Storage space was also a challenge. As mentioned earlier, my dry storage consisted of two shelves in a cupboard, and my fridge/freezer space was essentially wherever I could squeeze stuff in - so not a lot.

Here's a list of what I had in terms of appliances/utensils:

1. 2 cupboard shelves
2. Oven with grill and hob sections
3. Kettle... though this was actually not essential for any recipe as I could just boil water on the hob
4. Fridge/freezer space where available
5. Milk saucepan
6. Medium sized frying pan
7. Loose bottomed cake tin (which often doubled up as a baking tray)
8. Bowl - something like a cereal/pasta bowl (some of my pictures show a plate because I ate the food at work)
9. Serrated knife
10. Spoon
11. Fork
12. Chopping board (although this seemed to get lost in the black hole also known as the communal kitchen, so I did become a little inventive with alternatives at times)
13. Stick blender
14. Mini herb garden of mint and basil - this may seem a little luxury for a staff house (even I was surprised) but during the planning of 'Mojito Monday' we went on a hunt for mint and actually discovered it in the overrun jungle of a staff house garden. As for the basil, a fellow staff house resident actually had a pot of it growing on his window sill, so I was able to take a couple of leaves in return for watering it whilst he went home for a week.

So not a lot really when you think of what we normally have readily available at home. All the recipes in my '1 girl, 1 shopping trip, 1 week' challenge can be made with just these things being to hand, so it's quite a good 'bare essentials' list for anyone about to embark on self catering uni halls life. I'm currently on my gap year, heading to Bristol uni this time next year, so I definitely plan to continue the £20 plan at uni... Cornwall was my time to practice and go through the seemingly compulsory cereal phase, so hopefully I'm all kitted out with ideas for uni (all involving lots of fruit and veg to avoid that ubiquitous fresher's flu!)

Next step for me is Italy. I've got a few days enjoying the comforts of home, then I jet off to Umbria on Sunday to spend just under two months with some incredible Italian friends I met on a cookery course a couple of years ago. I got on really well with the chef's daughter during the course and dropped her an email last year, just letting her know that I was hoping to come to Italy and would love to visit. I hoped for a weekend, maybe a week at best... but my tentative email was responded to with an overwhelmingly generous offer of months on end "just book a single flight and leave whenever you want to!" So I'm off to Umbria to stay with a couple of different families, helping out with the children and a few bits and pieces around the house, in return for food and accommodation and being welcomed into their family - I've already been told that the mother of the Italian lady I'm staying with is a wonderful cook and would be more that happy to teach me... my own mum is green with envy as she starts back at work! So I definitely plan to blog lots while I'm out there, with as many Italian cookery tips as possible. Ciao for now... I'm off to listen to my teach yourself Italian tapes... oh yeah, did I not mention that I don't speak Italian!