Today's blog post is something a little bit different. We thought it might be useful for anyone going to uni for the first time to have a list of things we took for cooking and eating that we found useful/needed. It's always helpful to hear it from people who have actually been.
Whether it’s your first time to enter the world of endless
free time and alcohol or you’re now an old hat, we have decided to
bestow our endless wisdom by giving our top tips for what to take to uni. In our first years, Kitty was self-catered and Claire was catered
for so we hope to offer advice to those of you heading for both types of
accommodation.
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| This is you; metaphorically dipping your toe into the scary waters of uni. |
Obviously it varies from uni to uni (#Exeteristhebest), but
this is a guideline from those of us who have first-hand experience and can be
arsed enough to write it all down for you lovely people (feel free to send us
chocolates as thanks).
Self-catered
Crockery:
- 2 x dinner plates
- 2 x side plates (useful for sandwiches and cake..)
- 2 x cereal bowls
- 3 (or more) x mugs (for if you have people round and for when you have mugs of tea faster than you wash up.. always)
- 3 x water glasses (same reasons)
- 2 each of knives, forks, spoons, teaspoons and tablespoons. I also had 2 smaller knives.
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| The average uni kitchen |
I dug all of these out of old stuff of my parents' except for the mugs which someone gave me, and the water glasses which were £1 each from a supermarket. One of my flatmates knew that she wasn't very good at washing up, so only took one of all her crockery so she had to do it - now there's an idea.
Equipment: (Things in italics are not really necessary - but made my life easier. It all depends on your budget and style of cooking)
- Large lidded casserole-style dish. Useful for those one-pot wonders, and also just for cooking vegetables and stuff. I had to spend a bit more money on this one unfortunately, but it's worth it for one that will last a long time! Mine was from Lakeland.
- Medium saucepan - preferably non-stick. Good for risottos and just frying onions and things. I got mine from Tesco.
- A small saucepan (10 - 15 cm) for cooking a little bit of pasta, boiling an egg (if that's your kinda thing), or some vegetables, also from Tesco I think.
- A baking/roasting tray with sides, as in - not just completely flat, but so that you can roast vegetables in it or make a traybake. This is an example.
- I also had a flat one for pizzas and stuff.
- Two chopping boards - one
wooden and one plastic.
- Measuring jug - half a
litre.
- Grater
- Lemon juicer. This isn't a
necessity but I had one anyway because I like using fresh lemons in my
cooking.
- Small glass bowl - these
have many uses! Pyrex is a good
brand that's not too expensive.
- Large glass bowl for mixing
in. Not just baking, but also for stuffings, salads etc. Again, Pyrex is a good'un.
- Glass roasting dish
like this. It's brilliant,
you can bake stuff in it, and keep things in the fridge in it with the lid
on or freeze in it.
- A sieve - this acts instead
of a colander as well, so get a large one. It's all about multi-tasking.
Utensils
- A good peeler - I prefer
this kind of shape as I find them easier to use. I just picked a random
example here.
- A paring knife - a small one
with a flat blade for cutting up vegetables.
- You could also get a larger
one for cutting up bigger things like sweet potatoes or butternut
squashes.
- A serrated knife for
tomatoes and softer vegetables.
- Bread knife
- Kitchen scissors
- A wooden spoon kit (you can
get them in packs of three often with a large one, a small one and a flat
one)
- Rolling pin - useful for
pizzas and things
- Plastic bag clips - Klippits this is a Lakeland example but obviously if you can find something cheaper or more convenient - get that.
- Ladle also not strictly necessary - if you want one, get it!
- Spatula, if you plan on baking and is just generally useful for scraping out any dish.
- Masher (although a fork will do in most cases if you don't want to get this)
Other things
- Foil and clingfilm
- Freezer/sandwich bags
- Plastic storage or freezer boxes for portions in the freezer and for taking lunch in.
Things to wait until you arrive to buy - A toaster - we didn't get provided with one, but several people brought one anyway, so see what your flatmates have brought and if they're willing to share. Also, some scales - I borrowed my flatmate's all the time. Cake tins for those all-important birthday cakes.
A note on knives - It's so so worth getting some good ones. I bought some cheap ones from Tesco before I went, and they were rubbish. My mum got me one good one for Christmas and that ended up being the only one I used! A couple of good ones will last through uni and beyond.
Some food things to stock up on before you go - pasta, rice, lentils, quinoa, cous cous, tinned tomatoes, salt, pepper, herbs, canned beans, baked beans (for emergencies), cereal/other breakfast food. If you can, make some meals before you go and freeze them so you don't have to worry about it during freshers' week!
Catered
At
Exeter, catered means being provided with breakfast and dinner on weekdays and
breakfast/brunch and dinner at the weekends. In this way, we were pretty
fortunate as many universities completely sack off any form of catering at the
weekend leaving ill-equipped students to fend for themselves.
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| Remember not to confuse your washing machine with the oven |
For those unfortunate no-food-weekenders food variation will
be difficult, as it is very hard to budget when you’re only really cooking for
2 days a week and many tend to resort to a mixture of pasta or pizza.
Breakfast is easy; cereal keeps for ages and doesn’t need to
be stored in the fridge, so make sure you stock up on plenty of your favourite
before term begins. Obviously milk is also a key component to this, and only
keeps for about a week if refrigerated, so keeping a good supply of this is
mandatory. Work out how much milk you tend to use per week early on so you can
buy the right sized bottle of milk (the amount of times milk stank out my
fridge in the first year does not bear thinking about). Remember, wasted food
is wasted money (and therefore wasted shots).
I started out the year eating the bare minimum for lunch and
trying to hold in my hunger until supper started at 5.15pm. The other well-used
tactic was removing a large amount of bread and sachets of Nutella from
breakfast and having that toasted as a meal (delicious but not nutritious).
When we started getting harder rowing training schedules, I was forced to start adding higher levels of protein and long-lasting energy to my diet.
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| Le nutella |
With only a microwave at your disposal, there's a tendency to be lazy and buy ready meals from a supermarket. However, upon learning the technique of cooking pasta and quinoa in the microwave I realised the possibilities available to me.
Crockery
This is pretty similar to Kitty's list, and in fact I did take two of everything however 1 set is perfectly adequate for your needs. The key thing is to make sure all crockery is microwave-proof as this will be your main cooking utensil.
- 1x large plate
- 1x small plate
- 1x cereal bowl
- Couple of mugs (team tea sessions are great bonding so multiple mugs are important)
- Couple of glasses
- 1 set of full cutlery (knife, fork, cereal spoon, teaspoon)
- A teapot (not compulsory unless you are like me and like a proper cuppa)
Equipment
To make pasta in the microwave, put your pasta in a large microwaveable bowl (100g pp) and cover well with just boiled water. Cover the top of the bowl with clingfilm, and put in microwave on full heat for usual cooking time (as specified on packet). Drain in colander and add ingredients.
To make quinoa in the microwave, place quinoa and suggested quantity of boiled water (usually 1 part quinoa to 2 parts water) in the bowl. As with pasta, cover with clingfilm and cook in microwave for required time. This is only cooked once all water has all been absorbed.
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| Le quinoa |
Therefore you will need:
- 1 large glass (or other microwavable) bowl
- Clingfilm
- 1x stirring spoon (spatula style ones are useful for efficient decanting)
- 1 colander
- 1x kettle (usually supplied in your kitchen but handy to have one in your room for ease, Tesco does some decent ones for less than £14)
- Some plastic containers (I took 3 small ones) to refrigerate excess food for later reheating.
- A toastie maker (I took extra bread from breakfast and made tuna and sweetcorn toasties for lunch, or just cheese and tomato is I was feeling lazy!)
Complimentary tune: Walking with Elephants - Ten Walls, if a remix of this isn't played in freshers week then I'm an elephant.
Tip of the day: Listen to us, we know what we're talking about. Be over-prepared, your parents can always take stuff back with them, but it's a lot harder for them to send down more crockery or extra utensils.
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| Yes; a chainsaw is necessary. |
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