Healthy meals/ideas for clueless college student!

[Fran101]

Ok, well.. Fran the one woman carb/sugar eating machine is moving out on her own. No dining plan or anything lol so nobody to socially coerce me into nothing but pasta, chicken,cereal and french fries (I am so serious lol left alone with no guidance this IS all I will eat lol)

and I'm looking for easy SIMPLE recipes, ideas, etc.. to get more healthy veggies/nutrition in my diet.
I am so against vegetables but I found a few things I like raw (I hate all vegetables cooked).. corn, spinach, lettuce and tomatoes lol and I tried a pomegranate vinagrette I really like once and woud love to know what your favorite vinagrettes are! and any ideas on how to incorperate those veggies in my diet and how to make easy yummy salads!

Ok my studio does NOT have an oven. Not that I would know what to do with one anyway.
BUT I do have a foreman grill, a stovetop, a microwave and a rice cooker. Any ideas for easy healthy meals would be awesome!

Meat wise I hope to stick around chicken mostly.. but I could try some red meat/ground beef recipes if they sound yummy! Lol

This isn't a "diet plan" so feel free to include any healthy options involving.. whole wheat pasta, rice, fruit, yogurt, etc..etc..etc.. even if they aren't "calorie sensitive".. I am just hoping for healthy.
Especially around breakfast time. I need to STEP AWAY from the sugary kids cereals.

Only crux is that I am not a sandwich/wrap person and don't really eat bread lol so try to avoid any sandwhichy options.
oh and I don't like cheese.

Oh and I take a multi-vitamin everyday so don't worry too much about packing EVERY nutrient in there lol I'm just trying to take a few healthy steps forward and learn how to feed myself the healthy way.

Nothing processed please! (no ready made meals, bars, etc..)

Bearing in mind I have NO IDEA how to cook. So this needs to be IDIOT PROOF.
I can boil water and that's basically it.
Keep that in mind lol

I just NEED to start being healthier and stop ordering so much take-out and gorging on white pasta and suggary cereals. the only thing saving me is the fact that I workout a lot but even then.. it's not GOOD for me to be eating like a total pig.

Bless you for even making it through this thread :rofl1:

 

[PWCorgi]

Step 1: Get a CrockPot.
Step 2: Get an electric skillet.

Seriously, they are amazing. They make the yummiest meat ever.

I've started embarking on a mission to make Adult Lunchables.

Without touching an oven this week I made:
2 batches of carnitas in the crock pot(they taste just like they do at Chipotle!)
Jamaican Jerk Pork Chops in the electric skillet
Pork Chops with Sauteed Apples in the electric skillet
and Beefy Baked Beans in the crock pot.
(If you want the recipes for any of the above, lemme know, they are all really simple/cheap)

Then I put them with fruits/veggies/beans and freeze. The above made 20 frozen meals to take for lunches.

 

[PWCorgi]

Adult lunchable:

Lol!

Also, I'm using a cookbook called Robin Takes 5.
It's fancy food with 5 ingredients or less, under 500 calories, and there are 500 recipes. They use the oven a lot though.

I never use the stove, that is why I have the skillet

 

[Dizzy]

Oooooh!

Veggie soup (all the veggies you want in a pan, stock cubes, season, smoosh up and freeze into portions).

Frittata (google it).

I have porridge for breakfast with fat free greek yoghurt, honey and chopped nuts.

Fruit with yogurt for breakie!

Homemade burgers with extra lean mince and a ton of salad or veggies on the side.


Any of these:

http://www.slimmingworld.com/healthy-eating/recipes.aspx

 

[Beanie]

Breakfast: sausage, eggs, and bacon can all be made on your cooktop. You can also Foreman grill sausage patties. Eggs can be microwaved in a pinch (I've done this when running late.) You could also get some ham and do ham and eggs! I confess that almost every single morning I eat sausage, eggs, and bacon. Sometimes in a wrap. I buy a pound of sausage and make a bunch of patties at once, then freeze them individually wrapped in plastic wrap; take one out in the morning and heat it up and NOM NOM. (I like to sleep in so this makes it faster than cooking from fresh ground sausage in the morning.)

Otherwise you can do plenty of stirfry, either grill the chicken in the Foreman or cook it on the cooktop and cut it into bite-size pieces. Stock up on spices at the store (check your ingredient lists though and avoid stuff with additives) and you can eat a different chicken stirfry every week just by putting in different spices. I also buy low-sodium soy sauce (again check the ingredient list) and use that as a bit of sauce. If you have a Trader Joe's or Whole Foods they have some good stirfry sauces. Also Thai Kitchen (a grocery store brand) has some that are pretty clean and additive free. These will contain sugar, but I personally don't object to a bit of sugar as opposed to high fructose corn syrup.

Sweet potatoes, will you eat those? I just made one in the microwave for my lunch, put on a bit of butter and some cinnamon and chipotle chili powder. I also have about six thin slices of ham and a slice of pepperjack cheese and that's my lunch. I also do apples and natural peanut butter (you could do almond butter too) for lunch a lot since it's hot and a cold, fresh, juicy apple for lunch is amaaaaaazing. Since you don't like cheese, grill up a chicken breast for lunch too and there you go. You can do white potatoes too but I wouldn't make a habit of eating a lot of them if you want to eat healthy. You can do baked potatoes in a crockpot even.

 

[JessLough]

Have fresh veggies and fruits to munch on when you want a snack. Delicious.

 

[Xandra]

Souvlaki, tzatziki and greek salad. I could eat this combo at every meal for weeks lol.

 

[CaliTerp07]

One of my favorites is called "cajun pasta fresca". If you can chop tomatoes and stir, you're golden. Though apparently I can't chop tomatoes, because I sliced my finger yesterday making it. Super easy over whole wheat pasta, and probably over rice too though I've never tried it that way.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/cajun-pasta-fresca/

I like that it's super easy to pare down to one or two people also.

Another easy way to sneak in vegetables is through pot pie. I am lazy and tend to dump in canned corn, carrots, peas, and potatoes--though obviously you could use fresh, and use whatever vegetables you wanted. The value of them probably disappears when you smother them in a creamy sauce and eat it topped with pie crust, but I eat a lot of veggies that way.

Edit: Shoot--you need an oven for pot pie. Could you maybe do it in the toaster oven?

 

[thebigcheese]

I always find a stir fry or thai curry is a really tasty yet healthy way to eat.

Just get some shredded veg, beansprouts, noodles and meat then stir fry it all up with the cooking sauce of your choosing.

Good luck on your quest to health!

 

[sassafras]

Moosewood Cookbook and Enchanted Broccoli Forest got me through my entire post-high school education cheaply and tastily. If you can't find veggie recipes in there you don't like, then you're just screwed. (I have a newer one by the same author called Vegetable Heaven that I like a lot, too.)

 

[Red.Apricot]

Salads are great; I do half mixed greens, half spinach, with balsamic vinaigrette, tomatoes, red bell pepper, carrot slices, cucumber, pumpkin seeds, bacon, pepperoni, egg, chicken, croutons... not all at once, lol, but I mix all that together. Really good.

I also throw veggies into whatever I'm making; hamburger helper? Frozen peas and corn. It's not the best thing for you by a longshot, but at least it makes me feel better, lol.

 

[GoingNowhere]

I'm not sure how 'easy' you want, but seeing as I cannot cook to save my life (and am a fellow college student without a meal plan), I'll tell you what I lived on last year.

Canned black beans + corn. This originally started as a legitimate, "simple" recipe intended for non-college student consumption; however, after many failed attempts to measure and mix the necessary ingredients, I put my hands up and simplified the recipe down to 2 staple ingredients. 1 can black beans + 2 cans corn. Mix and eat. If I'm feeling especially ambitious I'll place my 'salad' atop a bed of spinach and maybe top it with a bit of lemon juice.

Guacamole the easy way. Again, the idea of making guacamole appealed to me, but despite being labeled as an idiot proof recipe, the 20 minutes of meticulously cutting onions and other ingredients proved to require too long of an attention span. That said, I adore guacamole and on my college student budget cannot afford the $1.50 ready-made tablespoon sized dollops charged by every restaurant and grocery store in the metropolitan area. Now I just buy two avocados and 1 container of mild fresh salsa or pico de gallo and mix everything together with a spoon, until it resembles guacamole. It's actually pretty darn delicious and takes about 30 seconds.

tomato mozzarella salad (caprese salad) Cut tomato. Cut mozzerella cheese. Douse in balsalmic vinegrette. Sprinkle with basil. yummy!

pasta + tomato sauce I know, I know, you said no pasta recipes. But since inevitably if you're anything like me you will still regress to eating at least 3 pasta dinners per week, I may as well pass along my sauce tip. I buy a jar of tomato sauce and dump it in my blender. I then place spinach, onions, tomatos, carrots, or whatever else I can manage to dig out of my refrigerator drawer into the blender, close the lid and press start. With enough poking and prodding, eventually everything blends into an atrocious looking mess of a sauce that surprisingly tastes quite good. Be warned - if you add enough spinach, the result will look a bit like vomit. Close your eyes and eat it to reassure yourself that it's not.

fruit I lived on fruit. No joke. I would go to the grocery store and buy whatever I wanted and wash it/desticker it as soon as I got home. I'd put all the fruit in a giant bowl in the fridge so that when I was hungry all I had to do was grab it and eat it and wouldn't be tempted to eat junk food because it was "easy."

seaweed Know those Nori sheets that they sell in the international and Asian food aisles of grocery stores? They're intended for sushi I think. I They make quite good snack food because you can just grab a sheet, and tear off pieces to eat. A lot of people don't like the taste, but if you do, it's a great 'grab and go' kind of snack.

hummus This was definitely the most sophisticated thing that I learned to reliably make last year. Again with the being a broke college student and not being able to afford the ready made stuff, I'd make it myself. You just need a blender. I can't remember the recipe off the top of my head, but it's not hard at all and the stuff will last for a while. I eat it with carrots instead of chips so it's healthier. I do know that it called for ground sesame seeds which I replaced with a large spoonful of peanut butter instead. Still tastes awesome, but peanut butter is cheap!

plain green salad Spinach, bell peppers, tomatos, carrots, mushrooms, etc. Even if you're not a fan of veggies, find a good, lowfat dressing and the salad will start to feel more like a vector for the dressing than anything else!

sweet potato fries These, so far as I know, do require an oven, but they're not hard. Maybe you could improvise and find some other way to cook them? You just take sweet potatoes, cut them up into fry looking chunks, douse them in olive oil, add salt and pepper and bake. I think I'd do mine at 425 degrees for about 10-15 minutes, then flip them over and cook them on the other side for ~10 min. They're amazing and better for you than regular fries.

stir fry If you're not feeling ambitious, you can use frozen stir fry mix veggies. I'd always add tofu as well, though you could do chicken or really any kind of meat. Put it on a stovetop on low-medium heat. When everything is cooked, add some sort of teriyaki sauce and eat!

yogurt parfait Easy and tastes like dessert! I used to buy these premade all the time until I realized the sugar content. Now I make my own. I either use greek vanilla yogurt or plain normal yogurt + some flavor of jelly. Add frozen fruit of your choosing to the yogurt and mix. Raspberries are my favorite. Top it with granola. Delicious! Plus, greek yogurt has a ton of protein too!

green smoothies Add fruit, juice, milk, yogurt... whatever you want. But when you're done, add some leafy greens too! If you're worried about the green color, add blueberries to the smoothie and the purple color will "hide" the greens.

yep, I think that's about it. I also used to eat mushrooms straight from the can, but if you're not a veggie fan, you might not appreciate that. Hope I gave you some ideas. I promise, none of these things are hard! I did set my stove on fire once attempting to cook pasta (don't even ask), but if you can handle boiling water (apparently I cannot :yikes, you should be safe!

 

[BostonBanker]

You sound a lot like me as far as your tastes. I hate cooked veggies, but love them raw!

My favorite, super easy summer salad is whole wheat pasta cooked and cooled. I mix in cut up baby carrots, sugar snap peas, cucumbers, pepperoni, bits of egg or cheese - basically whatever I have that I want to get rid of. Mix it with your favorite Italian dressing (or probably any other vinegar/oil based dressing), and you are done! I frequently make a good sized bowl of it on Sundays and it is a super easy lunch for the week.

 

[GipsyQueen]

I like making my "curry" It's super easy.

I buy frozen veggies with cream (though I'm not sure if it's available in US. Judging by your frozen food section... it should be.) or just frozen veggies and add my own cream (or coconut milk). You can use fresh veggies too, I just find that it's much easier with frozen esp. if you have a single household.

Anyways, I put my frozen veggies in a pan let them defrost for a bit, then add some curry ( I like green, but you can use any.). At the same time I have rice in my rice cooker.
Let veggies and curry cook a bit together, and once hot, you're done. Dinner in about 10-15 minutes (if you don't cook the rice).
If you're feeling crazy (or need protien) you can add an egg in the beginning.

 

[houlahoops]

College kid here too...maybe we can swap recipes haha:

Omelets
I know you said you don't like cooked veggies, but if you wait until the egg is almost completely cooked through and then add them in, omelets are super easy way to get some extra vitamins. I usually load mine with cheese too (sorry I know you said healthy...but it tastes so darn good!).

Chili
This is real easy with a crockpot or a stovetop or whatever. I use beef and just spice the heck out of it and add corn, black beans, and serve the whole thing over multigrain rice.

Also, it might be worth experimenting with new veggies too. I recently discovered that I really like some more obscure foods (sorry I don't know their names in English!) that I wasn't familiar with before.

I will probably be back later with more butttt suddenly I'm drawing a blank.