There’s something quite liminal about being a student. One minute you’re running around a city feeling like a Grown Up, and then suddenly it’s June, and you’re catapulted right back into your childhood bedroom, banging on the wall because your brother’s PlayStation is too loud. It really isn’t all bad, though. One of the things I love about coming home is the comforting rhythm of the weekly meal rotation. My mum happens to be a meal planner extraordinaire, which I took for granted until I was burdened with the horrendous task of having to work out what I fancy for dinner.
Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely love cooking. Nothing silences the screaming void quite like finely dicing an onion. But thinking of what to cook? Not for me. Over the past few years, I have lost several thousand brain cells scrolling Instagram looking for inspiration, and, one desperate evening, I even turned to a BuzzFeed quiz called ‘Would you Rather: Dinner Edition’. When I’m at home, though, I don’t have to bother with any of that decision-making malarkey. I simply wander downstairs and chop up whatever I’m told to chop up until a vat of spag bol appears.
Things get a little iffy on the food front, however, in between meals. I am a big-time grazer. One of life’s great snackers. I must feed every two hours, or I become a terrible monster. Alas, when my 8pm hunger hits and I wander downstairs looking for a snack, there is never anything to be found, no matter how many times I open and close the cupboard doors. This is because I live in an ingredient household, which, according to my own criteria, means:
- Your so-called ‘snack cupboard’ contains several types of nuts and seeds (mine currently houses six, if you were curious). Perhaps there’s a packet of crackers floating around, if you’re lucky.
- You grew up begging your friends to share their KitKats with you at lunchtime. (They refused because you could only offer them a few segments of your Easy Peeler in return.)
- Your Dad only eats chocolate if it’s 90% cocoa and tastes like soil.
The easy remedy to this is, well, pre-empting your need for a sweet treat, pottering down to the shops, and buying yourself some biscuits. But if it’s late and the shops are closed, or you want to feel a sense of accomplishment and have something a bit braggy to post on your Instagram story, here are some ways to embrace the ingredient.
The key to snacking in an ingredient household is seeing the potential in a sad-looking fruit bowl. One night, just as I was about to leave the kitchen hangry and empty-handed, I spotted some oranges. Luckily, I had spent my day watching old Bon Appetit videos on YouTube, so I knew exactly what to make: Crepes Suzette. It sounds much fancier than it actually is, I promise – essentially, it’s just pancakes bathed in orange sauce. I eyeballed the crepe batter, which I think worked out just fine, even though my mum did say that they were “quite chewy” (whoops). The sauce traditionally has some sort of alcohol in it, allowing the pancakes to be lightly flambéed at the end, but I neither had a bottle of Grand Marnier lying around, nor did I fancy singeing off my eyebrows, so I skipped that part. It was honestly very easy to throw together, sated my need for a sweet treat, with the additional satisfaction that I’d made a dish with a French name.
My biggest snack inspirations currently are the influencers who chuck various bits and bobs from the fridge together and call the finished product a ‘snack plate’. The snack plates of Instagram frequently contain ingredients on the expensive side – think caviar and lots of oily fermented things – but don’t let them fool you! Snack plates are just picky bits, things you find lying around in your kitchen. Chop up some fruit and fan it out nicely! Add a dollop of peanut butter or jam or tzatziki! Dip a sad carrot in it! Have a hunk of bread and cheese! Olives, silverskin pickled onions, hard-boiled eggs: all of these things can go on a snack plate.
Lastly, a word on mug cakes. I understand their place. I, however, think that if you’re making a mug cake, you might as well just go the whole hog and make a cake that isn’t disgusting. If you make something like banana bread or apple cake, you can ditch icings, glazes, and fillings and enjoy the cake warm. Happy snacking!
