Cheaper than a coke and a steak and cheese pie

Unless you’re being fed by the halls, or you still have your parents making your lunch for you (it’s more common than you think, look for the neatly labelled gladwrap parcels and the crusts cut off), then you are going to discover pretty quickly that buying food at uni every day is expensive, time consuming and often an utter disappointment. On the other hand, bringing stuff from home can be a bit dispiriting, especially if you’re living in the student slums and all your spare money is going on Double Brown. Handily, potatoes are dead cheap, fairly tasty, and easy to prepare.

I first learned how to make stuffed potatoes in form 1 manual training, which I guess would be called something namby-pamby like ‘millennial food technology for young adults’ now, and be an option rather than something you had to do (or sit in the library with the dorky kids who didn’t get their slips signed). Upon reflection, lots of the things I learned how to make there I still use (muffins, muesli, mysteriously combusting pizzas), so good work Mrs Whatshername at Cobham Intermediate, skills for life and all. The best thing about doing cooking was that everyone else in the bus wanted to be your friend on the way back to school – an early lesson that people like people who can feed them nice food.

Baking potatoes in the oven is time consuming, and not always great for the power bill, but in fairness, if it’s the middle of winter, you’re probably already using the oven as a heater anyway. You can pre-bake potatoes in the microwave, with about 5 – 7 minutes per potato, but as microwave ovens vary significantly you might have to experiment a bit. Unfortunately oven baked potatoes taste amazing and microwave cooked potatoes taste a bit rubbish, so you’ll have to figure out where your priorities lie. If your potatoes are still a bit firm in the middle and slightly bitter tasting they’re not cooked properly (hello, potato bar in the main cafe) – you want them to be almost sweet and a little bit mushy. If, after they’ve cooled, the spuds have shrunk a bit and the skin looks a little loose, you’ve done well.

Stuffed potatoes (makes 8)

4 large potatoes, washed and pricked with a fork a few times (to stop them from exploding)

Bake them at 190degrees for about an hour, or until they feel a little squishy. If you’re organised, do this a few hours beforehand or the day before to allow the spuds time to cool down – it makes scooping out their innards much easier.

Slice your cooked potatoes in half lengthways, so that each half sits nicely and flattish by itself. Scoop the cooked potato out, being careful not to break the skins, and put it all in a bowl. Mash it up a bit.

Add to the mash:

• 1 onion, skinned and chopped into little bits
• 1 can creamed corn (or chilli beans or whatever takes your fancy)
• a handful of grated cheese – resist the urge to put in heaps, it goes gloopy

To flash it up a bit, you could add any of the following (bearing in mind that you don’t want so much filling that the spuds explode):

• Veggies: chopped mushroom, finely diced or grated courgette, chopped tomato (preferably with the seeds removed, they go soggy), a clove or two of crushed or sliced garlic 
• Meat: chopped bacon, chopped ham, a little can of tuna, chopped leftovers or mystery meat, but definitely nothing uncooked 
• Herbs, spices and condiments: some dried or fresh parsley, coriander (Watch out, it’s potent), basil, oregano, marjoram, cumin, paprika, cracked pepper, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, or a big squirt of sweet chilli sauce

Mix up your mash, then fill up your eight potato cases. While spoons are great and all, it’s easiest to use your (impeccably clean) hands or use gloves so you can pack it in tight and make the top nice and round. Sprinkle some cheese on top and place your potatoes on a baking sheet or (preferably) a roasting pan (good for spillage). Cook at 190 degrees until they are warmed through, or the cheese is nice and melty – anywhere from 15 – 30 minutes depending on how overboard you’ve gone. These store in the fridge well for a few days, especially if you wrap them up individually.

A word about latex gloves: laugh all you like over naughty nursey or poofinger jokes, latex gloves are some of the best things to have in your kitchen or bathroom. You can buy boxes of them in the supermarket, but don’t buy the lemon fresh ones unless you want your food to taste like air freshener. I use them for cleaning, or for things like stuffing chickens, playing with messy raw meat, scooping out muffins, cutting things that stain, like beetroot, or in this case filling potatoes. For extra fun, try them while clearing the drain or cleaning up the cat’s latest love-gift.