I am now back blogging my student cooking, as I am trying to become healthier in these last few winter months. As I imagine everyone else feels after Christmas, I really do need a detox. With this thought in mind, I put on my rucksack, took my reusable bags and headed to Aldi.

I won’t bore you with everything I bought, but once again I managed to get a big selection of food for under £30. I still have a lot of rice, pulses and lentils left, so my shop this time was centred more around fruit, veg and fish.

For tonight’s dinner, I chose roasted butternut squash, homemade coleslaw and quinoa rice, sprinkled with feta cheese. Relatively simple, quick and very tasty.
I hadn’t planned on having this meal, but I really wanted to do some cooking after I got back from uni, as it always relaxes me.

Firstly I rustled up the coleslaw. This was simple, and the ingredients vary with what I have in my fridge. This batch included white cabbage, red onion, carrot and apple- I like adding apple for a sweet twist. I then mixed the shredded ingredients with creme freche, a couple of tablespoons of mayo, and lime juice.

I don’t think I have cooked a butternut squash myself before, and cutting the thing up was honestly a work out. People around me will know I am quite unsuccessful with knives too, so I made sure I was VERY careful. Once I had finally sliced it open, after a few squash seeds had been rocketed around my kitchen, I carved out the flesh and remaining seeds. The oven was already preheated, so I put 1/4 of the squash in a roasting tin and drizzled it with oil. The recipe suggested adding fresh thyme sprigs, however I only had some dry herbs, so I used garlic powder and oregano.

I am a bit of a sucker for packet rice, and Aldi had a new one I fancied trying: quinoa, pumpkin and sunflower seeds, mixed with whole grain rice. I must say, I couldn’t really taste any pumpkin, or seeds really, but I only had a couple of spoons.

To top off the dish, I crumbled some feta cheese over the top, which added a nice sour twist to a relatively sweet dish.

It was really yummy and filling, and due to the lack of meat, a cheap dish. Obviously any meat can be added easily, but I found the squash to be plenty. I am unsure about precise pricing, as I threw in a little bit of everything, but I have got 3/4 of a squash left and a few portions of coleslaw and also rice.

The overall cooking time was around 35 minutes, and all the other prep could be done easily in this time too.

Happy healthy New Year!