A few recipes for cooking in college, featuring cheap ingredients that are good for your wallet, your health, and your appetite.

Here are some recipes you may enjoy if you're a frugal college student looking to eat great food on the cheap!

Please note that my "serving sizes" are rather hearty. If you are on a diet, I suggest that you halve each recipe.

Lentil-Roni Goulash

Prep/Cook Time: 15 min. Servings: 2

This is a vegetarian version of the home cooking favorite, using lentils in lieu of poor dead animals.

Ingredients:

2 cups elbow macaroni

8 slices cheese, cut up OR vegan cheesy sprinkles mixed to a paste with soy milk

3/4 cup spaghetti sauce

1/2 cup lentils, soaked the night before

Seasoning salt or garlic salt to taste

1. Cook the pasta according to package directions.

2. While you are cooking the pasta, cook the lentils.

3. When the pasta and lentils are done (they should take the same amount of time), drain all the water and mix them together and dump in the spaghetti sauce, cheese, and some seasoning salt. Cook, stirring constantly, until the cheese is melted.

4. Serve to hungry college students.

Couscous Sushi

Great for using up leftovers. This recipe looks hard but it's really easy once you get the hang of it.

Prep Time: 10-20 min. Servings: 2-8 depending on whether this is a snack or a meal.

Sushi rolling mat (go to the Asian dollar store, should be around 89 cents)

2 cups couscous (go to an ethnic store for the best prices)

4-8 sheets sushi seaweed

1 tbsp lime juice, vinegar, or 1 packet mayonnaise

2 sugar packets

Enough vegetable stock or water to prepare the couscous

Suggested Stuffings:

(use any 2 or 3, or all of them, must be sliced into long strips first)

1 small cucumber

1 piece smoked firm tofu or leftover baked tofu, fried tempeh etc

Any leftover cooked vegetables that can be cut into long strips

Leftover fake meat products like veggie burgers, slices, sausage

Hard boiled eggs

Alfalfa or bean sprouts

Cheese

Kimchee or pickles

Cilantro or oregano for flavoring

1. Boil the water or stock and add the couscous. Stir, then when the couscous is puffed up, put in the lime juice or mayonnaise. Sprinkle on some sugar, and mix it all up.

2. Put a piece of seaweed, shiny side down, on your rolling mat. Using a big wooden spoon, scoop out the warm couscous and distribute it evenly, not too thick or thin, across the bottom 2/3 of your seaweed. The 1/3 of the seaweed that farthest from you should not be covered in couscous.

3. Line up your stuffing ingredients in the middle of the couscous-covered section. There should be a finger's width amount of them.

4. Start rolling up the mat bit by bit, first folding the very bottom of the seaweed and couscous complex just over the stuffing, then unrolling the mat part, then using the mat to roll the rolled up bit over the rest of the couscous-covered part, then dipping your fingers in water, wetting the remaining seaweed, and folding it over like sealing an envelope. If your roll isn't sealing correctly, roll it over so that the seam is on the bottom, and let it rest for a few seconds.

5. Get a really sharp and big knife that isn't serrated, dip the edge in a little water, and cut your sushi roll into thick slices.

6. Repeat until all the couscous is used up.

7. If there's stuffing left over, eat it.

8. Serve to college students. You can dip them in soy sauce, hot sauce, or just eat them plain.

Beany Pasta

Serves: 1-3 depending on how much spaghetti you use

This dish is a no-brainer for when you can't be bothered to cook.

1 can of seasoned beans, like Bush's, Goya, or generic rip-offs of either brand

Grated cheese

Spaghetti

1. Cook the spaghetti according to package directions.

2. Microwave the beans or however you want to heat them.

3. Pour the beans over the spaghetti and sprinkle grated cheese over the lot.

4. Bon appetit!