Summer term is now in full swing and that means the end of the cafeteria food, so we must cook for ourselves on a college budget. To many this means ramen, cereal and frozen pizza and I admit that is what happened to me last year. Luckily I am am doing much better this year, after reading several things on fast and cheap foods. Cheaper, in fact, then ramen and way better for you.
Probably one of my favorite meals recently has been pizza, which I have found can be made from scratch cheaply and with less then 30 min of work, if you are willing to plan it out. No knead breads and pizza dough, which substitute kneading with a 12-24 hour rest, have been on the rise (see what I did there?) lately. That takes out the worst and most time intensive part of bread making, and sauce for it can be made for less then a $1 a quart with minimal effort and some simmering. Cooked on a cast iron skillet used as a pizza stone it defiantly worth the 30 minuets spent actively doing anything for it.
In reality the hardest thing about making my own food on a rather strict budget was getting started with it. With a bit of searching you can find tons of versatile recipes and tricks to keep yourself full. That and learning how to shop are probably going to save a lot of time and grief. I have made it almost 2 years with no "freshmen 15" and I would hate it if I got it so late in my last year.