Can you survive without mom around?

Oh how the time has passed by! The post-graduation celebrations subsiding only to make room for some long tearful farewells and promises to stay in touch once university/college started. Welcome to a new league boys and girls. Appropriate isn’t it? Freshmen-Freshmeat. Yeah, I know you’ll initially get hooked by the on-going parties during frosh week until you realize it’s October, and wait, you haven’t even bought your textbook yet?! Yes, you should be ashamed. So go, buy your textbook…then OPEN it. READ it. You want to PASS right?

Anyway, first time living by yourself without mom cooking you breakfast, lunch or dinner? So, what are you going to eat? I know most of the time first year students in university are encouraged to live in residents because of the convenience of having someone there to cook meals for them. Although, I also know that those meals can get really repetitive and living in residents for the remaining 3 years can get expensive. So, this ‘Survival Guide for Student Cooking’ is, well, designed for students living off residents or in residents with their own kitchens. Being a student myself, I can admit of being lazy and cheap sometimes. But you’re idea of cooking does NOT have to consist of eating your way around the McDonald’s menu (or insert fast food here). So here are the basics.

I’m going to start with introducing EQUIPMENT. Sorry, but a bread knife, spoon and a fork won’t cut it! See what I did there? Yeah I know it’s not that funny, but here are the basic things that you should have in your starter kitchen:

4 different SIZES of knives (paring knife, Chef’s knife, Santoku knife and serrated knife)
bowls
can opener
mason jars (good for storage or as a vessel for mixing sauces and vinaigrettes)
wooden spoon
strainer/colander
sheers (kitchen scissors)
2 cutting boards (one for vegetables and one for meat products)
tongs
sauce pan (a smaller sized (diameter) pan with some depth)
stock pot (a pot bigger in depth and size in general, usually used for cooking pasta)
skillet/frying pan (a usually shallow pan with a wider diameter)
rectangle glass pyrex (can be used as a roasting pan, for casseroles, etc.)