And this, boys and girls, is why I gained 40 lbs in my first year of university. I have lost it all, but I still have physical side effects from all that weight gained in such a short time. Unlimited 'free' meals + tasty options + mass produced food = freshman 15 without even noticing it. Speaking of school, I'm headed back to school in a couple weeks and I need meal ideas. Last year I lived on noodles, meat and sauce and I need some more ideas as to what to make. The ingredients that I always have on hand are; Ground beef Beef tenderloin (usually make a few 'steaks', some beef chunks for stew etc, and a roast) Chicken breasts Pork tenderloin (same as beef tenderloin as for what I make of it) Pasta of all sorts Rice A potatoe or two I'm open to buying some ingredients, but I am a student so money is tight. Oh, and I also have a cheap spice rack with ~20 of the basic spices. Thanks First thing, don't use beef tenderloin for stews! One, it's a pricey cut of meat, best to just make a steak from it. If you have scraps, either make something like a stroganoff or chop/mince it up for steak tartare or a burger. Two, when you stew an originally tender cut of meat for an hour or two it actually toughens up quite a bit. For real hearty beef stews you want "stewing beef", which is generally really tough and full of sinew etc. When you stew this with veggies, spices, red wine/stock/water + cube for 3-4+ hours you get meltingly tender meat that falls completely to pieces. You get way more flavour using this than tenderloin, and it's WAY cheaper. Make up batches of bolognaise style pasta sauce with mince. Chuck in carrots, peppers, onion, garlic, zucchini, mushrooms. Whatever floats your boat really. Freeze in portions so that when you need dinner just boil pasta while reheating a portion.The beauty here is that it takes the same amount of time to make 10 portions as 1. Make homemade burgers, beat the crap out of the ready-frozen stuff. Tacos/nachos/buritos galore. For chicken breasts, get some veggies and do a stir fry? Or pound them to even thickness, dredge in flour and fry in a pan. When done, take out of pan and chuck in some half and half or single cream, pepper, lemon (bottled works like a charm) and possibly some capers if you like them. Serve with pasta. My main problem when I was a student was that I hated cooking for just one portion. My solution was generally either cook in bulk and freeze, or invite friends over (you can get them to bring the beer ;-) )