Everything you bought in your first weekly shop that you never ever used

Your first weekly shop is always an interesting one. You want your mouldy halls cupboard to be packed with ingredients that scream ‘I AM JAMIE OLIVER’, and that should you ever need to make a curry from scratch, you could. You want to make sure you have the basics, but since you’re so beyond basic, you have more than just the basics. Naturally, your mum will have provided the odd contribution, hopeful that cooking for yourself will enlighten your culinary ability. Yet, as your year in halls comes to an end, the majority of your first weekly shop is still very much there. Here’s some of the things you thought you wouldn’t have coped without but you really really did.

Stock cubes

So much variety x

Ah, the humble Oxo Cube. We’ve all been there. You’re a few days into Freshers week and you thought about making a spag bol. It will be a nice change from a weekend of eating take away food. Maybe, just maybe, it will cure your hangover and make you feel at home. In the back of your mind you distantly remember your mum putting a beef stock cube in to give it some flavour or some shit. Naturally, therefore, you made it your undying mission to include Oxo Cubes in your first weekly shop. When you got to the shelf and the colourful variety of stock cubes stood before you you thought ‘Well I may as well get some chicken ones as well!!!!’ Regrettably, stock cubes come in packs of twelve. You may have used one, maybe at a push you used two, but if you bought some stock cubes in your first week of uni it’s guaranteed that by the end of the year the majority will still be kicking around your cupboard.

Herbs and spices

Yes that is a rat trap in the background

To be fair you probably get more use out of these than stock cubes, but anyone who got says they through an entire pot of dried oregano in their first year of uni is a liar.

Gravy granules

Once on Facebook you saw some people post about having a ‘Flat roast <3 xxx’ so you think ‘better be prepared and stock up on gravy’ so when you and your new BFFs passionately create a roast dinner together YOU can be the legend the whacks your Bisto granules out of your cupboard and everyone stares at you in awe as you whip up some proper naughty gravy to complete the meal of the year. Wrong. Did you honestly think you would be preparing a roast dinner when your first year kitchen resembles some sort of dungeon and your flatmates are literally evil and meat is ridiculously expensive and even if it was free how on earth would you go about cooking a whole chicken? Really?

Weird herbal teas

Whether you’ve been on a gap yaah or you’re trying to reinvent yourself and storing herbal tea really completes the new you, there’s no way you’re going to get through boxes and boxes of the stuff. There’s nowhere near enough caffeine in that shit. Treat yourself to some Kenco Millicano and behave.

Flour

Flour is exactly the type of pointless thing your mum gives you to go off to uni with “just in case”. Just in case what? Just in case you have an unbearable urge to eat chocolate chip cookies and instead of popping to Sainsbury’s bakery to buy a pack of 5 for a quid you’re going to put yourself through the blood, sweat and tears of making (probably inedible) cookies? Sorry, Mum. But no.

Student cook books

This is exactly the sort of thing that your nan gave you as a present before you went off to uni. To be honest, you probably convinced yourself that the book would be your holy grail for cooking over the next year. Granted, one of the problems with these books is you can’t be bothered to make anything other than toast, however some of the recipes in these ‘student’ cook books are so far from being ‘student’ it’s untrue. Example A:

Sorry what?

What the actual fuck is a spiced beetroot and cucumber tzatziki? Who on earth buys BEETROOT AND RADISHES on their average trip to Tesco? There’s only one place for these books, and that’s the bin.

Salt

So much salt. So much salt it’s a borderline hazard but of course you’re going to need to buy the biggest container ever because how else will you flavour your food? If you don’t finish uni with the same salt that you started off with then you haven’t done it properly.