Written By Brooke Heather
Wintertime! You know what that means? All the best hot foods are out. I’m talking about delicious soups, oven-baked dishes, hot desserts, and so much more. I’m someone who likes to eat a bit of everything, so I have so many suggestions here, and I even have a budget to adhere to.
Firstly, I’ll let you know that I organise all my recipes through this really cool app called Recipe Keeper. Basically, it lets me create lists and figure out what I’m eating for the week. Let’s go through some categories and the best bouquet of recipes:

Breakfast
- Budget Bytes – even includes the basics
- Good Food Vegan Brekkies – yep, delicious and vegan!
- Good Food GF Brekkies – for all the gluten-free university legends.
My personal top brekky recipes:
Lunch & Dinner (interchangeable in my opinion)
- Good Food Dinners – just heat up leftovers for a delicious and nutritious lunch the next day!
- Classic salads – so easy to prep and always a hit.
- Soups – also see my two current favourites: Chicken pesto & kale here and chunky beef stew here.
- Classic roast veggies – you can’t beat a classic, right?
- Pastas – No further elaboration required here.
- Curries – some for everyone.

For dessert, I simply want to suggest a chocolate pudding. Cheap, mouth-wateringly good, and freezable. That’s a win.
Now, let me share my all-time favourite throw-it-together dinner and/or lunch:
Burrito Bowl

What you need:
- Rice (I use brown rice for a healthier option)
- Tinned corn (drained and rinsed)
- Tomatoes, diced and of your preference
- Cucumber, diced
- Avocado, sliced
- Shredded cheese
- Beef, chopped*
- Taco seasoning and mixed herbs
- Taco salsa, for topping.
What to do:
- Preheat the oven to 160º. While the oven is preheating, line a roasting pan with baking paper.
- Drizzle oil over the beef to completely cover it. Rub with taco seasoning, mixed herbs, salt and pepper. Ensure the entire roast is covered and add more accordingly.
- Cook beef for 2 hours, checking at halfway. Check by making a small slice in the middle and looking for medium/rare. The roast is done when there is a slight pink in the middle.
- Prepare vegetables by cutting into desired sizes and placing them on separate plates for easier assembly.
- Cook rice when the roast has about 20 minutes left.
- Grate/prepare cheese and set aside.
- Once the beef is cool enough to cut, either slice or dice the roast.
- Time to assemble! Use my picture as a reference, but get as creative as you like!
This recipe is great for solo or when entertaining guests as it’s super easy and delicious, plus very customisable.
*I made a slow-cooked topside roast for this bowl. This would also work well for chicken or another filler, such as vegetables.
In all these recipes, please remember that freezing is ALWAYS an option! There’s nothing better than cooking something delicious and being able to pull it out of the freezer the next week.

I feel I should point out, TikTok does have some really nutritious and delicious recipes floating about, and it’s worth having a look. It does take time to find good recipes, but this should give you a solid foundation, along with some pictures of my winter creations so far. The wonderful thing about food is that you can get pretty creative (whether cooking is your thing or not) and it’s usually still yum, so just have a crack!
Charlie blog is a SSAF funded initiative