Some years ago, I spent time looking at how food was produced in HM Prison Pentonville. One evening, I joined the food trolley as it was delivering food to the inmates. Suddenly, one of them noticed I wasn't a warder. "Who are you, then?" he asked me in a not unfriendly fashion. I explained that I was a journalist writing about prison food. I was immediately surrounded by a group of restaurant critics.

"Wotcha think of this then?"

"It's shite."

"Go on, write that down."

"I wouldn't give this to my dog."

This didn't seem the right moment to say that anyone who had been through the British university system would recognise the style and content of the dishes on offer as old friends.

The appeal of university, it always seemed to me, was that never again would I enjoy so much freedom with such little responsibility. "Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive/ But to be young, was very heaven!" as the poet Wordsworth put it on one of his more positive days.

Of course, Wordsworth was referring to the French revolution, and our views on that bloody epoch have rather changed since. In many ways, there has been a revolution in our food knowledge, if not eating habits, in recent years, although it has been more of an Italian revolution than a French one. Oceans of extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar have washed over our kitchens carrying pallets of pasta and grilled vegetables with them. While we might not yet live in a gastronomic heaven, things are very much better than they were. How very different it was when I was nobbut a student. To be frank, the food generally was pretty shite.

That was why I became a cook, really. That and love. I was thrown over by the girl I loved deeply and, as you are prone to do in your teens and 20s, I went on about it a bit. More than a bit, it seemed, because my friends started avoiding me. So I started cooking. In those days - and I am sure not much has changed - students would do anything for a free meal. So the trade-off was, I would provide the food if they came and listened to me droning on. And then I discovered that food was not just nourishment for the body, but also that cooking was balm to the wounded soul.

One evening I had prepared a dish of chicken and mushrooms in a white wine and cream sauce. It all seems so retro now. Anyway, one of the patient guests asked if he could have some bread.

"This sauce is so delicious that I can't bear to leave any of it," he said. At that moment, the doors of perception opened wide and revelation flooded in. That was what cooking could do for you. I have cooked ever since. It's one way of keeping my friends around me.

Here are a few pretty straightforward recipes. I cooked these when I was a student. I cook them still. They are designed for ease and comfort. If you want to cook fancy gear, get a fancy book. All recipes serve two.

Spaghetti with garlic and chilli

The easiest, and still one of my favourite ways of eating pasta.

200g dried spaghetti

4 cloves garlic

2 small dried red chillies

4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 bunch parsley

2 dessert sp salt

grated Parmesan (optional)

· Fill your largest pan with water and put it on to bring to the boil. Finely slice the garlic and chip the chillies. Chop up the parsley. Heat the oil in the frying pan. Add the garlic and chillies. Fry until the garlic is brown. Turn off the heat and leave. When the water is boiling add the salt and then the pasta. Cook until there is still just a bit of density to it - look at the packet for suggested times and test before you drain it. Put it back in the pan. Pour the hot oil, chilli and garlic over it and stir in the chopped parsley.

Baked beans with potatoes and cheese

Comfort food for all ages. Braised leeks or cabbage will balance this dish out.

2 x 400g tins of baked beans

800g potatoes (all rounders such as Maris Piper or Pentland Javelin)

400g cheddar, lancashire, cheshire or some other suitable cheese with a bit of character.

Salt & pepper

· Turn on oven to 190C/375F/Gas 5. Boil the potatoes and when cooked drain and peel their skins. Cut up to small roast potato size. Open the baked beans and pour their contents into a baking dish. Arrange the potatoes on top. Grate the cheese and scatter over the top. Pop into oven for 15-20 minutes until the top is a seething magma of molten cheese and the baked beans are bubbling.

Not a strictly classic croque monsieur

4 slices of white bread

2 dessert sp Dijon mustard

2 slices of ham

50g grated cheese (preferably gruyere)

25g unsalted butter

2 eggs (optional)

· Lay out the slices of bread on a work surface. Spread the top surface of each with the Dijon mustard. Put a slice of ham on two of them and share out the cheese between them. Plonk the other slice of bread on top, so making your sandwich. Heat half the butter in a frying pan and when foaming, add the sandwiches. Fry gently until brown - 3-5 minutes. Turn over and repeat the process. Keep warm while you fry the two eggs in the rest of the butter. All this needs is a nice healthy salad.

Drop scones

May seem a bit mumsy, but they make a grand basis for other pudding stuff, like ice cream, fruit compotes, yoghurt & honey etc, or just spread with butter and jam.

Makes 24 scones

200g self-raising flour

pinch of salt

2 eggs

300ml milk

50g butter

· Sift butter and salt into a bowl. Add the eggs and the milk and beat until smooth. Melt the butter, add that to batter and beat some more. Grease (butter, lard or oil) a griddle pan (non-ridged) or frying pan. Heat to almost smoking. Dollop tablespoons of mixture on to pan. When holes begin to appear on surface (2 mins approx), flip over and cook for another 2 mins approx. Keep greasing and griddling. And eat asap.

Chicken in white wine

1 chicken cut into pieces or 1 packet of chicken breasts + 1 packet of legs or thighs

1 onion

500g mushrooms

2 tbsp vegetable oil or butter

275ml dry white wine

water or chicken stock

1 x 284ml pot double cream

salt & pepper

1 bunch parsley, chopped (optional)

· Chop the onion and slice the mushrooms. Heat the oil in a casserole or deep-sided frying pan. Brown the chicken bits when the oil is smoking. Take them out. Turn down the heat and add the onion. Fry until soft and golden. Add the mushrooms. Fry until they begin to wilt. Add the chicken bits back. Pour over the wine. Turn up the heat and boil away until the wine is reduced by half. Add the water or chicken stock so that the meat is just covered. Simmer for 30 minutes. Taste the juices. If they don't have enough oomph, pour them into a separate pan and boil until they do. (You can cook potatoes or carrots in them at the same time.) Pour back over the chicken, add the cream and cook gently for another 15 minutes. Add chopped parsley if you have it, and serve.

Your parents want the food you eat at college to be healthy, nutritious and filling. You want the food you eat to be quick, cheap and tasty. Can there ever be a middle ground? Surely there must be something you can put in your mouth that doesn't eat into valuable essay-writing time nor dissolve into additive-laden sludge on contact with saliva?

Alice Wignall tries out some of the convenience foods on offer to the time-strapped student

Ainsley Harriot Couscous, 97p

Couscous is a very handy student staple: it's cheap, filling and it seems to mark you out as a vaguely sophisticated consumer of north African food. This, despite the fact that its preparation involves nothing more demanding than boiling a kettle and pouring. Jazz it up with some vegetable stock and you're practically a chef. Or you could get an actual chef to do it for you - as with the Ainsley Harriot range. The largely unidentifiable bits of roasted vegetable managed to convince me I was eating something healthy and I could have quite happily shovelled in a ton of the stuff. And did.

Heinz Sticky Toffee Pudding

Just the fact that this is a pudding that comes in a tin is enough for me. It makes me feel like I'm at boarding school during the second world war. It's not exactly what you could call healthy, but if it isn't the actual dictionary definition of comfort food, I don't know what is. It is sweet, stodgy and dripping with syrupy sauce. These are not criticisms.

Sainsbury's Fresh Pesto, £1.99 and Pasta, 98p Pity the student who arrives at university with a wheat intolerance. If they can't eat pasta, how will they survive? Stirring in a spoonful of pesto is the smallest step up from eating plain pasta, but it's still worth even that minimal effort. To go a little bit posh, why not opt for fresh pesto and fresh pasta? I could live on pots of pesto and actually intend to try. On pasta, on bread, on salads, on ice cream ... maybe not the last one.

M&S Spicy Lentil and Tomato Soup, £2.09 and Clearspring Miso Soup, £2.49 Soup: four letters, a world of choice. It runs the gamut from own-brand corner shop cream of mushroom to hilariously expensive freshly made broths, created from individually named hand-reared asparagus spears. All of it is hot, relatively good for you and requires nothing more than five minutes in a pan and the occasional stir. Let's look at two examples: M&S Lentil Soup is like something your mum would make for you if you were poorly. You can virtually feel the health radiating through your cells after just one spoonful. It's not all that spicy, mind. Miso soup, too, is so good for you it may actually be the secret of eternal life. All it requires is hot water. It's absolutely delicious and it makes you look a bit like you might have lived in Japan in your gap year.

Riso Gallo Saffron Risotto Pronto, £1.69 What does a good risotto require? Fresh ingredients, arborio rice and hours of patient stirring? Or you could just open a packet of this and be tucking in in less time than it takes for Jamie Oliver to trim his celery. For a hearty TV dinner it's not bad, especially if you add a dash of white wine. Note: it has to be saffron.

M&S Salad Niçoise, £3.99 Salads are all very well, but they require all that washing and chopping and dressing. Not this one! It's a ready-made bowl of salad with a very high ratio of interesting stuff (potatoes, tuna, onions, olives, boiled egg) to dull lettuce. And a very tangy, tasty dressing in a little bag, to boot. No washing-up required; just scoff and luxuriate in your feast of vitamins.

Bird's Eye SteamFresh Wild Pink Salmon Fillets in Dill Sauce, £1.99 Ah, the dreaded ready meal. Might as well just book a one-way ticket to the mortuary right now. Or you could fish one of these out of the chiller cabinet. Don't panic, you cook it in the microwave the old-fashioned way, but it steams in its little bag. And it tastes of fish. And nice creamy sauce. It's almost like real food. Scary.

Pizza Express Pizza, from £3.35 Oh, come on, you hardly need to be told what a pizza tastes like. You might like to know that they are available from Sainsbury's as well as the restaurants. They taste just as good, and you don't have to listen to mediocre jazz while you eat - unless you choose to, of course.

Finally, a word about Pot Noodle, 76p Noodles are ideal student food, because they are cheap and cook in an instant. Pot Noodles, on the other hand, come in a plastic cup and contain enough additives and flavourings to catapult you straight into ADD. I wonder quite why they're so tasty when you're drunk, because they taste vile when you're sober.