With finals week comes a lot of stress, tests, projects, and events to finish the year. When I get busy the first thing to usually go is my eating habits. It can go either way in my case. Sometimes when I’m busy and stressed I snack constantly. Sometimes I just forget about food entirely. Obviously neither of these are good, so I’ve been trying to combat these feelings. What I have found works for me, and hopefully will work for some of you too, is to have easy meals/snacks available with little prep. For me, easy access and quality of food is key. These are not necessarily ingredients you’ll just have, but I’ve learned to keep a lot of these on hand.
Potatoes
One of my favorite snacks/side dish is potatoes. My mom taught me to make them this way as an easy snack when I was stressed and now I’m sharing with you.
I take the tiny red potatoes (The Little Potato Co is a good brand, they come ready to eat) then I:
- put a handful of those potatoes into a bowl, cut if they are on the bigger side, otherwise whole (try to do single layer but it doesn’t really matter, I usually do about 10)
- Add Olive oil, ranch seasoning, garlic powder, salt, and pepper onto the potatoes
- Mix (I usually just give the bowl a toss and shake until all the potatoes are covered in olive oil)
- Add those seasonings again (if you don’t want a lot of flavor, just do a little, for more flavor do same amount as the first time) don’t shake!
- Put in microwave for 5 mins
- Take out and shake bowl around. Stab a potato with a fork, if it’s soft and the potatoes are wrinkly continue, if not put them back in the microwave (sometimes I put them back in for 1 min regardless)
- They are now ready to eat! But be careful, they are very hot for a very long time!
Salad
This is another tried and true snack/meal/side. You can go the old fashion route and get lettuce (bagged or a head), croutons, cheese, dressing, a cucumber, maybe carrots. This is good, but when I’m in the deep end of finals week, even this feels like too much prep. I’ve found that the bagged salad kits are delicious and super easy. You can find them at most grocery stores with the bagged lettuces and they come in a bunch of fun flavors. My favorites are; Kale Pecan Cranberry, Bacon Ranch Crunch, and Avocado Ranch. It gives you something different and interesting to eat without doing much more than pouring the contents of bags into a bowl. If you really wanted to you could eat from the bag, but I don’t recommend this option because the portion is pretty big and I usually split it in half or even thirds if I’m using it as a side.
Ciabatta Rolls
My new favorite obsession is toasted Ciabatta rolls. It’s super simple to make and Walmart sells really delicious ones in bags of 6. This does require a toaster but it’s well worth it. All you do is:
- Split roll in half, like a bagel (the Walmart ones are pre-cut)
- Put in toaster
- When done, take out of toaster and put on:
- Olive oil (or melted butter)
- Salt
- pepper
- Garlic powder if you’re feeling fancy
And that’s it! I’ve been eating it as a snack but it also goes great as a side of sorts – like say with the salad kit above. Usually if I eat it with something like a soup or salad I will just do one half of the roll and save the other for later.
Egg salad
This one might seem kind of gross, but egg is a good protein when cooking a meat product is too time consuming. I would do this at the beginning of the week though as it is a bit of a meal prep. I usually make mine like this:
- Boil about 5-6 eggs (that usually lasts me the week which is all the longer it’s good for)
- Boil for 10-15 minutes (I do 15 because not-cooked-egg freaks me out)
- Drain and immediately cover with cold water
- Take the shells off, rinse again to remove any tiny stubborn bits of shell
- Mush up the egg
- Add Mayo (I wish I could tell you how much but measure with your heart – I usually do just enough for it to be egg salad consistency because I don’t like mayo
- Add salt, pepper, and dill
- Chill
Once you have this you can make sandwiches. I’ve also found that it is very good on half a toasted ciabatta roll.
Sweets
If I want something a little sweeter, I try to stay away from chocolates or things I can easily eat many of without thinking. I’ve found that I can take a rice cake (I like the chocolate ones, but I’m sure any work) and put peanut butter on top. I love peanut butter and it’s also filling. The chocolate satisfies my sweet tooth and the crunch of the rice cake is super satisfying too.
Drinks
Drink wise, you should be drinking a lot of water. I know that can get boring. My roommate and I have discovered that we love making lemonade when we want something different. We just:
- take three lemons (for two servings) and roll them on the table for maximum juice
- Cut a lemon in half, squeeze both halves into one cup (do the same for the other cup)
- Fill the cups with water and add sugar to taste
- Take the third lemon and cut it in half (you can squeeze it if you want to) place the half lemon in your cup
- Enjoy!
Snack!
If you need something to just eat a lot of, my go to is always popcorn. It can be in the microwave or on the stove, either way it’s a great snack that’s honestly pretty healthy for you. If you aren’t a fan of regular popcorn they also have seasonings you can put on it like ranch or cheddar cheese, but I’m a good old salt and butter fan.
I hope this gave you some ideas for what to eat during finals week. Remember, it’s not all about the grades, you also have to take care of yourself. Happy finals week and good luck :)