Start where you are
Use ordinary ingredients, the equipment you have and the time available.
The Casually Competent Cook
Good food.
Less fuss.
Simple cooking for students, beginners and anyone who wants reliable everyday food without turning dinner into a precision exercise. Mugs, handfuls, dollops and sloshes are usually quite sufficient.
A mug, a slosh and a dollop are the way to tasty food — no experience required.
The Approximate Cookbook
Now on
Amazon
Amazon
The Approximate Cookbook for Students
Now on Amazon
The Kindle edition is available now. The current Back to University Kindle price is shown above.
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Scan for the Amazon author page
01 / The book
Your kitchen.
Your dinner.
Your rules.
An easy student cookbook for people cooking for themselves for the first time — perhaps in a shared university kitchen with an uncertain collection of pans and a knife that has seen better days.
You do not need specialist equipment, unusual ingredients or previous experience. The recipes use tins, jars, packets, frozen ingredients and supermarket shortcuts whenever they make life easier. Used sensibly, these are quick ways of getting decent, healthy and inexpensive food onto a plate.
The method is deliberately approximate. Instead of weighing every ingredient, you learn what a mugful, a handful, a dollop or a slosh looks like, then taste and adjust. That makes the recipes useful for beginner cooking, budget cooking and ordinary weeknight food long after university.
Take the shortcut
Let chopped onions, microwave rice or a jar of sauce do useful work for you.
Learn to adjust
Taste, notice and change things. That is how recipes become cooking.
02 / Simple, approximate cooking
Casually competent is a useful place to be.
Competence is not the same as perfection. It is knowing enough to get a good result, understanding which details matter and feeling comfortable changing course when they do not.
For student cooking and easy budget meals, that means ordinary food, forgiving techniques and sensible shortcuts rather than elaborate recipes or expensive equipment.
The aim is not to become a chef. It is to become comfortable enough in the kitchen that feeding yourself well becomes easy, flexible and, quite often, fun.
“Students often arrive impressively well prepared for lectures, assignments and the other academic demands of university, but rather less prepared for the repeated practical challenge of feeding themselves every day.”
03 / Free student cooking posters
Print them.
Put them up.
These posters are free to download, print and use wherever they are useful: student kitchens, halls, shared houses, common rooms, noticeboards, schools, colleges or university accommodation. No sign-up is required.
Your Cooking Kit
The basics you actually need
A straightforward visual guide to the small set of pans, utensils and equipment that cover most simple student cooking.
The Student Starter Cupboard
Useful food to keep around
A visual starter list of flexible, budget-friendly staples that make quick meals easier when the fridge is nearly empty.
Simple cooking questions
No scales.
No drama.
Is this suitable for complete beginners?
Yes. The book starts from the assumption that you may be cooking for yourself for the first time. The emphasis is on understandable techniques, ordinary ingredients and meals that are hard to ruin.
Do I need scales or exact measurements?
No. Approximate cooking is the point: mugs, handfuls, spoonfuls, dollops and sloshes are usually enough. You learn to taste and adjust rather than rely on unnecessary precision.
Is it designed for a student budget?
Yes. Tins, frozen vegetables, jars, packets, leftovers and supermarket shortcuts are used deliberately. The aim is easy, affordable food that works in a real student kitchen.
Is it only for students?
No. It is student-friendly rather than student-exclusive. The same approach suits anyone who wants simple recipes, cheap easy meals and a more relaxed way to cook.
04 / What’s next
Food first.
Not food only.
Casually Competent starts with cooking, but the idea travels well: understand what matters, remove avoidable effort, use tools intelligently and keep human judgement in the loop.
01
More guides & books
Approachable guides to everyday skills, built around reliable principles rather than perfectionism.
Practical knowledge02
Technology that helps
Human-centred tools that support learning, decisions and everyday capability without taking judgement away.
Useful, not intrusive03
Consultancy & collaboration
Helping organisations make services, instructions and interactions clearer without flattening what matters.
Clarity with substanceThe Casually Competent Collective
High standards.
Sensible shortcuts.
We are interested in the useful middle ground between doing everything the hard way and settling for a poor result.
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