Decent feed OR Scraps for the masses?

MAWSA Free Food

Look, I am a sucker for free shit. During the morning daily Instagram scroll, I come across so many giveaways and I just can’t pass it without tagging at least one mate. I’m a sucker for it, and my inbox is filled to the brim (2k+ emails) from businesses I signed up to. This week I decided to really challenge my freebie nature and see if I could make a meal from Massey Wellington’s free kai drops. These tend to happen all over various Massey campuses thanks to student execs, and I know that, like me, you’ve experienced the pain of seeing the IG stories too late and those hungry early rising freshers cleaning out the freebie stand of anything edible. 

I did a little investigating and found out that the kai comes from KaiBosh. They’re a food rescue organisation that has rescued an impressive 1.8 million kgs of kai from landfill. Their free of charge service involves nabbing quality but surplus kai from businesses. Volunteers then redistribute it to charities and community groups. With over five and a half million meals provided around Aotearoa already, KaiBosh is certainly increasing food security for many people, and Massey students sure are grateful. 

Free kai comes with so many stereotypes and upturned noses. I once thought that only people without homes and support systems should accept free kai. It took me becoming disabled by endometriosis to realise that food is a very basic part of wellbeing. Sometimes you just can’t afford to buy groceries, I certainly couldn’t when my weekly medical bills were higher than my rent. Sometimes things happen, you don’t have a liveable income, or a secure home. Whatever the reason, it is totally fine to accept food from food banks, your support people, and your community. Most tertiary students are on StudyLink and it’s maybe just enough to cover rent and bills in the major cities. The reality is uni students live in poverty, our homes are cold and damp, our bills high asf, our jobs exploitative; so, accepting free food is actually completely fine. 

For us Welly folks, food is dropped on Tuesdays, so I lurked around the Co-Lab until finally, success! 

Here’s the food I nabbed: 

Washed Potatoes 

Harvest Snaps Pea Crisps 

Oat Milk 

Gluten-Free Bread 

Supermarket Cheese Rolls Pack of 6 

Gluten-Free Bread Mix 

Rimu’s note: I was fucking geeked to see such yum food and pretty hefty staples like carbs. 

Challenge – Use as much free kai as possible to make a decent feed for the flatties. 

Now, full disclosure, I’m a final year student and live in Karori so I’m as skint as the rest of y’all. I only snagged one each of the ingredients above, and used the potatoes from my own pantry cause I figured one of you poor cunts could probably do with some free ones. I recommend getting to the food stand pretty early (around mid-morning) to make sure you get a good geeze of your options. You could hypothetically grab a handful of the salt n pepper sachets from Tussock. Herbs like parsley and basil are in planters just outside MAWSA and you’ll no doubt spot some rosemary if you wander around your suburb. Final note from me is there’s fucking judgment when it comes to kai. Eat what you can, when you can, and if that means collecting free kai or scavenging your local community garden – so be it. 

Savoury french toast w/ chips 

What you’ll need to suss:

2 medium sized potatoes 

Harvest Snaps Pea Crisps Dill Pickle flavour 

Sliced bread 

Milk 

Salt and pepper 

Herbs 

What you’ll need to make the recipe half-decent - 

Oil 

3 tbs corn starch/corn flour OR an egg 

Fries:

Preheat oven to 200°C on fan bake. 

Empty half of the pea crisps into a bowl and mash the shit out of them, till powdery (save the other half of the crisps for that midnight Netflix sesh snack). 

Slice up the potatoes into fries and microwave them in a covered bowl with about ¼ cup of water for five minutes. 

Don’t be a twit like me and burn your fingers on the hot bowl; use a tea towel to remove from microwave. 

Pour a decent whack of oil over the par-cooked fries till coated. 

Pour the crisp dust over the fries till they’re somewhat evenly covered in that pickily goodness. 

Spread them out in a baking tray and bake till toasty brown. 

Salt and pepper those babies. 

French Toast 

Whisk together three tablespoons cornstarch/egg with ½ cup of milk. 

Add salt, pepper, and any herbs you have lying around (I used some dry mixed herb from Countdown). Whisk again. 

Heat about 1cm of oil in a frying pan on medium heat. 

Pour the batter into a shallow bowl or lipped plate and dip your bread slices in it. 

Make sure the bread is well coated on both sides but not soggy and drippy. Carefully add them to the frying pan. 

Cook for 2/3 minutes on each side until they crisp up to a nice golden brown. 

Place on tea towel or paper towel to drain excess oil and then repeat with more slices! 

Meal Notes 

Plate up the fries and french toast with whatever shit you got in your fridge. 

I tested tomato sauce, garlic aioli, and sweet chilli sauce and I highly recommend at least one of those. 

There was a long-forgotten carrot in the dark depths of my fridge which I thoroughly washed and thinly sliced up on the side. It was a nice bit of freshness to balance out the grease. 

This recipe serves about three, so I knocked on the doors in my flat and asked for their reckons. 

Rangimarie said, “So tasty! So good! The french toast was yum, but my absolute favourite was the crunch on the fries. My first thought was I would pay for these.” 

Grace is a person of few words, but even this odd mix of kai brought a smile to their face, “fries are a solid 8/10”. They gave the french toast a serious side eye and then a “hard pass”, but I actually quite liked it. 

I’m definitely gonna make the french toast again because I have so much bread left that I had to freeze it. I might even make my own bread from the fancy premix. If I’ve learnt one thing from this experience it’s that bread is just so fucking good. 

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