Cooking and such

I am now in my senior year of college, at the tender and innocent age of twenty-seven… I live on campus still, but I live in what is known as “The Non-Traditional Apartments” meaning, they’re on campus, but because I’m old, I can live with one other person (or by myself for like $1500 more a semester) and have my own apartment like I would out in the real world. The biggest perk of this was, I was finally able to cut the ties and get rid of my campus meal plan. Don’t get me wrong the food, considering the dining hall is cooking for about 4,000 people (give or take) is just fine, but it’s not always the healthiest of food, and with my sensitive stomach, I was always staving off my diverticulitis because of my lack of eating anything that was high in fiber or actually decent for me (I’m kinda picky). My living room is cute, it has my giant 51″ rear-project CRT television, the Wii (plus Wii Fit Plus) and the book shelf. My room is small, but it’s where I sleep and watch television with my girlfriend. The kitchen really is the biggest plus. I’ve had a kitchen in the past in my old Student Apartment, but it wasn’t the same, it was a stove in a counter… nothing more, nothing less.

So, back in High School I took cooking classes because I realized: “I’m probably gonna have cook in any relationship I’m in and also I’m not going to be dating anytime soon.” (It just wasn’t my biggest priority.) I loved cooking, I helped my mom when she was sick in the kitchen and my dad and grandmother are fantastic cooks. (My grandmother is German and seemingly loves to cook, though she’s from a different generation when a pound of butter was better for you than not…) My dad is a grill master, the dude could probably bake a cake on the grill if asked to (come to think of it I just might, just for kicks). So as I’ve gotten older and have become more “independent” (read, I only ask dad for money, once in a while now), I’ve started to learn how to cook more than just breakfast and some standard pasta meals. This is where technology comes in handy.

Last week I found a “30 Minute Meals” cookbook in my kitchen I had some how inherited from a past roommate and started going through it, trying to find the recipe’s the struck me as “Hey I’d like to eat that.” I found this app called “ShopShop“, it’s a free digital yellow pad of paper that you can load with stuff you need to buy at the grocery store (much like my mom used to use, only she used real paper, pfff) and you can cross things off your list and hit the check mark to remove them altogether. It’s perfect for me, as a digital cook. I have the Betty Crocker app and the Epicurious app that I browse once in a while. I’ve found plenty of cool recipe’s on Betty Crocker and it’s nice that the app has the shopping list feature, where it’ll throw all the ingredients needed into a list for you. Between these three apps you’ll probably not need anything more. I have ShopShop on my iPhone and the other two on both the iPad and iPhone. I keep buying more and more kitchen things that I don’t have, I have a feeling my Christmas list is going to consist of pots, pans, and other utensils I want/need. (I recently got a Keurig Elite, while I’m not a coffee drinker, I love Hot Chocolate and various Teas, the Keurig makes both perfectly, for $109, I recommend it heartily.)

Last week I made a peanut butter fruit salad, consisting of, pineapple, raisin’s, apple, mandarin oranges, apple cinnamon yogurt, peanut butter and sunflower seeds, its much better cold than when you first make it, but it came out pretty good for my first time. I tried to make a Chex Mix and it didn’t come out right, only finding out yesterday the measuring utensil that I had been using had been teaspoon instead of tablespoon (big difference for those of you that don’t know). My bad, time to go retry that. Last Friday, my boss and friend Sara (BeingSara) showed me an amazing website, that apparently like 90% of the known world knew about, except for me, The Pioneer Woman. She had printed out a recipe for Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce, I took a few liberties with the recipe, for example I used Angel Hair Pasta instead of the Fettuccine that she recommends, I didn’t use Parmesan Cheese (stuff is like Gold in stores right now apparently), I didn’t use basil (I was making this during the Patriots game, I didn’t care about the presentation so much) and I used already minced garlic, instead of mincing my own. It came out really well though. My lovely girlfriend ate two plates of it and as a leftover plate, it’s not to shabby, I just had some and it was probably the one time my pasta actually stayed mostly separated (usually my pasta just sort of clumps together and is impossible to twirl, even though I use salt in the water to keep it from sticking to the pot and each other). Overall it’s a great recipe and I’m looking forward to trying more of her recipes.

I suppose this is my “Julie and Julia” moment?