3 ways to cook better cheaper

When you're in college, your food budget may not allow for much more than Ramen noodles and mac and cheese. I understand that, but I also firmly believe in good tasting food. Here are some ways to get the most bang for your buck so you don't have to suffer instant noodles another night longer:

1. Check for grocery stores that allow you to scoop your own spices and other bulk items.

I know Sprouts and Whole Foods do this, and while much of the other food there is on the expensive side, self service scoops can help you control the amount you get and how much you pay for it. For expensive items like spices, odds are you aren't going to need an entire jar, which can run pretty costly. If you can find a place to scoop your own spices into small bags, you can get as much as you'll need for a given recipe and probably only pay a very little amount.

2. Buy local.

Farmers markets and stores that bring in produce locally are often a lot cheaper. Though big box stores like Walmart like to brag about their low prices, I have compared prices and talked with customers about produce prices, and stores with local produce are often cheaper; even if they aren't, the price difference is very small and you are getting much better quality of food. Because local food doesn't need to travel as far, the price of gas to transport is much less, which is reflected in the price. And if you buy local, you're also supporting your local community.

3. Buy cheaper options of the basic products.

The best olive oil comes from Italy, but you can buy cheap American-made olive oil that's still pretty good, will do what you need it too, and is a lot cheaper. Same goes with pasta, rice, flour, sugar, etc. For basic foodstuffs, you won't notice the difference by buying cheaper options.

The world needs more chocolate

In light of recent news about a potential worldwide chocolate shortage, I have decided that to make the most of the plentitude of chocolate available to me now. What better way to do so than through cookies, one of God and nature's perfect foods?

These were everything I could ever want in a cookie: not too chewy, not to hard, not too moist, not too dry, and deliciously, perfectly chocolaty. 

I mixed elements from this recipe for Lofthouse-style cookies and from this recipe for chocolate sugar cookies, which I have made before with great success.

Apart from being yummy, these cookies are also the easiest and fastest cookies I have made in a while.

Ingredients:
3/4 cups of softened unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks)
3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk (Best separating methods: a special egg yolk separator thingy or carefully cracking the egg and using your fingers, letting the whites run through your fingers while holding the yolk)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups flour
3/4 cups cocoa powder

More granulated sugar and cocoa powder for rolling

1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. Add in the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla. Mix well.

2. Add the dry ingredients. Mix well until all ingredients are fully incorporated. The dough should be slightly sticky but firm.

3. Refrigerate for an hour.

4. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

5. In a small bowl, combine equal parts granulated sugar and cocoa powder (you won't need more than a few tablespoons of each). Make small balls (about 1 - 1 1/2 inches in diameter) and roll in the cocoa-sugar mixture.

6. Put cookies on a cookie sheet with an inch or two between each one to allow for the cookies to expand while baking.

7. Bake for 9 minutes or until they look dry. With darker dough, it can be hard to tell when they are done. If in doubt, poke one of the center cookies with a toothpick; if it comes out clean, the cookies are done.

8. Allow to cool on the pan for five minutes. Remove and put on a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

9. Enjoy!


(Note: Rolling the cookies is optional. It gives them a slightly crunchy exterior with the granulated sugar, but the coating does get darker, which can look like they have burned.)

A Delicious Experiment

Cooking can get monotonous. I have found myself cooking the same thing over and over again until it stops tasting like anything. One can only eat so many turkey burgers, sautéed zucchini, and bulgur wheat before you only taste the memory of the last time you ate it.

I had to spice things up a little, pun completely intended. I didn't have a lot on hand, but what I did have was: apples, maple syrup, butter, ground cumin, and curry powder.

I was fully expecting this to be a horrible mess, a monstrosity of a dish, a meal gone very wrong.

It was delicious.

I melted butter to sauté the apples in, as butter would go with the sweetness of the apples better than olive oil would. Once the apples started to get soft, I added in about a teaspoon each of cumin and curry powder and stirred to ensure that all of the apples were completely coated in it. Once the apples were completely soft, I added in a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup (organic! no corn syrup!). I cooked that until the apples had absorbed the syrup and caramelized.

I served the apples on top of a bed of leftover couscous and alongside an apple chicken sausage from Trader Joe's (which deserves to be named one of the seven wonders of the world).

At first, the apples were very sweet from the combination of the natural sweetness of a Gala apple and the maple syrup. But then there was an aromatic spiciness in the back of my throat and on my tongue from the spices. This spiciness nicely tempered what would have otherwise been an overwhelming sweetness.

I fully believe that this experiment could have ended very poorly. I'm glad it turned out yummy and the 26 people who liked and commented on the picture I shared on Facebook seemed to agree.

Alive, awake, alert, enthusiastic!

Oatmeal is one of the more under-appreciated breakfast foods. Sure, pancakes are great and bacon is sublime. But what about the unsung, fiber and protein rich hero of the breakfast table? It's healthy and you feel full and ready for the day after eating it.

It is perfect for colder mornings when you want something nice and hot in your stomach. When I woke up one morning few weeks ago, oatmeal was the only thing I wanted to eat.

The only problem was that I had no oats. I did have bulgur wheat, though, and after a little searching online, I found this Martha Stewart recipe for bulgur wheat porridge that I adapted.

I  added a dash of organic maple syrup, some brown sugar, and a diced apple to make a yummy porridge that certainly satisfied my oatmeal cravings.


Ingredients: (makes 1 serving)
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1/4 bulgur wheat
Pinch of salt
1 tablespoon organic maple syrup (un-organic would work too, but why eat artificial ingredients when you don't have to?)
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 of an apple, diced

1. Combine the milk, water, bulgur wheat, salt, and apple in a medium saucepan over medium heat.

2. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let mixture simmer for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently, until the bulgur wheat and apple have softened and porridge is desired consistency.

3. Add in maple syrup and brown sugar.

4. Serve and enjoy!

Some additional notes:

1. You could also use cinnamon and nutmeg instead of the maple syrup, which also is very good. Add in 1/2 teaspoon of each in step 3 instead of the maple syrup.

2. If you don't stir frequently, the milk can form a thin filmy skin on top. If this happens, it should go away when you stir again. If not, you can use a whisk to break it apart and reincorporate the milk into the porridge.

3. Martha Stewart recommends putting raisins and strawberries in her recipe. As I don't like them, I tried cranberries one time I made this, and it was super tasty. Add in a handful of dried cranberries in step 1. Because cranberries are tart, you may find that the porridge is also more tart. Adding a little more of either brown sugar or maple syrup can help temper the sourness.

Candy and Corn

Happy Halloween!

Halloween without trick-or-treating feels weird. No pillowcases filled with teeth-rotting candy. No pumpkins on doorsteps. No wandering around dark neighborhoods with other laughing, screaming kids.

The Halloweens of my childhood hold a special place in my heart, and I would like to go back and experience that joy and excitement again.

If time machines existed, though, I could never fully recreate those nights, because a crucial element would be missing: I couldn't eat the candy.

I am allergic to corn. It is an allergy with many repercussions and many inherent difficulties, but the most obvious one on Halloween is not being able to eat the candy.

No Snickers (corn syrup, lactose, artificial flavor). No Twix (glucose syrup, vegetable fat, natural flavor). No Kit Kats (lactose, PGPR, artificial flavor). No candy corn (corn syrup, confectioner's glaze, dextrose, gelatin, artificial flavor).

Candy corn is not the only corn to be found on the block

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of ingredients that are derived from corn, which includes the obvious candidates (high fructose corn syrup, cornstarch, corn itself) and less-obvious ones (dextrose, citric acid, MSG). A resource I've turned to multiple times, on cornallergens.com, is an extensive, though not comprehensive, list of possible "corny" ingredients.

I don't exaggerate at all when I say that corn is in absolutely everything. (This is a great graphic that demonstrates this point.)

Every other day of the year is a constant battle between myself and corn, reading labels and making gambles. But Halloween is the worst. I don't have to guess that there's nothing for me to eat; I know for a fact there won't be, unless I shell out for specialty candies. (Thank you, Sprouts and Trader Joe's!)

So, happy trick-or-treating, and eat a Snickers for me! I miss them.

Picture credits: 1, 2, 3

Chocolate Galore!

We're a bit obsessed with chocolate here in apartment F. On any given day, you can find cocoa powder, chocolate chips, chocolate candy, hot chocolate powder, chocolate cookies and granola bars, chocolate-covered cranberries, and Nutella in our pantry.

Apartment F is a wonderful place to live.

Last night, our kitchen looked like an explosion of chocolate. My roommate was making chocolate-covered espresso beans and I was experimenting with a chocolate-peanut-butter-cake-in-a-mug.

Caffeine and sugar and chocolate are wonderful things.

This picture of my lovely roommate accurately sums up the night.

I followed this recipe for my cake. I recently discovered Chocolate-Covered Katie, and it is a great blog with so many wonderful recipes. (I'm planning to make her Secret Peanut Butter Cookies soon. Watch for that post!)

All the ingredients combined. No eggs, so you could just stop here and eat the dough!

A little hard to see, but this is the finished, microwaved cake.

The recipe calls for peanut butter flour, which I don't have. I followed the advice of one of the commenters and substituted 3 tablespoons of normal flour for peanut butter flour and 2 tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter for the oil.

Yummy!

The overall taste of the cake was good, but the texture was a little dry and tough. If I make this again, I'm planning to add in chocolate chips and increase the peanut butter a little bit to make it moister. I'll also probably microwave it for 45 seconds instead of a full minute. And probably use smooth instead of crunchy peanut butter.

My roommate had better luck. She melted about half a bag chocolate chips in a Pyrex glass bowl in the microwave. She then took the espresso beans, dipped them in the chocolate, and rolled them in cocoa powder.

Ingredients for altered chocolate peanut butter cake:

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons cocoa powder

3 tablespoons flour

2 tablespoons peanut butter (I would suggest possibly adding 1-2 teaspoons more of peanut butter)

1/16 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon plue 1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

3 tablespoons milk

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine wet ingredients and dry ingredients in separate bowls. Add dry ingredients into wet. Combine well. Transfer to a microwave-safe container. (I used a coffee mug.) Microwave for 45-60 seconds.

Zucchini Spaghetti

I'm a big fan of zucchini in all forms: baked, sautéed, grilled, in soups and sauces, you name it. It's safe to say that it's probably my favorite vegetable. And when I saw a recipe combining my favorite vegetable and my favorite food group (zucchini spaghetti), I had to jump on that bandwagon.

While I did not end up making this recipe (though it is on my to-make list), I thought the blogger's tip to use a cheese grater to make the "noodles" was genius.

Gif from topwithcinnamon.com

I found this method to be super easy and quick. I also don't have a mandoline in my tiny apartment kitchen, so I didn't really have much of a choice. (I should ask my parents for one. I'm pretty sure they have three.)

I used vegetables I already had for this recipe, and you can add in almost anything you have on hand (onions, broccoli, squash, asparagus, etc.) and it will be delicious.


Ingredients:
1 zucchini
1 clove of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 of a red pepper
1/2 cup frozen peas
Handful of cherry tomatoes
Handful of spinach
Grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Lay a square cheese grater on its side with the larger holes facing up (see image above). Shred the zucchini into long strips. Stop when you hit the seeds and rotate the zucchini. (I had to cut my zucchini in half because it was too curved to grate straight.)

2. Cut the red pepper into smallish pieces. Cut tomatoes in half. Put with frozen peas and spinach.

3. Mince the garlic clove.

4. Heat olive oil over medium heat in a skillet. When hot, add garlic.

5. When you can smell the garlic (after 1 minute or so), add in the red pepper, peas, and spinach. Cook for several minutes until peppers begin to soften and peas are thawed, stirring occasionally.

6. Add in zucchini. Cook for several minutes until the zucchini is cooked through, stirring frequently and combining all the vegetables. Add salt and pepper to taste.

7. Serve and garnish with parmesan cheese. Enjoy!