Stay Full... But Without Me!

I may have walked across the stage in a unflattering blue gown two months ago in a hat that made my forehead look a mile long, but today I am finally done with college. Some of you might be thinking wait, Lauren finished last Wednesday, didn't she? Technically, that is when I took my last final... but I got my grades back today, and guess what? I passed! Woohoo! Another chapter in the book of Lauren closed (unless I go back to college, then maybe ill come out with a college cooker: graduate school edition, but don't hold your breath).

Anyways, besides giving a short update on my ultra interesting life, I am also going to take this time to post my last college-cooker post. It isn't even going to have a recipe. Don't be mad... but it's okay if you are, because I'm leaving anyways. It seems a little silly to be the "college" cooker if I am not even in college. I've always disliked that kind of hypocrisy. However, if you know me...you know I can't keep my thoughts to myself for very long. It's a curse to have so many meaningful thoughts ;) So I will probably pop back up into the blogosphere sometime soon. Although, I can't promise i'll be assuming the role of chef. Keep a look out.

Steve Jobs once said "Stay hungry, stay foolish" and although it is an inspirational quote in the business world... taken out of context and put into the brain of a foodie, it doesn't make any sense. So, if you learned anything (especially college people) Stay full, stay satisfied. Happy cooking!

A finals tradition: carbs on carbs

While reading my blog, you must think to yourself Wow, she really cooks a lot, she must have a nice variety of meals each week. Though I do not want to shatter any sterling views you might have about me, sometimes I do not eat so lavishly.

The week before finals, and finals week don't allow much time for cooking. Even if I had the time to cook with all of the studying to be done, I would probably burn myself, or the apartment down, due to my lack of sleep. I don't want that to happen.

Instead, I forget that I am dieting and I survive on carbs. 

Morning: Cereal... see this to get an idea on what cereals are ht best.

Lunch: Cereal 

Dinner: Pasta

Now, here is the thing--I can't be bothered by actually boiling water, waiting for noodles to cook, and preparing a nice pasta dinner.  Instead, yesterday I made a whole box of pasta. I put sauce on it, I put some chicken in it, and then I put it in like three different Tupperware. Microwave and eat. 

This finals tradition is certainly not guilt free--when you realize you have consumed a box of pasta in 4 days, but I like to think of it as helping my brain run at peak conditions. 

Also, it would be a good idea to pair coffee with every meal. Don't believe me? I wrote this 3 years ago, and it still holds true today. 

Pinterest Meal #1: Eggplant and Mozzarella Melt

Girls everywhere spend hours on Pinterest planning their dream DIY wedding. My wedding is already planned, and I don't have time to spend doing things myself. Therefore, I prefer to look at the food section, because I obviously love food. I have a board called future meals, and instead of dreaming of making one of those delectable meals, my roommate Julia and I actually made one.

Here is the website we got the meal from. Feel free to follow that, but we made a few changes.

What you will need:
1 eggplant
4 tomatoes
1 big loaf of french bread (not sliced)
fresh mozzarella
garlic salt
bread crumbs
2 eggs
salt and pepper

First pre-heat the oven to 475 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, slice up the egg plant.
Mix the eggs, a little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper in a shallow bowl. Put 3/4 cup of breadcrumbs on a plate. Dredge the eggplant in the egg mix, then cover it in breadcrumbs and stick it on an oiled baking sheet. Bake for about 20-25 min.

While that is cooking, slice your bread in half, slice your mozzarella nice and thin, and slice up your tomatoes. Try not to cut yourself.

When the eggplant is finish, put everything together.
Here is the proper layering:
Bread
Tomato
Eggplant
Mozzarella
A little bit of garlic salt

Bake it all in the oven for about 7 minutes, or until the mozzarella is slightly golden brown.

Take it out and enjoy!

This meal feeds about 4 people, or maybe 2 really hungry people. But I mean REALLY hungry.

My new favorite way to eat an apple

As I was watching the news this evening, I could not resist the compulsion to snack. However, since the wedding is in less than 8 months, I don't keep "snack food" around the apartment.  My favorite salt and vinegar chips are nowhere to be found. As I perused the fridge and cabinet, I started to crave apple crisp. Now, instead of drinking a glass of water and allowing the craving to curb, I immediately played upon that impulse. Obviously I did not have the patience to bake an entire apple crisp... so I improvised!

What you'll need:
One large apple (honey crisp is my favorite, if you have had one, it is probably yours too)
1/4 cup oatmeal
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp brown sugar

First, I cut up the apple into nice little pieces, then threw them in the sauté pan. I put a little bit of water in the pan as well. Throw in the other stuff (oatmeal and sugars) and heat it up! Make sure you keep stirring. I stopped stirring for a second because the news was rather interesting, and the oatmeal started to stick.  Once it is nice and hot, put it in your bowl and enjoy! I am currently eating it with a spoon, but I do suppose a fork could work as well. Your choice ;)

Bonus: Since I am currently counting calories, this snack is only 182 calories.

Award Winning Cereal

I realize that I mentioned cereal in one of my earlier posts about the egg sandwich, and I apologize for not expanding on that thought right away.  I understand you have probably stayed up at night wondering what kinds of cereal I eat, and what kinds of cereal to avoid. Well, worry not my friend.  Today I am going to be discussing my take on cereal. Just to be clear, I only eat my cereal with skim milk--mostly because I have slight allergies to milk. I do think that makes a difference. My brother just bought vitamin D milk, he might as well be using half and half. Another thing--if you like your cereal extremely crunchy, my bowl is not the place to look.

So without further delay, here are my top favorite cereals:

1) Apple Cinnamon Cheerios: of all of the Cheerios in the world (and there are plenty) this kind is my favorite.  It has the perfect amount of sweetness and it makes your milk taste so good too.

2) Fruity Pebbles: obviously I was brought up on sugar cereal.  When I was young, my brother, my sister and I all had our own box of FPs because it was gone in a day if we didn't.

3) Honey Smacks: Not too soft, not too crunchy.  A hint of sweetness makes it delicious. Plus, it is small enough where it isn't going to hurt the top of your mouth like fruit loops.

4) Cinnamon Toast Crunch: The taste you can see. Enough said.

5) Raisin Bran: Not a sugar cereal, but it still is good.

6) Honey Bunches of Oats: Tastes good, and healthy!

Everyone has their own cereal preferences, and you by no means are constrained to mine.  Feel free to let me know what your favorite is!

The College Student's Guide to Thanksgiving: Leftovers

 It was worth the wait. An unparalleled meal for sure. I cannot wait for next Thanksgiving. However, for the next couple weeks, leftovers will do. Now, there are probably several people in your family vying for the leftovers. Here are a couple lines you could drop that may help your cause:

"It was really nice to eat real meat for the first time since the semester started."
"It's a shame my stomach expanded so much, I am going to be starving when I get back to school."
"I'm your favorite, right?"
"Maybe I could collect enough change under this couch cushion to afford some mac n cheese for next week."

Put that together with some puppy-dog eyes, and you're sure to get your leftovers.

With turkey, you can pretty much do anything. But don't put it in your cereal, that's gross. You CAN make sandwiches, put it in soup, or warm it right back up!

I just had a piece of leftover pumpkin pie, and it it still just as good.

The College Student's Guide to Thanksgiving: Veggies

Let us continue on in our excursion through Thanksgiving, the college way. To me, it seems like the vegetables served on Thanksgiving are a cut above the rest.  They are greener, they have more flavor, they are the royalty of all veggies. Please do not think that the college version of these Thanksgiving dishes can act as a replacement. No way. These are simply for your enjoyment as you wait a whole year for the masterpiece meal to come back around.

Green beans. Usually baked into a delightful casserole that took days to prepare. If you aren't preparing for your exam until the night before, what makes you think you can tend to a casserole?  For my daily dose of veggies, I like to use frozen veggie steamers.  All you do is slip the bag in the microwave, and poof! You have a your veggies! For green beans, maybe spice them up a little bit.  Put some french fried onions in it...you can never go wrong with those!

The College Student's Guide to Thanksgiving: Mashed Potatoes

Obviously, if I love to cook, I love to eat.  As a result, Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays--because of the food.  Personally, I think everyone should always be thankful for what they have in life... but I am not complaining that there is a marked holiday for eating a feast.  In the weeks leading up to thanksgiving, all I think about it falling asleep after heaping portions of mashed potatoes, turkey and stuffing.  Then waking back up to finish some pumpkin pie.

For the next week or so, I will be focusing on the college student's guide to thanksgiving. There can be elements of the meal that you don't have to only eat once a year. I will start with my favorite: mashed potatoes.

Now, you have probably seen your mother/grandmother/whoever cooks in your family slave over mashed potatoes by boiling the potatoes, vigorously smushing them, adding the perfect amount of butter... basically, it's a major time commitment. So, when you're craving that delicious dish try potato buds. You literally just add water, milk, butter and salt (depending on the recipe) and it is done within 10 minutes.  They are creamy and delicious, and I honestly cannot tell the difference.

Check out what Betty has to say about these.

The Egg Sandwich

The standard breakfast at the Ringger household is typically cereal.  However, when one deviates from the Fruity Pebbles, the egg sandwich is usually a top option. My dad has been making the egg sandwich as long as I can remember, and it has taken many different forms throughout my life. It is the perfect meal when your brother uses all of the milk, or he hides the Cinnamon Toast Crunch bag in the Kashi Go Lean Crunch box. Clever. Anyways, the egg sandwich does not require milk or sugar cereal, making it the infallible back-up plan.

Ingredients:
Bread
Egg

Seems pretty simple. The optional ingredients, depending on your preference (or food availability):
Cheese
Condiments
Meat (turkey, sausage, bacon, ham...)
Veggies

This is how we do it at my house:

1. Put 2 slices of bread in the toaster
2. Start to make two eggs on the griddle (or pan) and break the yolks up
3. Retrieve the toasted bread from said toaster, and put mayo on it (sometimes I like ketchup on it instead)
4. Flip the eggs
5. Sprinkle some salt and pepper on the eggs
6. Add cheese, and let cheese melt
7. Put the eggs on the bread
8. Eat

(Makes one egg sandwich)

Obviously there are many other ways to create the egg sandwich. So ditch the cereal bowl and fire up the griddle!

Pasta with Some Protein!

This evening, I made some pasta. Now, I am by no means the pasta expert--that would be my fiance Elliott.  His pasta is unparalleled. But, unfortunately he is 2 hours away and cannot make me dinner tonight. So for my pasta, I used my favorite noodles--cavatappi. They are like little curls and they are super fun.

So I browned some turkey burger, because it is better for you than regular ground beef. Less fat.
Then I boiled some noodles...  which is usually a key component of making pasta ;)
After that, I put some sauce, garlic, the turkey, the noodles, and a handful of shredded mozzarella all together, and ate it!

Here are some more pasta recipes!

Feed Your Brain!

So the semester is starting to wind down, which usually means the workload gets kicked up a could notches. A sad truth I know. It's actually kind of mean of school... I mean here we are approaching Thanksgiving, and what are we thankful for? Exams! Professors just like to sneak that extra assignment in before finals hit. If you're anything like me, you are counting down the days until Thanksgiving, Christmas... anything that involves a break from school. However, unless anyone has a functioning time machine, we all have to push through! So in the meantime, here is some food for thought (lol). Food that boosts your brain: Blueberries, bananas, extra green veggies (like spinach!), eggs. Eat lightly throughout the whole day and DEFINITELY EAT BREAKFAST!

Here are some more tips!

Crock Pot Chip Dip

Whether your having a big bash to watch the game, or a cozy night in watching a movie chip dip is always a must. Try this recipe in your crock pot!

Southwest Chip Dip:

1 lb. ground beef (browned and crumbled)
2 15-oz. cans refried beans
2 10-oz. cans diced tomatoes and chilies
1 pack of taco seasoning
1 lb. Velveeta cheese (cubed)
tortilla chips

1. Put the beep, beans, tomatoes and seasoning in the crock pot.
2. Cover, cook on low 3-4 hours or on high 1 and a half hours.
3. Add cheese, stirring occasionally. Heat until cheese is melted.
4. Serve with chips!

There are many other dips you can create using your crock pot, try them all!

Quesadilla Night!

Tonight, my friend Kate came over for dinner.  She has been reading this blog, and she wanted to try a meal of the college cooker. I asked her what she wanted to eat, and she was craving something Mexican.  Lucky for her, I am always up for Mexican, so I decided to make quesadillas.

1. Cook up some chicken
2. After the chicken is cooked, sauté up a chopped up bell pepper, some pico de gallo, with the cooked chicken and some fajita seasoning.
3. Take a flour tortilla, and sprinkled some cheese on it
4. Spread the saute mix over the cheese-sprinkled flour tortilla, and sprinkle some more cheese on it
5. Firmly press another flour tortilla over everything
6. Put the whole thing in the oven to let the cheese melt
7. Once the cheese is melted, cut and enjoy!

Kate said she liked them...so I am choosing to believe her :)

Serve with some guacamole! (see two posts below) 

Try these other mexican recipes!

Sunday Morning French Toast

Since it was daylight savings time last night, I felt rather motivated to wake up and get going before I needed to rush to get to church on time. Since I had this free time where I did not need to be showering or doing my hair yet, I decided to make breakfast for Elliott and my dad. Since waffles are such an early morning cliche, I decided to go the french toast route. It was way easier than I thought.

This is what I did, and you can do it too:

Break a 3-4 eggs in a medium sized mixing bowl

Pour a little bit (half cup) of milk in with the eggs, and stir it all up

Add some cinnamon and brown sugar in the milky-egg mixture

Take a piece of bread, dunk it in the egg stuff and immediately put it on a greased griddle.

Let the toast cook on each side for about a minute, depending on how hot your griddle is.

Once it's done, there is nothing left to do but eat it! (With syrup of course)

Something I have been wanting to do with this is create an egg sandwich--using two pieces of french toast for the bread. More on that later...hopefully.

 Other french toast recipes :)

Holy Guacamole!

So my fiance decided that he wanted some guacamole.  So naturally, he bought a few avocados for me to use in making homemade guacamole. Um..cause I know how to make guacamole? Not. But, nevertheless, I made some. My mom used to make it a lot, so I pretty much just did what she used to do. (Minus onions because Elliott [fiance] does not like onions).

Here is what I used:
3 avocados
2 large tomatoes
Cilantro
Garlic
Lime
Salt
Some guacamole seasoning.. is that cheating? Whoops.

It turned out pretty good :)

Anyways, now that you know how to make guacamole, try making it's cousin salsa.

Tea time

If you're a college student, you probably drink coffee.  There are exceptions, but as a rule, most college students (and adults, and high schoolers, probably preschoolers..) start their day with coffee. Some days, I sustain my day with coffee. Though not a whole lot beats lifting your fog with a brew of hazelnut, there is an alternative: tea.  Now, if you are really at a brick wall in the morning, I would not recommend you immediately cold-turkey the coffee for tea, because tea does have less caffeine. But for that mid-day boost, why not try some tea? Check out all of the flavors! I am sure you will find one that you like. Still not convinced? Here are some benefits: won't stain your teeth, won't give you bad breath, helps promote healthy weight loss...there are plenty of other benefits. Tea works the other way too--it relaxes you.  If are having trouble sleeping because you are nervous for your exam tomorrow, try sleepytime tea.

A salty and sweet Halloween treat

 When it comes to deciding between salty snacks or sweet snacks, I will almost always choose salty. But, it is possible to have the best of both worlds here.

With chocolate-covered pretzel rods you have your salty pretzel coated in a rich layer of delicious chocolate. It is also really easy to make! Just get some pretzel rods, dip them in melted chocolate and let them harden on wax paper.

Want to make your treat a bit more festive? Add sprinkles. Honestly, who doesn't love sprinkles? The right color combination can turn your ordinary pretzel into the life of the party. Throw some orange and black sprinkles on there for halloween, tie a pretty little ribbon on the pretzel end of the treat, and you're all set.

Go the extra mile: Dip your pretzel in caramel, and let it dry.  Then proceed to dip it in chocolate. This gives it the double layered snickers bar effect that will give people a delightful surprise.

Happy Halloween! Try these other Halloween treats!

pumpkin seeds

One of my favorite salty snack of the fall is roasted pumpkin seeds. After carving a masterpiece in a pumpkin, roasting the seeds is a must.

Here's how:

When you are hollowing your pumpkin out, keep the insides in a big bowl.  When you are finished carving, fill the bowl with water--this will help separate the seeds from the pumpkin flesh--the gooey orange stuff. After you have gathered all of the seeds (be patient, it could take a while) put them in a strainer and wash the rest of the gooey orange stuff off. Next, spread them out on a cookie sheet and let them dry.  To accelerate the drying process, place them in a warm oven (120-150 degrees) or use a hair dryer.

After they are dry, season them as you please. Check out these different seasoning ideas.

Heat the seeds at 275 degrees for 10-20 minutes, or until they are golden brown. Make sure to stir them every five minutes.  Once they are done, let them cool a little, and enjoy!

Here are the pumpkins the seeds I made came from. Mine is in the middle.

Homemade Pizza!

Dinner tonight was delicious.  I wasn't going to blog about this, but it was too good to keep to myself.

My roommate Julia and I made homemade personal pizza, and I might be biased, but it was the best pizza I've ever had.

All we did was take pre-made, personal-sized pizza crusts..and loaded it up with toppings!

Here's what I put on my pizza:
Pizza Sauce
Fresh tomatoes
Black olives
Mozzarella Cheese
Feta Cheese
Ham
A delicious buttery garlic sauce (i'll get to that later)

We put our pizzas in the oven (375 degrees) and cooked them for about 15 minutes.

Now...about the delicious buttery garlic sauce.

Julia had this awesome idea to make garlic bread.

Here's how she did it:

4 slices of bread topped with:

Lots of melted butter
Garlic powder
Garlic salt

We put the remainder of the delicious buttery garlic sauce on our pizzas--nice touch!

This picture is before it was cooked...because after it was cooked I immediately ate it. No time for photographs.

Wanna go the extra mile? Make your own crust?

A frozen yogurt treat

Ever get a craving for frozen yogurt? I do. It is so delicious. Well this year I started doing this thing, and it allows me to have a little bit of frozen yogurt, without adding up the calories.

Take a Yoplait yogurt cup...and freeze it!
When you feel like eating it, take it out of the freezer and let it thaw for maybe ten minutes.  It will be easier to eat when it is not an ice block.

There are so many flavors to choose from. There are also different kinds of textures--there are the whips, the thick and creamy, and the jello kind.  I have only tried the regular, but I am looking forward to trying them all.

This is really the perfect snack.

Another benefit is your yogurt will stay good for months in the freezer, rather than going bad after a week in the fridge.