I have found the answer to life's question.
Alright, maybe not. I still don't know why mosquito were created or why weekends are only 2 days long. But I do have a really simple secret to completely changing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into something much more epic. And there is only one alteration you need to make. It's not even a different ingredient.
This magical element is a toaster.
Your PB&Js will never be the same. They will no longer taste like what your mom made you every single day for your entire elementary school career. They will be something more adult, more gourmet, more delicious.
And it's the same exact freakin' ingredients.
There's something elemental that changes about a PB&J when the bread is toasty and the peanut butter drools from the edges.
What's even better? Grilled PB&J. Slap some butter on your bread and turn your sandwich golden brown in a skillet. It's like a grilled cheese and a PB&J in one....minus the cheese.
Ever make a peanut butter fluff? Take this another step too and make a peanut butter and fluff and jelly sandwich. Add some banana slices if you want to get crazy. I have just reinvented the most basic American childhood meal of all time. Thank me later.
Breakfast Quesadillas
Every weekend morning is a dilemma, especially no longer living on campus where food is ready made for you all day long. Yesterday I found myself looking for a breakfast recipe with minimal effort that still tasted good because even the milk for cereal had gone bad. Then I found this recipe.
It was a great new way to use eggs and gave quesadillas a fun new twist. Plus it's so simple. And the perfect protein.
4 eggs
1/4 cup milk (optional)
1 whole tortilla
1/2 cup of shredded jack cheese (I used pepper jack)
This makes 1-2 servings, depending on how hungry you are.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Scramble the eggs in a bowl and add milk to make them fluffier. Cook the eggs. Put the cooked eggs on one half of the tortilla. Add salt and pepper to taste. Top with cheese and fold over the other half of the tortilla. Oil both sides of the tortilla and place on a baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes, until the tortilla begins to turn golden brown. Serve with salsa and sour cream.
It was a great new way to use eggs and gave quesadillas a fun new twist. Plus it's so simple. And the perfect protein.
4 eggs
1/4 cup milk (optional)
1 whole tortilla
1/2 cup of shredded jack cheese (I used pepper jack)
This makes 1-2 servings, depending on how hungry you are.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Scramble the eggs in a bowl and add milk to make them fluffier. Cook the eggs. Put the cooked eggs on one half of the tortilla. Add salt and pepper to taste. Top with cheese and fold over the other half of the tortilla. Oil both sides of the tortilla and place on a baking sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes, until the tortilla begins to turn golden brown. Serve with salsa and sour cream.
Twitter and Whatnot
No, I haven't forgotten about you. It's just been a hectic first week of classes and I haven't had much time to do any cooking. Hope none of you are getting too impatient!
On the flip side, I made a Twitter account for my blog! That way if you don't have a blogger account, you can easily follow what I'm doing and get other quick updates from me. I'll be honest, I've barely ever used Twitter before. To me it just seemed like a crappier version of Facebook...but I've learned that it can be an awesome tool for bloggers, so I'm giving it a try! Bear with me while I smooth out the bumps. You will find a handy dandy little link to my Twitter account right over there on the right hand of this post. -->
I'm also following some pretty cool bloggers, so be sure to check them out too.
I also wanted to say how much I love and appreciate everyone who reads this blog. It's taken off way better than I expected it to, and that's all because of your interest. With all my commitments to school and work it's harder for me to find time to blog, but I am in no way losing interest because I love that I can actually help people who are in the same boat as me; even people that I've never met before. Plus seeing a little notification that I have a comment few days makes me all tingly on the inside. :)
Keep on cooking!
On the flip side, I made a Twitter account for my blog! That way if you don't have a blogger account, you can easily follow what I'm doing and get other quick updates from me. I'll be honest, I've barely ever used Twitter before. To me it just seemed like a crappier version of Facebook...but I've learned that it can be an awesome tool for bloggers, so I'm giving it a try! Bear with me while I smooth out the bumps. You will find a handy dandy little link to my Twitter account right over there on the right hand of this post. -->
I'm also following some pretty cool bloggers, so be sure to check them out too.
I also wanted to say how much I love and appreciate everyone who reads this blog. It's taken off way better than I expected it to, and that's all because of your interest. With all my commitments to school and work it's harder for me to find time to blog, but I am in no way losing interest because I love that I can actually help people who are in the same boat as me; even people that I've never met before. Plus seeing a little notification that I have a comment few days makes me all tingly on the inside. :)
Keep on cooking!
Easy Mexican Rice
The school year has officially begun. Which means more campus food and meals on-the-go. Hopefully I will still find a sufficient amount of time to cook. Yesterday my roommate Nicole made a delicious meal that we've been eating for leftovers ever since. She got the recipe from our friend Amanda, who is also a fan of my blog. I'm hoping she'll give more great suggestions in the future.
1/2 onion, chopped
1 chili pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
1 can of black beans
3 cups of white rice
(makes about 6 servings)
Sauté the onion in a pan over medium heat. When the onions are caramelized, stir in the chili pepper (take the seeds out if you don't want it to be super spicy; you can also use red pepper flakes if you don't have a chili pepper), tomato and black beans. Then add 2 cups of water and the white rice. Continue stirring and let simmer until the rice is fully cooked.
Today when Nicole prepared dinner for us (I love coming home to dinner already made for me! I told her she makes a good housewife.) she showed me how to make this meal even better. She said to add some pepper jack cheese, salsa, guacamole, and broken up tortilla chips. It was almost too delicious to be considered a real meal. But it's good for you; and cheap! Rice is ridiculously inexpensive. You can definitely just skip the toppings you don't have and still have a solid meal. I also think adding raisins would make it perfect, but Nicole has an aversion to raisins so I've yet to try it.
1/2 onion, chopped
1 chili pepper, diced
1 tomato, diced
1 can of black beans
3 cups of white rice
(makes about 6 servings)
Sauté the onion in a pan over medium heat. When the onions are caramelized, stir in the chili pepper (take the seeds out if you don't want it to be super spicy; you can also use red pepper flakes if you don't have a chili pepper), tomato and black beans. Then add 2 cups of water and the white rice. Continue stirring and let simmer until the rice is fully cooked.
Today when Nicole prepared dinner for us (I love coming home to dinner already made for me! I told her she makes a good housewife.) she showed me how to make this meal even better. She said to add some pepper jack cheese, salsa, guacamole, and broken up tortilla chips. It was almost too delicious to be considered a real meal. But it's good for you; and cheap! Rice is ridiculously inexpensive. You can definitely just skip the toppings you don't have and still have a solid meal. I also think adding raisins would make it perfect, but Nicole has an aversion to raisins so I've yet to try it.
Splash of Heaven
Ever make fruit salad and a few weeks later after sitting in the back of your fridge you are left with a mushy mess? Well that's what happened to Nicole (my roommate!) and I. And from it came one of the best drinks we've ever had. Literally. It was THAT good. The fruit gives it a really fresh flavor. I can't really describe it to you. You just need to make it.
1/3 cup fruit salad (ours was strawberry, pineapple, cantaloupe, watermelon and orange)
2 shots (16oz) of Smirnoff Melon
splash of fruit juice (the juice that gathers at the bottom of your fruit salad)
splash of tonic water
Put the fruit in the bottom of your glass and add juice, vodka and tonic. Use the back of a spoon to squish the fruit as much as you can. Stir and add ice. For a weaker drink, add more tonic.
Cheese on Toast My Way
Yesterday I was listening to the lovely song Merry Happy by Kate Nash and started thinking about cheese on toast. I looked it up on Wiki, knowing it was a British tradition but knowing else about it. The Wiki page told me that there were many different ways of doing cheese on toast. I searched for some recipes but didn't come up with much that interested me. Then suddenly I remembered a meal I used to make myself all the time when I was younger. I don't know how I forgot about it; it's so good. I think I may have heard the recipe on Zoom once.
1 slice of bread (or 1 bagel, I normally do it on bagels when they are on hand)
1/2 sliced apple
enough cheddar cheese to cover the apples
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Lay the slices of apple on the bread. Cover them with cheese. Combine cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl and then sprinkle on top of the cheese. Toast in a toaster oven until the cheese is melted.
Egg Tomato Sauce on Toast
I had seen this recipe on multiple blogs. It didn't sound that exciting to me, but hey, all I needed was a couple eggs, some of the sauce from my fridge, and I was even lucky enough to have Italian bread donated by my parents.
This meal didn't blow my mind the same way that Egg in a Tomato did. But it was still pretty good. And simple.
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups of tomato sauce
2 slices of bread
Heat the tomato sauce in a small saucepan. Go ahead and throw in some spices if it's just plain tomato sauce. (Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, basil, garlic powder, to name a few.) Then, drop two eggs into the sauce and make sure the heat is on low. Cover up the egg white with sauce so that you can only see the yolks. Cook for about 5 minutes, until the egg whites are no longer clear and runny but the yolks are still soft. Place on bread and enjoy!
When I made this recipe from memory after seeing it on an array of other blogs, I thought I'd be a little more creative. You know, give the people an inventive version. That's what I normally try to do, anyway. Well, my creativity kind of failed. I just added a couple extra spices to sauce that had already been spiced, and I made garlic bread by adding some butter and garlic powder to my toast. I would not recommend this. The first slice I ate I could mostly only taste garlic. And you know me, I'm obsessed with garlic. But this just was unpleasant. The second slice tasted more like I assume it's supposed to. I also added some Parmesan cheese, and this didn't do a whole lot for my taste buds either. For this meal, I'd suggest sticking to the recipe.
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