Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Not All Kitchen Adventures are Fruitful

Pun intended.

As you all know by now, I have spent the past week and a half settling into a new apartment. And with that new apartment for my last year of college, comes the need to feed myself everyday since my meal plan has now evaporated. This is no problem, let me assure you; I love to cook and actually look forward to getting in the kitchen and being creative to scrub up some dinner. I have been doing a pretty good job (if I say so myself) in keeping the limited staples that I have interesting and not repeating the same old same old every night. I have also, and more importantly, not fallen into the sinkhole of processed and frozen foods. Ick. I would much rather buy the vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and dairy in order to fill my fridge with the staples I need to balance my diet.

It has been interesting just feeding one person. At home I am feed four and two very eager puppy dogs. But here, just me. How does one just cook for, well, one? Strategically. I pick one or two fruits, and those are my fruits for the week. Three or four veggies to work on for a week. One half gallon of milk. Fat free yogurt. A pack of chicken (but what do I do with the other two breasts in the pack!?)

I started this blog to inform you that not all of my dinners this week have been successes. In an effort to clean out the fridge with the miscellaneous vegetables tid-bits and leftovers, I decided to take some leftover penne whole wheat pasta and some eggs to make pasta carbanarra. Essentially it is the Italian version of breakfast for dinner: cook your pasta, toss in a heated skilled with some scrambled eggs (they would add bacon as well) and some fresh herbs, maybe a sprinkling of cheese, and dinner is served. But I have to use these bell pepper halves, onion pieces, and some carrots. What the heck, I thought, the more veggies, the merrier. Wrong. So so wrong. I had a wonderfully delicious, satisfying, and simple dinner and I went and weirded it up with some sauteed veggies. Sometimes veggies don't belong. Shocking I know, but it's true. So what is the take away here? Eggs and bell peppers don't mix so well with pasta.

6 comments:

  1. This is so weird, since I often put peppers in omelettes and egg-based dishes. My mother used to serve a peasant dish that was exclusively scrambled eggs with tomato and peppers. What about the dish made it so unpleasant?

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  2. I think what turned me off with this dish was the combination of egg, veggies, and pasta. I wasn't a fan of the additional carbs in the dish, which made it seem heavy and burdensome. That being said, likes and dislikes are all a matter of taste and preference, so while I love sauteed peppers, onions, broccoli, you name it in scrambled eggs, I wasn't such a fan of them with pasta and eggs. Next time I will just stick with the traditional Italian classic.

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  3. Just found this blog! Very cute&colorful. What kinds of foods do you specialize in? What are your favorites to eat and cook? How often will you post?

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  4. I am so glad you like it! I always welcome any comments or suggestions and it is always nice to get some positive feedback. Thanks for stumbling here!

    I specialize in healthy food - I am all about the balanced, well thought out diet. I am no against chocolate or dessert or a treat every now and then (I mean please, life is short and I want dessert!) So I work on making sure that I get all my fruits, veggies, and whole grains for the day, along with some exercise, protein, and calcium, and that is my recipe for the perfect diet. No need to calorie count or stress. I try to post at least once a week, if not more, but seeing as I am a college student working on graduating a four year college program in three life can get a little hectic. I still do plenty of cooking in the evenings, as this girl doesn't miss meals, and take pictures of them along the way, and usually use the weekend to catch up on my blogging.

    Thanks again and I hope you swing by soon!

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  5. You're graduating in three years?! That's awesome! Is it a lot tougher than grad in four?

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  6. I am graduating in three years with a Bachelors. I don't know about this process being any harder than completing the degree in four, I just had to be on top of my schedule, school work, and course load CONSTANTLY. I maximized my course load every semester I was here and was always meeting with my academic adviser to review my choices and fill out the necessary paperwork. I am so happy that I did decide to accelerate the degree though because that puts me one step closer to culinary school! I actually just applied for graduation Friday so let's all cross our fingers for that invitation to graduation in May.

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