Homemade Alfredo

Well I'm about to leave for Korea and I realized I had a few files of photos from blogs I forgot to write. This recipe is not my own but the girls, and she got it from her mother. We tried it the exact way we were told (although I yern to tweak things) it was delicious. 

Chop ALL the green onions (by all I mean 1-2)

These are a favorite of mine and pair well with Alfredo. Try stepping out of your comfort zone and look for alternative noodles. (like spinach, black pepper or tomato garlic, my fave from the farmers market.)

We are going to say this is a quarter of a cup.

The smell of these sautéing in a little bit of olive oil is wonderful,

You want them done just before they start caramelizing. (add salt and pepper)

Heavy cream! Beware of expiration dates and be creeped out by the fact ultra pasteurized cream lasts for more than a month!

The girl and I are al-dente people. 

Add the cream slowly and allow to simmer after you give it a mix. 

You want that frothiness because you are trying to cook down the cream a bit so it's thicker. 

Now I love cheese, and Parmesan is just at the top of my list.

I wanted to get a picture of the block before I cut off a chunk for myself. 

Grate your cheese! I like LOTS of cheese.

Add cracked pepper and salt to taste and let the mixture cook down a bit more until nice and thick. 

I tossed the ardent pasta right into the skillet after we turned off the heat.

Give a quick mix and added some more pepper and cheese. 

You want the Alfredo thick and not watery. If it is too watery you didn't cook it long enough. 

Top with some thick slivers of cheese and some fresh cracked pepper (I like pepper) and enjoy!

This was really simple and I enjoyed it. Next time I believe I will add some garlic to the green onion for a bit of a twang. I don't want it to caramelize though because I want that fresh garlic taste. I'm open for suggestions though. 

Kudos entirely to the girl! 

4 Days till Korea!

Eat watermelon, sneak that midnight snack and remember to drink lots of water!

Something Fishy

When I got back this past weekend from my cousins wedding I was greeted with a wonderful text message. "Guess what I got us!!" and curiously I wondered and guessed. (all wrong) until finally my tormented gave up. "I got us salmon!" and instantly I remembered why I love her so much.

So thus dinner was a few days ago but I was very busy writing a paper as well had a little accident where I pulled a muscle in my back/neck picking up some heavy boxes at work. Health services was FUN. (NOT) So this post is a bit late, sorry!

This is my friends FAVORITE rice, she makes it all the time and it's wonderful!

Read the directions! Cup and a fourth of water.

                  Add the packet of the rice into the water and turn it up to high. 

 Add the seasoning packet to the water as well and give it a good stir. The secret to good rice is actually doing nothing at all. Just leave it and turn the heat down until the water sinks below the rice and then give it a bit of a stir. 

 It smelled heavenly!

 This is a salmon steak for one or two, my friend and I split it. Add salt, pepper, a dash of soy sauce and a little brown sugar. (Lemon doesn't hurt at all either.)

Bake for about 10 minutes in the over on about 350

 Ok, I admit it, I love broccoli! Even if its frozen :P

 Add water and toss it in the microwave.

 When it's half done just add a little bit of butter and put it back in the microwave. When it's done drain the water and excess melted butter and add some salt and pepper.

Arrange it all nice and pretty on the plate. My friend and I split the salmon, which was more than enough for the both of us since it was so thick. 

I really loved this, it was healthy, delicious, and devoured. 

What I would do different:

Um, not much. 

Fresh broccoli would have been nice. 

Band of the meal:

Maroon 5

Enjoy! 

Amtrak Bento

Well I'm finally on my way back from what was and interesting weekend to say the least. My cousins wedding was absolutely spectacular in every sense of the word. Although I really expect nothing less from a Vera Wang bride. The food was out of this world. And I completely broke tradition and wore a long white gown. (the only one out of 200 people)People stared. Some were in shock. And my cousin was madly in love with it told me how much we needed photos of us.

Anyway onto today's bento breakfast/lunch.

I wanted a bit more snack than food because I'm on a train for over 6 hours I'd love to munch a bit more on pretzels and cucumbers than something heavy.

That's 12 grain bread with low sodium turkey and horseradish mustard
Snyder's pretzel sticks
Cut up cucumbers and carrots.

Of course all with the clean canteen full of water.

Song of the day is Generator. By Freelance Whales.

And the movie of the trip is Beauty and The Beast. :3 I'm a big kid at heart. I love this movie.

Thursday & Friday Bento

So on Thursday I had a test. And essay due. And a debate presentation which I was elected to speak for. (yey me) so I decided to pack myself a nice lunch even though I didn't get to eat it until classes were over and I was sprinting to my bike to get to work. Real women bike in skirts. Short ones. Ha ha I just sit on the back of it, but with the Chipotle hat and aviators I bet people were confused.

Casher butter and smuckers grape jelly on whole wheat cracked oat bread

Green grapes

Leftover spagetti from tuesday nights mildly planned dinner

Now I'm updating this from my phone because I'm still on my 6 hour train ride back home to attend a wedding. So I thought it would behoove me to pack a lunch and not have to pay Amtrak more money for over priced bad food.

Grapes
Annie's Organic Cheedar bunnies
Annies Organic Cheesy bunny Mac and Cheese

Plus there is a clean canteen full of water. :D Eco awesome FTW.

Thank you iPhone for the ability to post via anywhere.

Have a good one. And the music of the day is everything that's been playing on my iPod for the last 5 hours non stop.


Oh yes. And Dear Sarah.
Thank you for feeding my soy milk double chocolate chip frappachino with whipped cream addiction this morning at Starbucks. <3 (Yes thats a reusable cup that I draw all over with window markers)

A Mildly Planned Meal

This is a day late but thats the life of a college student I suppose.

My roommate came home with a whole bag of fresh still in the husk white sweet corn. (I think I nearly died of happiness) I ADORE sweet corn, and fresh from the stand is even better! So I decided to try and make some kind of meal that we could have the corn with.

My two trusty friends and I set to work (The third was on RA duty and we brought her, her meal at the front desk), we took a quick trip to one of the campus stores to pick up some of those handy skinless bones frozen chicken breasts. (It sounds absolutely terrible I know.) This fed over 4 people and had at LEAST another serving which I packed a bit if it for lunch. (I'll post that later)

So here is where it started:

Whole wheat spaghetti
2 Boneless, skinless Chicken breasts
Half of a white onion
About 5 medium sized regular mushrooms
Any type of red pasta sauce
Oregano
Basil
Garlic powder
Parsley
Salt
Cracked pepper
Tablespoon butter

It took my two friends to husk 4 ears of corn, I'm not sure why it was such a complicated job but it was pretty funny. It's kind of funny the GUY was the one taking his time.

Some of the corn had to be trimmed because there were brown spots on the ends or some dried up kernels. I then cut them in half to boil.

Finely chop the half of onion, if you like your onion pieces larger thats ok too but it takes longer to caramelize. I just roughly chopped the mushrooms. (And had to stop myself from eating the pieces as I worked.)

Toss a tablespoon of butter into a cast iron pan, you can use pretty much any other kind of oil you want but I like to add to the seasoning of my pan. She is my baby and I make everything in her. (Sounds dirty) Boil water for the pasta and another smaller pot for the corn.

My friends hands sure are lovely as she chopped up the chicken, I suggest thinner and shorter strips since they will be easier to eat and cook.

As she chopped I tossed the onions into the skillet first, once they were about halfway done I tossed in the mushrooms and waited until they were halfway done before I tossed in some salt and pepper.

Pasta is done!! Whole wheat pasta takes a bit longer than normal pasta so I suggest being careful and testing it out as you go. We made the whole box because we knew it would be eaten.

Toss the chicken in and season with Oregano, basic, garlic powder, salt, pepper, and a little parsley to taste. (It SMELLED amazing) Usually I toss the sauce directly into the skillet because if you are using jared sauce I suggest playing around with the taste. I love to modify the sauce, I love to make homemade sauce more. But I wanted to try something different.

We served massive potions because we were all starving/drooling. This is after I poured the sauce directly into the pasta and then put the chicken, onion, mushroom mixture into the pasta as well and gave it a good mix.

Boil corn (What else is there to say?) I add a bit of salt to the water. It takes about 8-10 min depending on the type or corn and how in season it is.

I love corn on the cob, this was just teasing me.

I love my pasta with extra cracked pepper on top, and of course some (a ton) parmesan cheese has to be added as well. I suggest you pull out the grater and get it off the block but if you can't obviously any store brand works. Also I noticed now I didn't put the second ear of corn that I ate on there... It was delicious!

The decision was unanimous: MMMMMMMMMmmmmmMMmmmMmmm <-- In that order.

What I would do different:
I would have added fresh chopped garlic to the caramelizing pan
Used homemade tomato sauce
Put the sauce in the cast iron like I usually do
And have my friends roommate make her homemade bread. (Its to DIE for people, there will be a post on it.)

I hope you enjoyed some college family dinner time!

Band of the meal: Maroon 5 (We were singing as I took photos.)


******** BENTO LUNCH **********

I tossed together some of the pasta leftovers from dinner as seen above ^
Added some stolen dining hall carrots I acquired yesterday.
As well as half a whole grain oat bread sandwich with Smuckers grape jelly and organic cashew butter. (I like strange things I know)

By the way I eat the pasta with the little mini chopsticks the bento gives me. It's just highly amusing.

If you have any questions, concerns, trepidations or comments don't hesitate to ask!

Peace Out All

-Silver
<3

Bento Lunch

Its been 3 weeks since I got back to University, besides a few social thwarts life has just been peachy. Together with my friends we have created "Family dinner time" Where we all bring something to a meal and sit down together and enjoy. We eat a LOT of pasta.

I am the advocate for vegetables, although we cook for a few vegetarians (they surprisingly don't go for that many veggies) I think veggies should be in every meal. I'm a strange college student I know.

I leave for a wedding tomorrow, which poses to be a fun 6-7  hour drive.... And somehow I have a feeling my friend that is driving is going to be stopping at the cheapest and fastest places to get food... I'm going to twitter photos. I do that.

Recipes and photos to come about the meals you wish you had as a college student. It kind of rocks going to an environmental school.

The farmers markets here are about to explode with apples, pumpkins, corn and deliciousness. I'm going to go go broke buying all the wonderful local fall goodies. But don't worry, you will get the amazing photos.

Today I regale you with my packed lunch for Tuesdays & Thursdays. I picked up this bento box at an Anime convention, it's a kids one but it's cute!

We have:
Annie's Organic Cheesy Bunnies Mac and Cheese
Snack: Annie's Organic Cheddar Bunnies (When I can steal apples from the dining hall I have them indeed)
And A Smuckers Grape Jelly and Organic Peanut Butter half sandwich. (One pieces of bread folded over)
By the way I eat the Mac and cheese with the chopsticks that are given to me that fit inside the lid. It's a great amusement to every around me in class apparently.

Music of the day: Adele's: Make You Feel my Love.

End Of The Summer

Ok so it's the end of my summer and I'm down about 11 lbs from my original weight. Excited yes, so I'm taking this victory in stride.

Now since I've been home for the summer I feel like I have an easier time controlling what I eat. Working at a Chipotle and still losing weight is good for your resolve. (I work 5 days a week and pack a lunch about 4 days a week)

I'm currently the appointed cook of my friends on the floor I live on back at the dorms, this summer though I acquired a ton of healthy recipes and cookbooks. My goal is to cook and have my friends never know that the delicious food that they are eating is actually good for them.

Going to an Environmental College has it's perks, our markets are filled with organic and locally grown foods which I LOVE. At first I was thinking about ditching my meal plan all together, I can't stand eating their oil dripping, heavy food anymore. (When I get back to school I promise to take photos) BUT our school has a huge Vegan/Vegetarian population so there is usually a whole section of delicious foods. (Sometimes, other times the food is terrible or non existent) I wont give up yet on the meal plan altogether, so I bought the 10 meal plan.

This blog will be full of shenanigans and random cooking fun that only crazy Environmental students can have.

If you have any good recipes or healthy cookbooks to share just let me know!!!