Peanut butter oatmeal breakfast bars

I got home from work last Friday without any plans, and when I saw this recipe by Emily from Sweet to the Soul, baking sounded like the perfect thing to do with my Friday evening.

I've now made these breakfast bars twice, and both times they were great!  I didn't have any dark chocolate chunks either time, so I used semi-sweet chocolate chips instead.

The second time I made this recipe, I decided to try a mashed banana instead of the applesauce to add some banana-y flavor to the already great combination of peanut butter and chocolate.  The blending of the three flavors is awesome.  And if you haven't had a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich with slices of banana in between, you should go try that right now.  It's great, as are these cookies, I mean, breakfast bars!

Yogurt or Cream Cheese Frosting Filled Strawberries

The other day ChocolateCoveredKatie posted a very simple recipe for Yogurt Filled Strawberries that would be great for a dorm room!  This recipe only requires a few ingredients and tools and is very quick to make.


Tools:
knife
plastic bag
scissors

First, I set out all of my ingredients.  I decided to try both yogurt and some leftover cream cheese frosting as fillings and cocoa powder and cinnamon as toppings.

Then I washed the strawberries.  I like doing this by soaking them in a bowl of water, but you can just as easily rinse them under running water.

A new pasta recipe!

I have now finished my junior year!  This past semester was difficult for me (for non-school related reasons), and I have to say I'm glad it's over.  School-wise I'm doing well and am so happy that I find myself in a major that is great for me!  One of my personal goals for this past semester was to make more of my own food / try new recipes.  That didn't happen as much as I had hoped.  (Nor did posting on this blog.)  Now that summer is here once again, I am going to try to post and make new recipes more often!


Here is one recipe that I made up this past semester that turned out great!  I love pasta, so I searched online for some new recipes, and then combined some of the ideas I found.  I was still living in a dorm, so my requirements for a recipe reflect that.  It must only contain spices I have or would use often enough that I will buy them, only require simply ingredients and preparation, and only require ingredients that I can buy in quantities small enough that I can use all of what I buy in the dish or in something else easy before it goes bad.  For example, when I bought spinach for this recipe, I used the leftovers on sandwiches or in salads along with the tomatoes and feta cheese.

Save Money When Buying Textbooks

Before every semester starts, I and many other college students need to buy textbooks for their new classes.  There are many options for how to obtain your textbooks and these vary some by school.  Below are some methods to help you save money and/or time finding your textbooks along with what I have found to work best for me.


1.  See if your school has a program through which you can rent your textbooks.  One of my friends pays a small fee along with her tuition in order to be able to borrow every textbook she needs for each semester.  They are guaranteed to have the necessary textbooks and she can write in them as much as she wants as long as the books are still intact and legible when she returns them.  She even has  found that sometimes past users of the books have highlighted the most important parts.

2.  Check out the textbooks your on campus bookstore has.  At my school as a freshman you can sign up for a program to receive all of the books you need for the upcoming semester.  No matter how many times you swap classes, when you go to pick up your box, they will have the books you need.  You can also select whether you have a preference for new or used books.  After your freshman year, you can still buy books from the store and have them gathered together for you, but you must pick out the specific books that you are buying.  At any time in the first few weeks you can return some of your books if you have dropped the class for which they were needed.  In my case buying books from the campus bookstore is a time and stress saver, but is far from the most frugal choice.

LDOC and Explosions

Happy LDOC!  LDOC = Last Day Of Classes (for the semester), in case you were curious.  Actually, LDOC was a few days ago, but with college schedules differing so much, perhaps it is someone's LDOC.

And now it's time for a story.  Let's set the stage.  My roommate and I have bunked our beds together and the ladder that I use is next to our mini-fridge.  We use the space (about 2.5 ft high) under my roommate's bed for storage.  The floor is cleared in the space in front of the mini-fridge except for my roommate's bag containing holiday gift bags, etc. and some expired orange juice and an expired individual serving of chocolate milk that had been removed to make more space in the fridge.

I was studying for finals and reclining on the couch, facing the fridge.  I could not see the floor due to the armrest.  So there I was, minding my own business, and something explodes.  My first thought was that it was a party popper or something that my roommate had that just went off randomly.  It even threw things, maybe confetti, in the air!  And that's kind of cool and exciting.  

But the truth was neither cool nor exciting.  I stood up to find the once full chocolate milk bottle leaning on its side above a puddle of soured milk.  The souring milk had released enough gas to build up enough pressure in the plastic bottle for the bottom to pop outwards and the cap to fly off.  The "confetti" had been drops and chunks of milk.  Yuck!

So instead of continuing to study, I rushed to move things out from under the bed, where a significant amount of the milk was.  Then I was faced with cleaning up the rest of the mess.  While spilled milk might not be something to cry over, exploded soured milk might be.  Phew, the smell of it!  Even after soaking it all up and taking everything to the dumpster outside, the whole room smelled awful.  So I wiped the area down with some lemon scented wipes, which masked the smell some, but left our floor very sticky.  After about a day I wiped down the area again with just water to remove the stickiness and any remaining weird combination of smells.  Overall, wouldn't it have been much better to just take the expired milk to the dumpster in the first place?  Oh yes, a thousand times yes.

Updates and Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal (Boatmeal)

Sometimes when reading a post on a blog that I haven't read much or at all before, I'll check out the author's "About" section.  And sometimes even after reading only a few posts, I can tell that it hasn't been updated for a while.  The poor, neglected "About" section.  And what about us new readers?  But don't worry, if I can tell that the section might be a bit off, it's probably because the content of the posts is really rich.  So I just move on and read more posts. :)

And even though I've noticed things like this, somehow I let my "About" section become outdated.  However, there is not really much there.  But hey, I'm a junior now, not a sophomore, so I guess that's exciting. :)  Okay, and now for something much more interesting: Boatmeal!

This is another great (and easy!) recipe from Chocolate Covered Katie.  Baked Oatmeal = Boatmeal.  Since it is now definitely fall, I decided I wanted to make something with pumpkin in it, and this was a really easy way to do so.  I increased the size of the recipe (and the ingredients proportionally) and made my boatmeal in a 2-cup class container.  When I got back to my dorm room, I shared it with two of my friends.  I had bought a pack of about 10 small single-serving vanilla ice creams, so we each had the perfect amount of ice cream to go along with the pumpkin boatmeal.  Delicious!

My lunch plans are boring.

I basically eat from the same set of options each week.  Sometimes I'll have a salad.  I'll have sandwiches with meat and cheese and sometimes tomato or mustard several days of the week.  And of course sides of whatever fruit/chips/other snack-y items I have that week.  And that's pretty boring.  I don't care, but it's not really worth talking about.

What I do enjoy talking about are the special things I do each week.  For example, last weekend a friend and I made pizzas!  We bought pre-made crusts for simplicity and topped them with spaghetti sauce, cheese, pepperoni, and some leftover tomato slices I had.  And of course we added garlic and basil to both pizzas and a small about of crushed red pepper flakes to a small test section.  Yum!  Simple cooking fun with a friend!

And then sometimes I come up with new ideas to make my life simpler/easier.  Usually I buy fruits and vegetables on the weekend and then prepare them when I want them.  So for my first sandwich of the week, I might wash and slice a tomato and store the remaining slices for the rest of the week.

But I don't always have enough time to both prep and eat lunch, so I would just skip on the tomato on Monday...and again on Tuesday...and so on.  So it might be Thursday before I start enjoying some (or most) of the food that I had bought the previous Saturday.  And sometimes food goes bad. :(

So this week I did something different.  I prepared everything on Sunday night.  This mostly involved washing and chopping.  I chopped up my peach, nectarine, and mango and put them in single serving containers.  It was so easy to just grab one of these to eat in between classes!  I also prepared my cucumber and tomato for a cucumber, tomato, and feta salad.  And I chopped the bad ends of the beans so that when I wanted to cook them later in the week it would require less of a time commitment.  And they were so good!

But this method does have a major drawback: sometimes produce isn't quite ripe enough when one buys it.  And even though my mango wasn't quite ripe, I decided to prepare it.  That was not the best decision.  Some of it was good.  But most of it was crunchy.  Yuck.  So, I might have to amend my plans for this weekend.  But the general idea still turned out to be a good one for me.

What ideas have you tried to make your cooking simpler/easier?  How did they work out?

Food plans for the week of 9/9/13

Once again, here are my lunch plans for the coming week.  I did not eat very many frozen meals last week due to attending many welcome events for different clubs offering free pizza and/or other food.  Thus, I still would like to have some more containers and freezer space before I make anything too serious.  Last week I did make some squash (with basil and garlic, yum!), so I will eat the remaining portions of it sometime this week.  Once again, breakfasts will be fairly simple.



Every day: Options of dried apricots, cranberries, veggie chips, applesauce, peaches, etc.


M:
lunch: salad using leftover tomato, cucumber, and greens from last week

Food plans for the week of 8/26/13

Once again, here are my lunch plans for the coming week.  I did not eat very many frozen meals last week due to attending many welcome events for different clubs offering free pizza and/or other food.  Thus, I still would like to have some more containers and freezer space before I make anything to serious.  Last week I did make some squash (with basil and garlic, yum!), so I will eat the remaining portions of it sometime this week.  Once again, breakfasts will be fairly simple.



Every day: Options of dried apricots, cranberries, veggie chips, applesauce, peaches, etc.


M:
lunch: salad using leftover tomato, cucumber, and greens from last week

FDOC, getting into classes, and how to make an awkward salad

Happy FDOC (First Day of Classes)!

Here's a quick note/reminder that if you really want to get in to a class, but it is full, attend the first class and then go talk to the professor/TA teaching it afterward.  One of my friends asked today about a class that he had been hoping to get in, starting, "Hi, I'm currently on the wait list...", to which the instructor responded, "Not anymore you aren't!  Let me get your name and student number, and I'll make sure that you are added."  Awesome-sauce!  It's not always this easy, but sometimes it is.  And it never hurts to try.  :)

And here is how to make an awkward salad.  I was super excited about my cucumber, tomato, and feta cheese salad.

First cut the cucumber and add it to your salad bowl.  I used half of a cucumber. 

Food plans for the week of 8/19/13

I moved back to college!  And now that I am living in a dorm again, I'm dealing with the challenges of cooking and eating in a dorm.  I thought it could be helpful to see how I prepare for making food for the coming week.  (And it is helpful for me to consolidate my plans in one place.)  This week I will just show what I'm doing for lunch, as it will require more work than breakfast or dinner this week.  (I brought a lot of frozen meals from home, so I will be eating those for dinner some this week.  I need the container and freezer space before I can make more food.  Other than that I will eat out with friends for dinner. For breakfast I will probably have fruit of some kind (applesauce or peaches, probably) and a bagel or some toast.  Oh, or I could have some oatmeal or dry cereal.)  Also, I'm more flexible about when I eat what than the schedule might imply, but by scheduling my meals, I can make sure I get enough food (but not too much) from the grocery store this weekend.



Every day: Options of dried apricots, cranberries, veggie chips, etc.

Monday:
-Tasks: Slice tomato and keep 2-3 slices.  Dice the rest.  Store in container(s).
-Eat: Sandwich - lunch meat and cheese, sliced tomato, and mustard

Restaurant to dorm?

Today I went out to lunch with a good friend, and we went to a crêpe place.  Yum!  It was so good.  We both ended up creating our own crêpes, though their listed options looked really good, too.  I ordered mine with chicken, feta cheese, avocado, spinach, tomato, and olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  It was really good!  And it felt kind of healthy.  So as we were finishing our food, I thought that this would be really nice to have in college.

Now that I'm home from work, I'm thinking about how this would work out.  I obviously can't make crêpes in my dorm.  (Okay, I guess I've made crêpes at home before.  But still, it would require too much time.)  I could try to make a sandwich with these ingredients.  And I could substitute sliced chicken or turkey for the cubes of chicken that I had today.  Or, I could make a kind of salad in proportions similar to those in the crêpe today.  Oh, and I could add cucumber and/or onion.   Mmm.  That sounds good.

Walk your schedule

You know, I don't know if this is a commonly used phrase or not.  My friends and I use it.  So just in case you aren't familiar with it, "walking your schedule" consists of leaving your dorm/apartment/house and walking to each of your classrooms in order before the first day of class.

Why would I do this?  I know where the buildings are.  Yeah, but my question is: do you know where the classrooms are?  Do you know where the stairs in the building are?  Do you know the door to the building that is closest to your previous class?

Enough of the questions.  Below are four reason why I suggest walking your schedule.


1.  You need to know where the classroom is.  You will be having class there, and I'm hoping you will be attending.  :)  Look at a campus map or online to find the building if you need to.  If the semester starts in the middle of a week, I've often found that the buildings are unlocked starting on Monday.  The professors do need to be able to prepare for the first day.  And if you can't get inside, at least you will know where the building is and how long it takes to get to and from there.

Back-to-school! Preparation for college and moving

Whether in grade school or college, I have always found the back-to-school preparations fun.  I get to plan how I will organize the necessary papers for my classes, prepare for learning new things, and much more.  Many people starting college will move away from home to live in a dorm or an apartment closer to their school.  And since most of us have never had the need for extra-long twin sheets (among other things) before college, this means some shopping.  So today I thought I would share some tips and some helpful websites.  I may add some to this list, and feel free to share your own advice in the comments!

+ Many stores have special ads for moving to college.  These can help give you ideas of what you might want or simply style ideas.  For example, see Target's college section, Walmart's college section, and Bed, Bath, and Beyond's college section.

+ Fun fact about Bed, Bath, and Beyond: if you sign up for coupons/emails, they will send you 20% off one item coupons every once in a while, and sometimes $5 off coupons.  Even though their 20% off coupons have an expiration date, BB&B accepts expired coupons.  (This might hold true for the $5 off ones, too.  I can't remember.)  So when I bought things for college, I brought a bunch of 20% off coupons with me.  You can only apply one coupon per item, but that's still pretty good.

Doing the math...on meal plans

Figuring out what meal plan to get or whether to have a meal plan at all can be a little tricky, especially if you have never had a meal plan before.  As I mentioned in a previous post, when I looked at my meal plan and other food expenses after the fall of my sophomore year, I decided to drop the meal plan altogether.

To evaluate everything, I wanted to figure out exactly how much I was spending on different things.  I double-checked the cost of the meal plan online and then looked through credit card bills to see how much I was eating out and buying groceries.

(Note that food costs will be different for different people.  Costs can be affected by the region in which you live.  Costs will also depend on what types of food you buy.  For example, buying organic foods will cost a lot more than Ramen.)

For the fall of 2012, I spent approximately $1240 on food.  The actual amount was slightly higher, as I took some groceries from home.  The $1240 was divided up approximately as:
Groceries: ~$280
Eating out on or off campus: ~$260
Dining Hall: ~$700 (I got the "Block 120" meal plan, which cost $1128, but then swiped in a friend for meals for which he repaid me.  We agreed upon this at the beginning of the semester, as I knew I wouldn't eat 120 meals in the dining hall.)

Homemade Hotpockets

I found these sometime during last semester and had been looking forward to trying them.  Within the past two weeks, I've made these twice.  They are easy to make and turn out wonderfully!  They aren't quite dorm friendly.  If I did decide to make them during the school year, I could go ahead and measure (and maybe mix) the dry ingredients.  All I would have to add would be yeast and water.  Another option would be to make and then roll out the dough and freeze it.  Then all I would have to do is thaw them and add ingredients for the filling.

Below is the recipe for the dough, which I found at ABeautifulRuckus.com.  The fillings that I suggest are combinations that I've already tried.  Feel free to suggest new ideas!


Dough:
Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1/4 cup dry milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 Tbsp yeast
1 cup warm water (not hot)
extra flour for helping the dough not stick when you roll it out

Dressing Correctly - Business Casual

As I mentioned in my previous post, I just got an internship.  (Yay!)  I was told to wear business casual.  This term probably covers the widest range of clothes.  In some cases, this could be fairly casual khaki pants and a nice blouse, but in other companies this could mean just a step down from a full suit.

At school, I pretty much wear jeans and t-shirts all the time.  I decided I needed to do some research to figure out what would be good for the office and look appropriate for someone my age.  Below are some of the helpful sites that I found.  I was looking for things that would be stylish, without being too fashionable for me.  For example, my shoes are simple classic black heels that have a rounded toe.  None of this fashionable extremely-pointy-toe and excessively-high-heel business for me!  So the sites listed here are based on that side of shopping: practical, but still attractive pieces.  I also expanded it to include ideas for men.  Maybe I'll be able to expand this list in the future.  Feel free to comment with your suggestions!


Young, Polished, and Professional - This is a wonderful site.  It offers great tips for someone just starting his or her career or a new job.  The author wrote a post that was very appropriate for me: a business casual starter kit.  As I mentioned before, I'd been wearing mostly jeans and t-shirts.  I had some nicer clothes, but not too many pieces that would qualify as business casual.  The post gave me great ideas about certain pieces I should make sure I have, like a cardigan that goes with multiple outfits.  (Cardigans are also great, because, even though it's summer, the office is still very cold sometimes.)

Corporette - I have spent less time here.  It seems to offer some good advice, but is focused on a older and/or more fashion savvy demographic than mine.  This site did have a good, light-hearted post about proper etiquette during your summer internship.

Dappered - I'm not familiar with this site, but found an article about how to look good in the required dress code that could be otherwise downright boring or ugly.  For example, "pleats on pants worn on the hips are pointless.  Like trailer hitch on a Geo Metro pointless."

_______.edu - If you are in college, check out your college's career page.  They will likely have a good section on what types of clothes fall into the various workplace dress codes.  In my initial searches I found several other colleges' sites to also provide good advice.


And to close, here is an article on Forbes.com about how wide the spectrum of business casual can be.  Because of this huge range, I recommend paying attention to what the people around you are wearing during your first week of working.  If you have enough clothes to get by for a few days, but still need to fill out your wardrobe some, waiting a few days could help you have a much better idea of what is expected and appropriate.


Update: This article was published today and touched on the same topic.  It also appears to feature clothes meant more for winter.

Getting an internship

Starting in January (or maybe earlier), I had been looking for internships.  I didn't make too much progress during the semester, though, as schoolwork always took priority.  But since early May, I've been putting a lot more time into the search.  And now I have an internship!  I am very, very grateful for this opportunity.

So what does this mean for the blog?  Well, I started this both for the enjoyment of it and to do something productive with my summer.  I had been posting every other day, which worked well when my schedule did not contain many other commitments.  But when working a normal working week, I doubt that I will be able to keep that up.  So now I plan to post at least once a week, and anything beyond that will just be a bonus. :)

Homemade Peanut Butter Bars

I found this recipe for peanut butter protein bars on Chocolate Covered Katie's blog and it sounded wonderful.  It has only a few ingredients and very simple directions.  I was looking for something like a granola bar, not a protein bar.  Also, I don't have any special protein powder.  So instead I replaced the protein powder with chocolate-flavored Carnation Instant Breakfast.  I haven't put the full recipe on this page per Chocolate Covered Katie's request, but here is the recipe and below are pictures and notes about my experience making these yummy peanut butter bars.  Next time I make them, I will try covering them or mixing in them mini chocolate chips and/or crushed pretzels.


Tools:
-two bowl
-spoon(s)
-knife
-gallon-sized plastic bag
-rolling pin (optional, as you could flatten it with your hands...or a textbook)
-1/4 and 1/2 cups
-1/4 teaspoon
-1 tablespoon

I first gathered the necessary ingredients and tools.

Quesadillas and Pizza-dillas

Based on the things I've posted on this blog so far, you might think that I cook almost every night and make rather complicated meals (for a dorm).  This is not the case!  I really enjoy cooking, whether I make a family favorite recipe or try something new.  But I do not have nearly enough time to cook more than a few times a month.  So today I will share one of the simplest things that I make: quesadillas.  (In my book, making a quesadilla does not count towards the number of times I cook in a month.  But that's just my standard.)

To make a quesadilla, you just need 1 or 2 tortillas, some cheese, a microwave, and a plate or paper towel on which to set the quesadilla.  Sprinkle the first tortilla with cheese.  Then either fold the tortilla in half or top with another tortilla.  Microwave for about 45 seconds or until the cheese is melted in the center.  Enjoy!

(I realize most people probably know how to make quesadillas.  But just in case you don't, I don't want you to be left out from experiencing the yummy simplicity that is a quesadilla.)

After a year of enjoying quesadillas as a quick snack, I discovered pizza-dillas.  Yeah, I totally just made that name up.  I had a lot of pasta sauce, and freshman year was almost over, so I decided to try some of it with cheese and a tortilla.  (I had to get rid of everything in my fridge and let it defrost, so anything I didn't eat I would have to throw away.)  And voilà!  The pizza-dilla was born.

To make a pizza-dilla, put a tortilla on a plate (or paper towel).  Then spread pasta sauce (or pizza sauce) over the tortilla.  Next sprinkle cheese on top.  If you have pepperoni or some other meat or some chopped veggies, feel free to add those, too.  Note, however, that tortillas are very thin and don't support much weight.  So if you add even just a few toppings, your pizza-dilla might be very messy to eat.  Then microwave it for about 45 seconds or until the cheese is melted.  To eat this, I find that it is more managable (and fun) to cut the pizza-dilla into slices like you would a pizza.

What toppings would you enjoy on a pizza-dilla?