College Cookbook

[NiX]

I've moved away for College and need to start making shit for myself. Since the gym is part of my tuition whether I like it or not, so I'm using it. Of course to make it work I have to actually eat REAL food. Not canned stuff or whatever I can throw in a microwave. I know people like VD are very apt at cooking, but I'm sure there are others. Especially those that went through something like what I'm doing.

I'll try anything once, so post any and all recipes you have. Just remember I'm going for relatively cheap and good.

[Murgos]

So, to put on muscle mass at a good rate I've read that you should drink a sports drink within 5 minutes of finishing your workout and then a meal with a good mix of carbs and protein about 2 to 2.5 hours after (like, you know, a sandwich).  It's not that hard, making your workout into a chore is what keeps most people from doing it so don't make a chore out of it.

In a year or so go read up on advanced nutrition for a workout, that's when you will need it.  Not now, not when you are just getting started.

[NiX]

I'm still looking to eat more than canned crap. I'm 5'6" and weigh about 115. 120 on a good day.

[Samwise]

What sort of cooking facilities do you have at your disposal?  Most of my recipes from college involve a microwave, but that's because that's the only cooking implement I had in my room.

[dusematic]

Dude, how serious about lifting are you?  Are you just trying to be healthy or are you prepared to make the  significant lifestyle changes that are necessary to get diesel?

[NiX]

I'm just staying healthy and gaining a bit of muscle. Mostly for hockey, but I'm still not looking to go nuts with it. I have access to a stove and microwave.

[CmdrSlack]

There are some decent cookbooks out there for newbie cooks, and it may be rather useful to you to get a couple.  Most people I know that cook a lot tended to start out with recipes and then learned to modify them or make their own as a result.

Here's two books that my mom gave me when I started college -- they were both rather useful, even though I'd already been cooking for myself for a few years.  They did make the transition from shitty processed foods to real food easier, however.

The Healthy College Cookbook

Help!  My Apartment Has A Kitchen!

The second book is great because it has a list of kitchen supply staples that you should never be without.  If you have beans, rice and spices, you have a meal in about 30 minutes.  Add some veggies into the mix and you're even eating a relatively balanced meal. 

ETA --- Just saw that you have access to a stove.  How are you on pots and pans and stuff?  I have some great recipes for easy soups and chili and stews and whatnot, but they always work out to be huge batches.  Huge batches are great if you can freeze or refrigerate your food -- cook one day, eat for three and all that.

[sinij]

1) Cook pasta, add 1/2 large can of crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, can of tuna in oil, green onions
2) Ground beef, egg, green peppers - mix together and fry occasionally steering with rice

Having deep fryer, rice cooker and any BBQ will save you tons of money. Get them ASAP.

[Johny Cee]

The Healthy College Cookbook

Heh.

My mother gave this one to my brother when he started grad school.  Glanced at the back of the book,  and the three authors graduated from Williams about the same time I did.

[Yoru]

I learned to cook the hard way - by assuming a role as the "guy who cooks" for a couple people when we all moved into a house together. I do not recommend this, although it does produce enduring comedy (after the fact). A cookbook, or at least an internet site with lots of recipes, is your friend. Eventually you will get a sense of what will taste good together after it's cooked, but you don't want to be eating reduced-wine-thickened-with-cornstarch sauce on top of your pasta until you get there.

If you can swing it, and your dorm allows it, consider getting an electric grill (e.g. George Foreman grill). Tossing some meat on there and boiling up some pasta/rice or microwaving a potato makes a decent meal without too much prep time/space needed. Most are nonstick too, so they're easy to keep clean (just make damn sure you clean it after each use).

One of my staples, though it's really bad for you and will eventually kill you, was to brown ground beef in a skillet, add some chopped onions (and other veggies, to taste), and then an appropriate proportion of water and rice (check the rice package for the right ratio). Bring the water to a boil, reduce heat to lowest setting, cover for 30-45 minutes or until the rice is tender. The rice sucks up all the flavor (and beef grease :( ) and it's pretty hard to fuck up (unless you burn it). Real easy to prepare (especially in large portions).

Another tip, but this depends on your local supermarket. My college supermarket would sell its butcher-counter meats at a significantly reduced prices after about 10 PM, which fit nicely with the screwed-up college circadian rhythm of going to sleep at 5 AM every day; so, we'd go there and buy a boatload of decent (85-90% lean) ground beef for excellent prices - just freeze it or cook it immediately after getting home.

Also, learn to make soups/stews. They're also pretty easy once you get the hang of, especially once you learn the proportion of water to solid stuff, and what things dissolve in water to give The Flava. If you have access to an electric stewpot, you're golden, since you can set your next day's meals up to cook the night before. You're a northman like me, so you know how hot slurpy food is awesome in the cold. Internet/cookbook to start with on these as well.

[CmdrSlack]

internet site with lots of recipes

Like this one

[NiX]

ETA --- Just saw that you have access to a stove.  How are you on pots and pans and stuff?

Great. I have access to pans and pots. Heck, I even have one of those grilled sandwich things. Also, I don't live on res. So, I'm constricted by all that crazy nonsense they go about because people are too stupid to not know when to turn something hot off. I rent a room in a house and I only have to cook for myself. I have a somewhat mini-fridge in my room. Take a normal fridge and shrink it a bit. So, I have the top freezer AND the bottom fridge without it being so damn big.

Right now I have breaded fish, ground beef, pasta, sauce, rice, canned stuff (stews, creamed corn, baby carrots, green beans), some of them sidekicks (mostly mashed potatoes, but I also have a garlic and herb pasta one), romaine salad (IN A BAG!) and that's about it for lunch/dinner style stuff. I'm told you can bulk up a bit by eating eggs on rice for breakfast. Is this good for me or would I be on the road to heart cloggery with that one?

[Zephyr]

Get a crockpot.  You can just mix all the stuff up in the morning before class and come back later to a meal ready to eat.  It helped me avoid a lot of fast food during school.

[Chenghiz]

Goons with Spoons has a useful collection of recipes as well, sometimes complete with photo walkthroughs.

[Sky]

Learn how to saute vegetables like onions and peppers. Garlic, too, but don't brown or overcook garlic because it gets bitter. With those three ingredients, italian cooking is open to you. Fry/broil/roast beef, chicken, pork, doesn't matter. Throw in some of those marinated diced tomatoes (like Del Monte with oregano, basil, garlic) and a small can of tomato paste and you've got pasta sauce. Riggies go a long way and sauce sticks to them good, don't overcook the pasta, though (Al Dente is not a mafioso).

Basically, the best thing to learn is how to make basic ingredients and then experiment with different combinations.

Like the aforementioned fried veggies...throw in a diced jalapeno. Cook up some meat, specifics don't matter. Heat up some refried beans, then melt some cheese on a torilla. Put veggies, beans, and meat on there and you've got filling burritos.

Recipes...they are just suggestions. Learn the core basics of food you like and you can make a variety of great dishes once you aren't afraid to experiment. Then you can move on to more advanced recipes like VL makes :) I'm no chef, just a cook!

[Sky]

Right now I have breaded fish, ground beef, pasta, sauce, rice, canned stuff (stews, creamed corn, baby carrots, green beans), some of them sidekicks (mostly mashed potatoes, but I also have a garlic and herb pasta one), romaine salad (IN A BAG!) and that's about it for lunch/dinner style stuff. I'm told you can bulk up a bit by eating eggs on rice for breakfast. Is this good for me or would I be on the road to heart cloggery with that one?

1. Once you use up the canned veggies, never buy them again (except tomatoes, because they can well imo). Canned beans and corn are a sad thing. Buy frozen. Much fresher and they retain more vitamins.

2. Mash your own taters. Peel and chop the taters, put in a pot with just enough water to cover them. Boil until fork-tender, drain. Throw in some butter, salt & pepper (get a pepper grinder!) to taste. Chopped bacon and sauteed garlic are some of my favorite additions. Easy and filling, and way better than the prepared stuff.

3. I don't buy the egg hype. Everything in moderation. Mix up breakfast, don't eat the same thing every day. Cereals are great, so is milk. Oats, too. Sprinkle in the hot breakfasts when you have time to make them.

I'm a little biased against 'easy fast' supermarket food, it doesn't take much longer to make things from scratch with a few shortcuts (like the canned diced tomatoes + paste), and it tastes a lot better imo. Most importantly, have fun!

[Engels]

One thing that always tastes awesome and saves a lot of time during a busy week is making a good batch of italian tomato sauce. Its dead simple, as well.

1 large can of prediced uncooked, skinned canned tomatoes. Trader joes has these.
1 small can of tomato paste
1 small jar of crushed garlic
1 onion
1 shallot
balsamic vinegar
olive oil
small bag of carrots
sugar
salt
small jar of oregano
small jar of basil

Put the tomatoes, tomato paste, spices (a teaspoon of each is good), a dollop of garlic, a splash of olive oil and 1/3 cup of vinegar in a pot that'll hold the contents. Stir, bringing this to a slow simmer. Add some water if it looks too thick. About 1 cup of water works for me.

Add 1/4 cup of sugar and about 1 regular sized carrot, cut in chunks (the carrots and sugar absorb the tomato's' acidity. Kills the sour while preserving the tang.

Chop the onions and shallots and brown them in a skillet with some olive oil. Takes about 15 minutes to brown them. Don't worry about undercooking them, but don't overcook them. The goal here is simply to give them a bit of the toasted onion flavor, not to actually precook them.

Add the shallots and onions to the sauce. Keep the sauce on a slow simmer for at least 2 hours. (very low heat, with just a small amount of bubbles rising to the surface).

If you want a 'fresh' tasting sauce, 2 hours is decent. If you want a more robust, thick sauce, do it for 4-8 hours. During this time you are going to want to add water to it as it cooks, the amount depending on how thick you want the sauce to be.

You can either eat the carrots or discard them. Purists insist that one must discard them after 2 hours, but the results are awesome either way.

If you want to get fancy, add a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg to the blend, but don't bother if you're going for the 4 hour sauce, since by that time the sauce has grown chest hair and will beat up your subtler spices into oblivion.

A good pot of this can last you the whole week, kept in Tupperware. Just use it on rice, pasta, polenta, etc.

If you're a meat eater, I recommend either baking or frying some sweet italian sausage separately. Cut 'em into meatball chunks and mix them in when you're adding the sauce to the pasta, rice, whatever. Never add meat to the above sauce during its cooking stage or you will just end up with a meat-flavored sauce, instead of a tomato sauce with meat.

[Signe]

That even sounds nice, although I'm not a fan of carrots.  You can also freeze sauce like that so nothing needs be wasted.

[Samwise]

If you're a meat eater, I recommend either baking or frying some sweet italian sausage separately. Cut 'em into meatball chunks and mix them in when you're adding the sauce to the pasta, rice, whatever. Never add meat to the above sauce during its cooking stage or you will just end up with a meat-flavored sauce, instead of a tomato sauce with meat.

Whaddya got against meat-flavored sauce?  (I always add the meat first thing.  MEAT SAUCE YUM.)

[CmdrSlack]

In the spirit of "take this stuff and add it to a pan and put on top of rice, pasta, etc.," I'll also add that you can make some very awesome thai/indian/other asian-ey type food with just a few extra ingredients. 

Get a garlic press if you're making pasta sauce and tons of other stuff.  Garlic presses are teh roxxor.

One thing I do is take a bunch of lentils (dry & then cooked are better, but take longer.  canned are ok, but too soft for my tastes), add carrots cut w/ a peeler (so, ribbons basically), celery, garlic, onion (red if I have it), curry powder/garam masala, cumin (not a ton), kosher salt (way better than iodized table salt), mustard powder, black pepper, and possibly a TINY bit of cayanne (like 1/8 tsp); add it all to a pot, let simmer for a good long while till stuff is soft and things have mixed well. 

I generally start with oil, garlic, then onion in a sautee pan.  I DO NOT let these veggies make a sizzling noise while I heat them, I try to sweat them instead, which seems to work better for my tastes.  I then add in the veggies to soften, then the lentils.  Sometime while the veggies are going, I will start adding spices, keeping the super powery ones for the last, after I've added the lentils.  I serve it all over rice, and it's darn good.  It lasts a while, and pretty much rules.  You can add other veggies and fungi to it if you like.

I also like to make this peanut sauce/peanut soup themed series of dishes that has several common elements.  My wife is a vegetarian, so I usually make this stuff with fake meat or cook some chicken or whatever on the side.  She does occasionally eat chicken broth (I make it myself, so I have no idea why she tolerates it in food, but she does), but not actual, solid meat.  At any rate, the basic "peanut sauce" thing is simply combining creamy peanut butter and coconut milk over heat.  I add other spices depending on what flavor I want.  Sometimes I use curry.  Sometimes I roast a sweet potato and some tomatoes, peel them, and add them to the mixture with some veggie/chicken broth and make a soup out of it.  Sometimes I use fake chicken or saitan or whatever (you could use real meat here, obviously), and make it more like a curry or even a spicy red pepper-y kind of flavor and serve it over rice or rice noodles. 

After you get the hang of recipes, experimenting rocks.  Heck, just using several recipes for a similar dish and hybridizing them into your own is a lot of fun.  Also, food network is good to watch for ideas from time to time.  Epicurean.com has a nice search function that allows you to search recipes based on an ingredient.  Want to see all the recipes that use plantains?  They can do that. 

[dusematic]

If you're serious about getting big, you need to eat big.  But unless you're also incorporating a high volume weight training regimen, it doesn't matter how much of what you eat.  Unless you're naturally athletic (and I think there is a preumption against that on this website) then if you want to bulk up, it's going to take a ton of hours grinding it out at the gym, and you're going to definitely want to up your protein intake.  How much exactly is up for debate.  Hardcore weight trainers regularly consume up to 400 grams of protein, but even 200 should be more than sufficient for your purposes.  Getting just 200 grams of protein isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.  I reccommend http://www.t-nation.com/index.do as a free online resource.  Alternating every 3 months between varying workout plans in their database has helped me tremendously.


For you I would reccommend doing basic workouts at the gym with light cardio until you have researched enough to forumulate or handpick a workout plan/diet that is right for you.

[Signe]

Be careful, though.  Gyms are full of nasty germs and icky diseases.  Make sure you scrub yourself with bleach after you get home.  We wouldn't want our little Nixel to fester!

[Murgos]

Be careful, though.  Gyms are full of nasty germs and icky diseases.  Make sure you scrub yourself with bleach after you get home.  We wouldn't want our little Nixel to fester!

Don't listen to her, the germs will only make you stronger.

[Sky]

Get a garlic press if you're making pasta sauce and tons of other stuff.  Garlic presses are teh roxxor.

No way, Jose! It's all about the knife skills. Just place the garlic under the flat of the knife and crush it, then dice it. For me it's about as fast as using a press...without a unitasker taking up space in my tiny tiny kitchen :) Peeling garlic will always be crappy, though. I've worked in enough Italian restaurants doing food prep to really hate peeling garlic. Or calimari or shrimp or...

[Samwise]

I agree, knife > press.  In the time it takes to scrape a clove of garlic out of a press you could have hacked up the entire bulb using a good knife.

I'd say a clove of garlic is easier to peel than almost any other vegetable - just squeeze and pull.  The small size of each clove is what makes it annoying if you have to do a lot of it.   

[WayAbvPar]

If you're serious about getting big, you need to eat big.  But unless you're also incorporating a high volume weight training regimen, it doesn't matter how much of what you eat.  Unless you're naturally athletic (and I think there is a preumption against that on this website) then if you want to bulk up, it's going to take a ton of hours grinding it out at the gym, and you're going to definitely want to up your protein intake.  How much exactly is up for debate.  Hardcore weight trainers regularly consume up to 400 grams of protein, but even 200 should be more than sufficient for your purposes.  Getting just 200 grams of protein isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.  I reccommend http://www.t-nation.com/index.do as a free online resource.  Alternating every 3 months between varying workout plans in their database has helped me tremendously.


For you I would reccommend doing basic workouts at the gym with light cardio until you have researched enough to forumulate or handpick a workout plan/diet that is right for you.

[SnakeCharmer]

Beer.

[stray]

(and I think there is a preumption against that on this website)

[dusematic]

Dammit, I hate when I misspell a word and then everyone quotes it, regardless of the reason they happen to be quoting it.

[CmdrSlack]

Get a garlic press if you're making pasta sauce and tons of other stuff.  Garlic presses are teh roxxor.

No way, Jose! It's all about the knife skills. Just place the garlic under the flat of the knife and crush it, then dice it. For me it's about as fast as using a press...without a unitasker taking up space in my tiny tiny kitchen :) Peeling garlic will always be crappy, though. I've worked in enough Italian restaurants doing food prep to really hate peeling garlic. Or calimari or shrimp or...

Dude, I partially disagree.  I also use a knife, but it depends on the nature of the use of the garlic.  I use a press when I really want the garlic oil to get super-worked into the sauce and I'm not going to sautee the garilc before it goes in.  I use a knife when I want to sautee the garlic.  I also use thin slices of garlic (without much crushing, if any) for some dishes.  It all depends on what you're doing.  There is certainly no single way to prep garlic.  Also, a garlic press hardly takes up space.  It's about as big as a set of kitchen shears or a veggie peeler.  ETA -- Unless you have a mega-tiny kitchen with one of those narrow, yet somehow 4-burner stoves.

EDIT 2 -- Here's a quick and dirty way to make BBQ sauce.  There are other, better ways, but this one is easy if you don't have the time or desire to do it the "right" way....

Ketchup (I am serious)
mustard powder
cayanne to taste (or scald as the case may be)
brown sugar or regular gran. sugar, but brown is way better, IMO
possibly other adjuncts like A1 sauce (adds good smoky tones and stuff -- also a good seekrit additive for split pea soup)(Instead of A1, I have used soy sauce before...mostly for the color)
black pepper
MAYBE salt, but the ketchup should really have enough
You can get all fancy at this point and add stuff like cumin, curry powder, wasabi, etc. to make various kinds of new bbq flavors.  Jerk spice would work too.  Or cajun spice.  Really, any spice blend.  Perhaps a 5 spice or 7 spice.

At any rate, mix that crap together in a bowl.  I use a wisk or a fork.  Put it on food.  Enjoy your fast and dirty ghetto BBQ sauce.

[dusematic]

Dude why would anyone make "ghetto" barbecue sauce?  I mean, I'd rather just buy a bottle of Sweet baby Ray's if I wasn't going to do it right.

[voodoolily]

Dude why would anyone make "ghetto" barbecue sauce?  I mean, I'd rather just buy a bottle of Sweet baby Ray's if I wasn't going to do it right.

Hey douchebag, go drink Drano.

Nix, honey. The most important thing for a college student to perfect is ramen. I know it sounds trite, but 10c meals count! Just add some frozen veggies when you're cooking the noods and put a dash of sesame oil and cayenne pepper on it at the end.

But real food, cheap and easy:

penne putanesca

to a saucepan or shallow pot, add a can of crushed tomatoes, 2 or 3 cloves minced garlic, fat pinch of chili flake, 2 chopped anchovy fillets (or a tsp of anchovy paste) and some chopped green olive and/or capers. Simmer until sauce starts to thicken, like 10 minutes. Boil some penne. While pasta is boiling, add a little olive oil and a splash of wine to the sauce. I like to also add a little Italian sausage, but that's not necessary. Add basil and thyme (earlier if using dried, later if using fresh), and salt and pepper to taste. Since you have olives, capers and anchovies in there you prolly won't even need salt. Pour sauce over cooked pasta and yumz!

[voodoolily]

First of all, use molasses and a drop of liquid smoke instead of brown sugar to make awesome bbq sauce.

Second of all, you're not helping anyone here, douchematic. This is Nix's "Gimme Recipes" thread, not the "Gimme Unsolicited Bulk-Up Advice and Dis People's Recipes" thread.

[stray]

I have a friend who makes some good BBQ sauce (and Long Island Ice Tea as well). Not quite as perfected as the Tea, but pretty good nonetheless.

However, my Dad has an old friend on the "real ghetto" side of this town, who runs a BBQ place (he's originally from Kansas City, so it's that kind of goodness). If I need BBQ sauce, it's from there (I don't tell my friend that though).

[CmdrSlack]

Dude why would anyone make "ghetto" barbecue sauce?  I mean, I'd rather just buy a bottle of Sweet baby Ray's if I wasn't going to do it right.

Hey douchebag, go drink Drano.

Uh, what?  I think that's a valid question.  Why would anyone go through the time and expense of making this homemade barbecue sauce that CmdSlack describes himself as "ghetto" as well as "quick and dirty."  Look I'm not saying it's not good, and I really don't know much about the process of handcrafting barbecue sauce, but I do know that you can buy some pretty good barbecue sauce for what, 2 or 3 bucks a bottle?  After you're done buying all the ingredients to make a barbecue sauce out of a commercial ketchup base, what exactly is the allure at that point?

Remember, we're talking about realistic tips and workable everyday ideas for a college kid.  Homemade barbecue sauce sounds rather extravagant in that context does it not?   I'm just questioning the payoff.

Quite simply, owning a wide array of spices is just a smart move, IMO.  If he had a well-stocked kitchen, he'd have most of that crap.  It takes all of five seconds to make my easy non-involved BBQ sauce.  I used the descriptors "ghetto" and "quick and dirty" because I was trying to be hip and down with the youth culture. 

It's something I picked up in college.  It's rather realistic because every guy I know owns ketchup.  Not as many own BBQ sauce.  The steps to "the traditional way" are not too many more, but way more fuss than one dude should worry about when simply learning to cook, a large part of which is learning to mix stuff together by taste/eyeballing. 

So, where's your recipes to share?