The class I'm teaching has its exam period on Monday from 8:00-10:00 am (I know, it's painful, especially for a Monday. The plus is that it's smack at the beginning of exam week and is forcing me to grade papers in a timely manner). My students and I decided to have a "breakfast party" while we finish up the last round of paper presentations. I told them I would make them something good, but I'm kind of at a loss as to what to make. I'm thinking some kind of oatmeal breakfast-bar-type thing or maybe mini quiches, but am open to suggestions.
What would you cook for breakfast for 24 tired and stressed freshman and sophomores? It needs to be easily portable!
*Addendum: I ended up making some cereal bars with rice krispies, raisins, brown sugar, flour, honey, and granola: basically mix and then bake for 20 minutes. They were just ok, but my students brought tons of good food, including doughnuts, Christmas cookies, and a 3/4 full jug of orange juice that had been used to make screwdrivers the night before.
WRITING, EATING, GRADUATE SCHOOL
Showing posts with label cooking for groups. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cooking for groups. Show all posts
December 3, 2010
November 27, 2010
Thanksgiving
How was your Thanksgiving?
Both Robbie and I attended an "orphan" Thanksgiving potluck, hosted by a fellow graduate student in the English department. I made a slightly soggy cherry pie and this spinach puff. It was a fun night with great company and great food, including a really good Gooey Butter Cake (?), a perfectly roasted turkey, some terrific cranberry sauce and delicious butternut squash bread pudding.
Both Robbie and I attended an "orphan" Thanksgiving potluck, hosted by a fellow graduate student in the English department. I made a slightly soggy cherry pie and this spinach puff. It was a fun night with great company and great food, including a really good Gooey Butter Cake (?), a perfectly roasted turkey, some terrific cranberry sauce and delicious butternut squash bread pudding.
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| check out my puff in the back corner amongst other great food |
November 23, 2010
Tips To Make Cooking Quicker And Easier
It occurred to me that I have a few little tricks I use to make decent meals quickly and without a lot of fuss. Nothing groundbreaking here; these are mostly common sense. Still, they may be helpful to consider, especially if you're feeling culinarily-stressed around the holidays.
-Make grains in large batches: About once a month, I make a huge pot of brown rice. I then section it out into individual servings and freeze them in plastic bags, then defrost them as needed. This is great because I'm not always stuck waiting for rice to cook (it takes so long!) and also because I can defrost exactly the amount if rice that is necessary for the recipe I'm making (no waste!).
I also like to make a big pot of quinoa on Sunday nights so I can use it as a side dish or base all week.
-Buy preminced garlic: I have a feeling a lot of people will find this sacrilegious, but for me it's much easier to just plop some already chopped garlic out of a jar than deal with buying cloves and slicing them as needed. Cuts prep time quite a bit for me, as I use garlic very frequently, and a big jar lasts me months.
-Always have canned tomatoes in the cabinet: I buy canned tomatoes almost every third time I grocery shop, because I use them so often. They're perfect as a base for so many different things, including chili, pasta sauce, tacos, enchiladas, jambalaya, whatever. The store brand ones are often very cheap and already flavored with stuff like oregano and green chile, too.
-Don't be afraid to modify the recipe: If you don't have something you need, don't be afraid to omit it or substitute for something similar. This recipe tasted perfectly fine without onions, and this one was fine with extra spinach instead of kale. For baked goods, I especially like subbing for eggs with applesauce; the recipe always ends up really moist (use about 1/4 cup applesauce per egg). For an added bonus, it's vegan.
Have any similar time-saving tips? Anything you do to simplify recipes or simplify cooking in general?
On an unrelated note, here we are, your Master of Fine Eats bloggers, dressed up and clowning around at an event last weekend.
-Make grains in large batches: About once a month, I make a huge pot of brown rice. I then section it out into individual servings and freeze them in plastic bags, then defrost them as needed. This is great because I'm not always stuck waiting for rice to cook (it takes so long!) and also because I can defrost exactly the amount if rice that is necessary for the recipe I'm making (no waste!).
I also like to make a big pot of quinoa on Sunday nights so I can use it as a side dish or base all week.
-Buy preminced garlic: I have a feeling a lot of people will find this sacrilegious, but for me it's much easier to just plop some already chopped garlic out of a jar than deal with buying cloves and slicing them as needed. Cuts prep time quite a bit for me, as I use garlic very frequently, and a big jar lasts me months.
-Always have canned tomatoes in the cabinet: I buy canned tomatoes almost every third time I grocery shop, because I use them so often. They're perfect as a base for so many different things, including chili, pasta sauce, tacos, enchiladas, jambalaya, whatever. The store brand ones are often very cheap and already flavored with stuff like oregano and green chile, too.
-Don't be afraid to modify the recipe: If you don't have something you need, don't be afraid to omit it or substitute for something similar. This recipe tasted perfectly fine without onions, and this one was fine with extra spinach instead of kale. For baked goods, I especially like subbing for eggs with applesauce; the recipe always ends up really moist (use about 1/4 cup applesauce per egg). For an added bonus, it's vegan.
Have any similar time-saving tips? Anything you do to simplify recipes or simplify cooking in general?
On an unrelated note, here we are, your Master of Fine Eats bloggers, dressed up and clowning around at an event last weekend.
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| Photo by Yvette Lopez |
November 2, 2010
I Miss Cooking
This has been by far my busiest semester in the 2 years I've been here at NMSU, and as a result I'm barely cooking, which makes me sad. I'm in Master's workshop (a class where we workshop our book-length theses), a nonfiction workshop, and an awesome lit class about girlhood. I love my classes and I feel like I'm learning and producing quite a lot, so that's pretty good, but it feels like something is sort of lacking.
Cooking is a big stress reliever for me, as well as being a means to creativity outside of the realm of writing, so I am really missing it. When I cook I use my hands, my sense of smell, my vision, my tastebuds---and I like using these things as a companion to and in addition to the constant thinking and analyzing I do in my academic life.
I've been productive as a student and as a teacher, but when I have a free minute, I want to lie down on my couch and watch Hulu. I don't want to do the huge pile of dishes sitting in my kitchen sink, or go to the grocery store, or chop vegetables. The only thing I've really made in the last week or so is a chicken enchilada soup that I made in the crockpot, so it hardly counts as cooking (I'm going to post the recipe sometime this week, so check back for that....it's really easy!!). Greek yogurt, Mexican takeout and a pot of quinoa have been my staples for the past couple of days, and I'm missing the variety of flavors I usually have in my diet.
Thanksgiving break is coming up in a few short weeks, so I hope I can find some time then to make a few really good meals. If I don't, I might go crazy (not to mention nutritionally-deficient.)
What do you do when you're too busy to cook? Does eating well when you're stressed matter to you? Are all graduate students doomed to a diet of boxed macaroni and cheese and Lean Cuisines?
Cooking is a big stress reliever for me, as well as being a means to creativity outside of the realm of writing, so I am really missing it. When I cook I use my hands, my sense of smell, my vision, my tastebuds---and I like using these things as a companion to and in addition to the constant thinking and analyzing I do in my academic life.
I've been productive as a student and as a teacher, but when I have a free minute, I want to lie down on my couch and watch Hulu. I don't want to do the huge pile of dishes sitting in my kitchen sink, or go to the grocery store, or chop vegetables. The only thing I've really made in the last week or so is a chicken enchilada soup that I made in the crockpot, so it hardly counts as cooking (I'm going to post the recipe sometime this week, so check back for that....it's really easy!!). Greek yogurt, Mexican takeout and a pot of quinoa have been my staples for the past couple of days, and I'm missing the variety of flavors I usually have in my diet.
Thanksgiving break is coming up in a few short weeks, so I hope I can find some time then to make a few really good meals. If I don't, I might go crazy (not to mention nutritionally-deficient.)
What do you do when you're too busy to cook? Does eating well when you're stressed matter to you? Are all graduate students doomed to a diet of boxed macaroni and cheese and Lean Cuisines?
September 15, 2010
Cooking for Workshop
All of the workshops here at NMSU are at night, usually from 5-7:30pm or occasionally 5:30-8 pm. Prime dinner hour. It's hard to sit for 2 1/2 hours and be critical and smart when you're starving, so for the last two years, our poetry workshop has had a tradition of asking each person to bring food for the class once each semester.
We've had quite the range of meals since I've been at NMSU. Pizza ordered ten minutes before class began (cough cough Robbie), cold gazpacho, banana pudding, PB&Js, enchiladas, zucchini bread, eggrolls, veggie platters from Albertson's, chips and salsa, candy; pretty much everything on the spectrum. It's always interesting to me to see what my classmates bring to share. I'm clearly into food, but I'm also really (creepily? is this abnormal?) interested in other people's eating habits: what other people like to eat, the effort they put into food, and what they might deem appropriate food for certain settings. I also think that class feels just a little bit more festive when you can pass cookies around the table.
It's important, of course, to not bring something too involved; you don't want people concentrating more on your food than on the work in front of them. Messiness is also kind of out; having to pass back comments with melted ice cream or something like that on them is not ideal.
Last night, it was my turn to provide food for my fellow poets. In the past I've made cornbread, spinach-bean dip, and pasta salad. I didn't have much time to actually make anything too involved, but I always want to bring something good and a little unusual, more than a bag of pretzels and a box of gingersnaps, you know? I find that finger-foods usually work well, so I brought sliced french bread, crackers, sharp cheddar cheese, apples, and hummus. I had also seen this recipe for Mint-Pea Dip and was looking for a chance to make it. Mint-Pea dip sounds borderline gross, I think, but I promise you it's refreshing, delicious, and wonderful on bread. It consists of frozen peas, fresh mint, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese; that's all.
Everything seemed to be a hit, including the dip, which I was a little wary about. What would you make if you were cooking for a group in a classroom setting?
We've had quite the range of meals since I've been at NMSU. Pizza ordered ten minutes before class began (cough cough Robbie), cold gazpacho, banana pudding, PB&Js, enchiladas, zucchini bread, eggrolls, veggie platters from Albertson's, chips and salsa, candy; pretty much everything on the spectrum. It's always interesting to me to see what my classmates bring to share. I'm clearly into food, but I'm also really (creepily? is this abnormal?) interested in other people's eating habits: what other people like to eat, the effort they put into food, and what they might deem appropriate food for certain settings. I also think that class feels just a little bit more festive when you can pass cookies around the table.
It's important, of course, to not bring something too involved; you don't want people concentrating more on your food than on the work in front of them. Messiness is also kind of out; having to pass back comments with melted ice cream or something like that on them is not ideal.
Last night, it was my turn to provide food for my fellow poets. In the past I've made cornbread, spinach-bean dip, and pasta salad. I didn't have much time to actually make anything too involved, but I always want to bring something good and a little unusual, more than a bag of pretzels and a box of gingersnaps, you know? I find that finger-foods usually work well, so I brought sliced french bread, crackers, sharp cheddar cheese, apples, and hummus. I had also seen this recipe for Mint-Pea Dip and was looking for a chance to make it. Mint-Pea dip sounds borderline gross, I think, but I promise you it's refreshing, delicious, and wonderful on bread. It consists of frozen peas, fresh mint, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and parmesan cheese; that's all.
 |
| Photo courtesy of DinnerALoveStory.com |
Everything seemed to be a hit, including the dip, which I was a little wary about. What would you make if you were cooking for a group in a classroom setting?
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