For the Love of Food

Hello!

So I'm getting down to the wire, in my house for the last week until I leave to head home before I go abroad, and this summer has definitely been one to remember.  This has been the first time that I have had to provide for myself for an extended period of time, and I've actually had a great experience.  And by "great experience", I don't mean having ice cream for dinner twice a week or ordering out every day, but actually being able to sustain myself.

I've always loved cooking, and this has been a big part of my experience living on my own this summer.  And since it is relatively well-known that I love to cook, I've been asked multiple times about how I keep it interesting and avoid having ice cream or takeout for every meal.  It's still news to me that some people don't enjoy cooking, but for me, it is my stress reliever after a long day at work or school.  Knowing that I can take my time, listen to music, and make something delicious is a great way to end the day.  Also, it makes the house smell really good, although it does significantly increase the temperature of the kitchen (old houses don't have great ventilation systems).

The two biggest concerns I hear from friends are that they either don't know what to cook or they don't know how to go grocery shopping.  So I'm going to address both questions with how I do it, and it works really well for me!

How to Grocery Shop (A Guide by Kim Nesbitt):

• Go with a plan.  The best idea is to make a menu for the week of about four meals to cook (which doesn't sound like enough, but trust me, four meals is plenty of food) and after deciding on meals, make a grocery list of the ingredients you need.  
• Understand your budget.  If you have a recipe that calls for an obscure, somewhat expensive ingredient, you can omit it!  Just because it's part of the recipe doesn't mean you have to buy it.  
• Know your snacking habits.  The chips, salsa, candy, cookies, etc. all look appetizing, but you definitely do not have to buy all of them because you're finally shopping for yourself.  If you really think about it, that $2 box of cookies might sound like a bargain, but you can also buy a filet of tilapia for $2.50 and actually get a meal out of it instead of a few snacks.  Yes, you can let yourself have a snack at the grocery store, but try to keep it to just one per visit.  
• Plan a route.  Generally, the healthy, actually-can-make-a-meal food will be around the perimeter of the grocery store, while the snacks and processed food will be in the center aisles.  What I do is I make a loop around the perimeter of the store and grab what I need in terms of veggies, fruits, meats, dairy, etc., and then if you feel the need, head down the aisles to grab your ice cream or sauce or whatever (and your cart is relatively full by this point, which can trick you into thinking that you don't need any more food).  

And since I've been asked about what I make, here's a list of some really easy-to-make college meals!

• Healthy Chicken Parmesan (and I've used spaghetti squash instead of pasta to make it extra healthy!)

• Quesadillas!  How easy is throwing together tortillas, cheese, and whatever meat you have in your fridge?  I've made these with chicken, pork, steak, anything!  You can even make them into little pizzas or make breakfast ones with frozen berries and cream cheese, so many possibilities!
• Marinated Chicken.  You can marinate chicken with Italian salad dressing or Dr. Pepper, either is really good!  Just make sure you stab the chicken with a fork a few times on each side so the marinate can get into the meat.  And just fry it in a skillet on low heat (ALWAYS cook chicken on indirect heat, you can also cover the skillet so it basically becomes an oven) 
• Zucchini & Squash Bake.  This is a super simple side dish that you can definitely make into a main meal.  Just cut up the veggies, throw them in a pan with cheese and a few other ingredients, and in a half hour, you have something delicious! 

• Sausage & Pasta.  This is my go-to dish when I don't feel like cooking!  I usually buy Hillshire Farm's Polska Kielbasa and cook it with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce.  
• Greek Yogurt Chicken Salad.  I made this a few weeks ago and it was delicious!  I cooked and shredded up some Italian dressing marinated chicken, added celery, halved grapes, half an apple, and the juice of half a lemon.  It stores pretty well and once you make it, it's a great easy dish to grab for lunch.  
• Parmesan-Crusted Tilapia.  I love fish, and living in a landlocked state, I've been pretty deprived.  The fish I can find and would actually want to eat is really expensive generally, but tilapia isn't too expensive and it's a nice light fish that even non-fish lovers can enjoy!  I added Italian bread crumbs to the mix to make it a bit more crisp.  

• TACOS.  Who doesn't love tacos?  I've been buying extra lean ground turkey meat and just frying that up on a skillet, bought some hard taco shells, added some Mexican cheese and Tostitos-brand salsa to make some pretty good tacos for lunch if I don't say so myself.
• Crock Pot Pork.  My mom makes this pork, from a Weight Watchers recipe, and it's one of my favorite recipes ever.  And all it is a pork tenderloin in the crock pot with a jar of chili sauce and a jar of cranberry sauce, cooked on low for 5 hours.  It's literally that easy.  I highly recommend investing in a crock pot, they're a wonderful thing.  

Okay, I think that's a good selection of meals that are really easy to make and taste delicious (I wouldn't spend the time to make any of these if they weren't going to be good).  My biggest advice?  Just experiment!  Once you can figure out the basics of cooking, you'll understand what does and doesn't go well together and you just can't be afraid to try something new!  Food is so good, and there's so much you can do with it, it's like being given a chemistry set as a child - there was so much to learn and explore.  

Well, I hope you've found something delicious you can make for dinner this week.  As always, thanks for reading!

Kim