Digest this!

Frugality killed the cat.

2010-04-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

My frugality has gotten the better of me.

So far, I've been enduring my guesstimated three mile runs from my front door to the trail head in my old Adidas running shoes. You know, the ones I bought for $30 at the Adidas outlet in Tahoe on vacation. Three summers ago...

They've done me well as far as I can tell. But, as I've heard rumored around by the "23.6" marathon sticker crew, after 60 miles, one should get new shoes. And good, new running shoes cost about $100 a pop.

If I ever want to cross "Run a Marathon" off the bucket list, it's going to put me in the hole about $1,000.

Imagine training. Alright, lets say I run 30 miles a week. After two weeks, I'd have to buy new shoes. In my tight budget, I barley put $150 for "entertainment", and let me tell you dishing out 200 bones a month to run 100 miles a month doesn't sound like it fits very comfortably in my "entertainment" budget. More like a fat man on an airplane. Just saying.

But you see, I believe the problem may lie in the myth I have about shoes. I've got this vision in my head that once I get a nice pair of $100 running shoes, it'll feel like I'm running on gooshy little clouds and my lungs and knees will thank me for the great feeling of running the half mile up to the trail head to only run more hills on the trail, and then steep inclines downhill. Need I mention elevation?

Although I see the holes in this running dream, I still imagine that one day, I'll be able to run 25 miles without feeling a thing. At the moment, I log about 10 miles a week.

I guess I should explain that my knees cause all kinds of trouble. My IT band in my left leg, the gigantic tendon that runs down the outside of your thigh and connects at your knee and some two-inch muscle buried beneath your gluteus, has hated me since I started butterflying my leg in rowing. So, I gave myself a nice case of IT band syndrome.

Since I don't have a gym membership, again, due to being cheap, and don't intend on getting one anytime soon, I plan on running. A lot. This proves problematic, especially with bad shoes. And to my demise, I don't think I'm going to shake this whole "poor college-student" thing until I'm in my late twenties.

But, even though IT band sucks, and not getting treatment for it sucks even more, I really don't miss the trainers at Sacramento State. The first time this flared up, my knee was swollen up to the size of a juicy Texas grapefruit. And they did nothing. Which is typical, considering a girl threw out her back and they her the same answer they gave every rower, "Oh, just tendinitis. Ice, heat, ibuprofen to keep the swelling down."

I didn't realize tendinitis was actually a big deal until I injured myself and had to go to a physical therapist outside of Sac State and the reaction I got from him was on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Anyways, I now have a marble size bubble on the outside of my left knee where it is permanently swollen from my IT band's continuous tension on the side of my knee. Needless to say, running hurts.

But it's something I'd like to get better at as a good way of keeping up with cardio. As for core and strength conditioning, I'll stick with doing to crossfit workouts on their website that don't involve any extra weights and some exercises I've picked up from rowing.

In order to hold myself accountable to all of this, I'm keeping an exercise and diet log. It looks something like this:

And it works, when I actually fill it out. Not in a crazy anal-retentive way, but it helps me to make sure I'm eating healthy and exercising accordingly.

I'm finding that since I don't have class, practice or something else to run off to, I've got a lot more time to venture into the deep dark sea of cooking. And although I may be venturing with a broken compass and novice exploring skills, I've got a fairly young stomach and I think I can recover from whatever disastrous storm I throw on my plate.

This past week in the food world, I adventured into the meaty side of things and prepared my first meal of baby back pork ribs. I've found out through a coworker that the secret to any meat is to cook it long and slow and really low temperatures in order to maintain the moisture in the meat.

I used Stubb's BBQ sauce and marinated it for a whole day. I had company over to share in my first real meat cooking experience and had to take the meat out an hour early, but it still came out delicious. Next time, I think I will try a marinade instead of marinating it in BBQ sauce.

I made veggie soup to go along with it, which was way to easy to do. I used Bob's Red Mill Vegi Soup Mix. It's just one part soup mix to two parts water or chicken broth. I used water this time, but in order to make it more flavorful, I'd recommend using the broth.

As of late, I've been trying to buy pretty healthy, no preservatives, no partially hydrogenated soybean oil (which is just a fancy way of saying "trans-fat, and FYI: products won't put trans fat on the label, but it will have this ingredient listed...), trying to buy organic produce on products that matter such as leafy vegetables, apples, that sort of thing. And I find it ironic when eating healthy means spending more money on better quality food when it used to be that eating healthy just meant eating cheap.

But alas, a trick my Dad taught me. I've found a secret to make it easier to spend less at the store.

Most grocery stores will put on their price tags the cost of something http://www.bobsredmill.com/vegi-soup-mix.htmlAnd I usually look at those to determine what I'm going to buy. For instance, I'm pretty sure this is the first time that something organic has cost less than something heavy with MSG and preservatives.

I was in the grocery store looking for some sort of tomato soup and found a low sodium, organic tomato soup in a carton. I compared the price per ounce to a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup and found that Campbell's was five cents more an ounce than the organic brand.

And although frugality rings true in my grocery shopping as well, I'm less likely to be frugal here because it's something I am putting into my body, not putting my body through.

So, digest on my hungry friends. Until next week...

A new day, a new blog

2010-03-31T15:11:00.001-07:00

Since using this blog for my column writing class, talking about the food I make and eat as a student, I decided since I've graduated to devote the blog to post-collegiate endeavors and adventures of the culinary kind.

And since I am a former student-athlete, I figured I might as well throw in some thoughts and blurbs on health.

Over the next couple of months, I will write about recipes I have made, or attempted, workouts and exercise I have completed, or tried to, and what life is like when you're not worried about beating your personal record, or what your coach, parents, professors, potential employers (I can continue..) or friends might think of your actions, or reactions for that matter.

So, as the blog evolves, I'll leave it up to you to digest this information I put on your hypothetical internet plate. I'll try to keep it snappy, and I'll put my entries on the chopping block before I put them on the table, but I'm not cutting any deals here. The hilariousness and obscurity of life through my own looking glass is to ridiculous for me to keep any sort of pride by not posting.

To start, I better explain that I was a rower at Sacramento State University, the California State University campus in Sacramento. I walked on my freshman year, first day of class, first day of practice and fell in love with the sport. Halfway into my freshman year, I was debating whether or not I was going to commit to the endeavor for the four year long-haul when my novice coach pulled me into her office.

Thoughts of how she was going to say, "I'm going to have to cut you," started racing through my head, but instead of the boot, I got a contract offering me $1,000 per semester for playing the sport for the Hornets.

Floored is an understatement to how I felt. I mean, I was the bench-warmer for one lousy year of high school soccer. Recreational soccer was the extent of my "athletic prowess" and this lady wants to offer me money to be what USRowing.com calls a "superb examples of physical conditioning,"? I could barely run a mile.

So, as a freshman, I sat at the eight, or stroke seat of the better of the two novice boats, setting the cadence, communicating with the coxswain, basically leading the boat. As I moved up to varsity sophomore and junior year, I sat at stroke of the junior-varsity boat, but slipped on a rung up the proverbial ladder to get into the varsity boat when I pulled a tendon in my right forearm during my junior year.

Six days a week for what seemed like a year I got up at 5 a.m. and rode to practice with my teammates only to watch everyone launch their boats and go for a nice row while I went on a daily run, to which my knees hated me for. I had lots of time to think during those weeks and it finally hit me that I've only got one more year left to do what I came here to do - win medals.

I might add that during this time, my coach, who left his career in finance to coach, had been steadily increasing my scholarship money in combination with grants I was receiving from financial aid in order to get me off state and federal loans.

At any rate, since Sacramento State's athletics is a NCAA Division 1 program, I had four years of eligibility to compete.

So, now that my expiration date has passed, the 2008-09 season being my last, hopefully I'll be able to keep some spec of that "superb physical condition," with some shred of dignity. Mostly, this will be my rants and raves about the attempts, hopefully on a weekly basis.

Read on my curious friends!

Splitting Thanks

2008-12-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

Since my parents got divorced in 1995, I've been swapped back and forth till I was, what my parents decided, of age to choose for myself. I can't remember when that day was, but I think it was when my older brother graduated high school back in 2003.

To make things easy, my brother and I just kept with the switching back and forth between our parents. Since I've been away at college, my brother and I have been making our own separate decisions and I've, for the most part, been going to my Dad's family's thanksgiving for the past two years because my Dad's parents have been pretty sick.

After they passed away this past year, I decided it was much past due that I spend some time with my Mom on Thanksgiving. She doesn't have any family up here, so I figured it would be a nice calm dinner, just her and I.

The best part about my mom's home cooking is that it's pretty much all socially righteous food in my eyes, which makes it even better.

The back bone of the meal, the turkey, was raised organic and free-range. I'm pretty sure everyone knows what organic means, and free-range is essentially organic. It just means that the turkey, instead of being caged, is free to roam about a field, and eat freely.

The turkey was raised on a farm called Diestel Family Turkey Farm in Sonora.

My mom in high school always roasted free range chickens from the same farm, and they were delicious compared to brands like Butterball or Foster Farms, which my dad tended to buy more. So I would get a pretty good side by side comparison.

The turkey, unfortunately, is something my mom deals solely with, but I had some say in the sides to the meal, which I will share a few with you.

The sides we dined on in addition to the turkey were sweet potatoes,
Brussels sprouts, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.

The Brussels sprouts were surprisingly easy to make, and although most people cringe at the word, the condensed vegetable's sour, tart punch is softened, but not silenced, in the skillet when it's grilled. The best way to cook it is to slice it in half and dice some onions up with it. Throw it all in the skillet and add a couple spoonfuls of balsamic vinaigrette. I've heard other people do it differently, but I've yet to explore the wonderful world of grilled Brussels sprouts.

Now, here is the part where it gets tricky. This is to your own taste. There is no doubt about it, the Brussels sprouts should be grilled all the way through but they can sit on the stove for hours if you really wanted them too. A lid can be added to cook the sprouts faster and create more of a convection within the pan, but the house smells better when the lids left off. Grill them to your liking, and if you want, you can always add more or less seasoning or balsamic vinaigrette to it.

And here's the kicker, cranberry sauce doesn't always have to come from a can. And it'll actually be good to. Crazy, even wild if you will. I asked my mom how she made it, and she said it's simple, a handful or two of cranberries, a bit of water, and some sugar all in a pan and wait for it to boil. The cranberries pop and make an amazing sauce. And you can season this, just like the prior, however you want it. no more tube shaped cranberry sauce!

So, next year, when your family asks you to bring a dish, create something that'll really blow their minds. You can even add on in a sort of Long Island accent, "Don't worry about the can opener Ma, I've got the cranberry sauce covered."

Chicken Teriyaki

2008-11-17T16:51:00.000-08:00

When most people think of the Japanese dish, the thoughts of chicken teriyaki seem to stay at a restaurant level; a dish always followed by a bill and a busboy. Especially the younger generation.

But this is a dish that I have loved for to long to just limit it to once every couple of months when the craving really gets to me.

So, instead of suppressing my cravings, I decided to try and do the dish myself.

When I sat down to think about what I really needed, it seemed like it was going to be a lot more complicated then it really boiled down to. In all, it requires chicken, rice and some sort of teriyaki sauce/marinade.

For chicken, I used chicken breasts form the 2.5lb. bag of frozen chicken that I have tucked away in my freezer. I used this in an earlier adventure as well.

For rice, I used the cheapest type I could find because to me, it tastes all the same.

For teriyaki sauce, I used Mr Yoshida's. If you're looking for more of an adventure, Google proves to have quite a bit of different options for recipes.

Now, this part of the recipe varies depending on the brand of sauce you get, so be sure to check the bottle and follow directions. For Mr. Yoshida's sauce, it requires that you marinade for 30 minutes. Note that this works with frozen chicken just as much as it does with thawed.

The easiest way to marinade the chicken for me was to put a couple pieces in a plastic bag and pour the sauce over it. Then, set the timer for half the time the sauce brand recommends, and set the bag on a flat surface in the fridge somewhere. Once half the time is up, flip the bag and make sure each piece has a descent amount of sauce covering it, and set the timer for the remaining time.

I find that if this is done first, then by the time the rice is done cooking, the chicken is done marinading and can be cooked pretty fast.

The hardest part I found was not cooking the chicken, but the rice. Rice has proven to be one of the trickiest foods to nail down just right in my cooking endeavors.

I have heard many different ways of cooking it, but there seems to be one basic rule: two cups of water for every one cup of rice. This is a meal that can also be made in small and large servings, which is nice.

Once the water is boiling, add the rice in, stir it a bit and cover it. Be sure to turn the heat down to a simmer so it doesn't boil over. Set the timer for 20 minutes. Be sure to just leave the rice alone. Don't stir it because it won't get cooked evenly.

Some people cook the rice by leaving the top off, and letting it simmer for ten minutes. That way has never worked for me, so I just stick to what I know.

Once the rice is on it's way, I cook the chicken. I use a George Foreman "Grilling Machine", which yes, at times can be a bit ridiculous in nature, but it cooks the food very fast. I think it's wonderful because it's pretty darn easy to use. The chicken cooks up in about five minutes, so time it right with the rice.

To clean up, make sure that you soak the pan and the grill because it will make easy clean up for when you're done eating. To soak the grill, I just take a couple wet paper towels and let it sit in the grill until. This makes it so that whatever is left over from cooking the chicken doesn't stick to badly to it.

Serve up the rice over the chicken, and if you want more flavor, you can always pour more sauce over the chicken and rice when it's on the plate. Sesame seeds for garnish on top are always good too.

The Armenian Bazaar

2008-11-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

In San Fransico, there is a little Christian church tucked away next to a fire station. It holds its services on Sunday morning, has the pancake breakfasts, holds pancake breakfasts, the whole sha-bang.

But this church has a popular tradition that not to many other churches participate. Mostly because they are Armenian, partly because no one does it like them.

Every year in October the church, St. Johns, puts on a bazaar.

Now, most people have no clue where Armenia is, or that it even existed, let alone they have no idea what a bazaar (pronounced "bizarre") is.

The country Armenia is located right next to Turkey and is quite small. The country used to be very large, but after the Turkish nationalist movements in the 1940s, a large chunk of the land was taken and there was a mass genocide. This unfortunately has happened two or three times since then, mostly because Armenia is the only Christian country in the Middle East. Outside of St. Johns there is a memorial for all those who died in the latest genocide in the early 1990s.

A bazaar is a Middle Eastern market where merchants come to sell goods on the street, a lot like the mock markets seen in Indiana Jones and Aladdin.

The bazaar at St. Johns isn't a whole lot like those markets, but more so just an assembly line of food. The food is paid for per item.

Traditional Armenian food is like that of Greek or Moroccan food. Lamb is the common meat of choice, and everything seems to have a deep, supple and sweet taste to it. A lot of food in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region tends to overlap and blend together. Most Middle Eastern deserts almost always include the popular baklava which is, depending on the region, some sort of nut chopped up very fine and put in between layers of very thin sheets of dough.

The most popular of all the Armenian food is a dish called kufta (pronounced "koophta"). This is essentially large ground lamb meatballs. It contains two layers. The outer layer is just pure ground lamb and the filling is ground lamb mixed with spices, such as parsley, and pine nuts.

The church, in preparation for the bazaar which has picked up speed in the past couple of years, starts making kufta three months early. They made a batch of 5,000 kufta and ended up having to make more for the event. The church also put an industrial freezer in the back of the church kitchen.

They also have dolmades which are grape leaf rolls that are baked. Dolmade is the Arab word meaning something stuffed. They also have cheese berugs, which are basically apple turnovers, but instead of apple filling, they have a cheese and spice filling. I know, it doesn't sound that great, but take my word for it, it's delicious.

My dad has taken my brother and I every year as far back into my childhood as I can remember, and my grandparents have taken my dad and his three siblings there for as long as he can remember. Since I've been away at college, it's been a reason for me to go home and see the whole family.

And so, the tradition continues.

A tradition of the untraditional

2008-10-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

Cheese spaghetti. Most people's first impressions reach far from the classic red marinara sauce we associate so well with the word "spaghetti". Most people don't even know what to think.

Cheese spaghetti is a lot more simple than most people's imaginations lead them to believe. It's basically a cheese sauce over spaghetti noodles.

The ingredients for the sauce are pretty simple. The recipe calls for flour, butter, milk, cheese,and one, 8 oz. can of tomato sauce.

The base of the sauce is made up of what the French called a roux (pronounced "roo"). The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines it as, "a cooked mixture of flour and fat used as a thickening agent in a soup or sauce."

Now, don't go thinking that the base is lard and flour. It's simply just melted butter in a sauce pan. I use salted, stick butter, and I use a good half an inch chunk. Once it's melted, I pour a little bit of flour, just enough so that it dissolves into the butter. The roux should run off of the spoon pretty smoothly, it should be just barely a liquid. All of this should be done off of the heat of the stove.

Once the roux is mixed, open up the tomato sauce and pour it in. Next is the milk. I use two cups of milk, which is the equivalent to 8 oz. so I just use the can of tomato sauce as a measuring cup. I pour two in and let it warm up over medium heat.

Now, the good stuff comes out. I always buy the sharpest cheddar cheese I can find because the sharper the cheddar, the more cheddar flavor there is in the sauce. I slice the cheese up and throw it piece by piece into the sauce, stirring the entire time so that the cheese doesn't melt to the bottom of the pan. It helps if you throw in three or four slices and wait till you see the cheese melted and swirling around in the sauce.

The sauce itself can need quite a bit of salt, so I add in some seasoned salt to my liking. I'm a salt fiend, so my salt might not be exactly what your salt liking is. It's all a matter of opinion.

It's pretty easy to make a larger batch of the sauce too. Just add either more milk or more cheese, or both, and the sauce magically expands. Crazy concept, I heard it's got something having to do with physics or some smart subject like that.

But wait, we can't forget about the noodles! It's best to start the water boiling first and by the time the sauce is done cooking, the noodles are usually done. Throw a couple of handfuls of dry spaghetti noodles in the water and don't forget to stir every now and then.

The recipe is pretty flexible, with the exception of the main ingredients, but it's become a delicious habit of mine to make it, almost weekly now. My roommates, who have continually become my taste testers love the stuff and ask me quite often to make it for them. Even if they ask me half way through, I can still make more. That's the great part about it.

As far as where the recipe came from, my dad has cooked it for my family for a while, and my grandparents have been cooking it for him for as long as he can remember.

I asked my dad where it came from, and he wasn't to sure but he knew that we are not the only family who cooks it. Apparently there have been a handful of other families who know about the odd recipe. The dish is, surprisingly, known outside of my family. Where it originated from, or how it was came about is beyond me.

It's a good recipe and it's fun, cheap and easy to make. Just make sure you don't leave the sauce pan in the sink for more than a couple days, it starts to smell like rotten eggs. But I wouldn't know that from experience or anything...

Splurging on meat

2008-10-20T16:47:00.000-07:00

This past weekend while looking through a heap of paper on the dining room table, I came across an ad for Safeway, where I get everything that I can't usually get at Trader Joe's. I flipped through it, not expecting to find anything good, but discovered an ad for steak.

Now, I don't normally eat a whole lot of meat. I've been meaning to because, as an athlete, I need to keep a healthy dosage of protein. And it's pretty common knowledge that most red meats have quite a bit of protein in them.

It's not usually on my cooking agenda because the stuff is hard to prepare and can be very touchy. Meat is far more unforgiving if you cook it wrong. Not only can it cause a night of cuddling with the toilet, but the tab is often a hefty one.

Regardless, I figured I'd give it a shot. Let's just say I was feeling dangerous. The price was what sealed the deal. Safeway had a variety of steaks on sale, from New York to T-bone. I don't really know a whole lot about each one to determine a taste difference, so I settled on a type that seemed to be moderately priced and sized. The price for two good sized steaks ended up being around $6.00.

In thinking of the side dishes for a meat of such stature, asparagus popped into my head. Now, during the summer time, my roommate went on a BBQ spree and probably grilled everything that could possibly be grilled. She came up with a fancy little number which consisted of asparagus wrapped prosciutto, which is a very thinly sliced Italian ham.

The stuff is to die for, but prosciutto will put a dent in the grocery budget. It had cost about the same as the steak for about eight slices of this salty goodness. It's tucked away near all the fancy cheeses and meats which usually have a home by the deli.

But, since I seemed to be on a haughty, carnivorous feeding frenzy, I splurged and bought it all.

Friday night rolled around and I fired up the grill.

Steak preparation seemed to be easier then I thought. I was cooking at a friend's house and rubbed the slabs of meat in what is formally known as "steak rub". Steak rub can be bought at pretty much any grocery store and is basically just a bunch of herbs and spices thrown together in a bottle and then rubbed on the outside of steak to give it some punch.

To prepare the asparagus, I washed it off and broke the stems off the bottom. The best way to know where to break the stem is to start a bit up from the bottom and just start bending it and moving up the stalk until it actually snaps. This is to ensure that the tender part of the asparagus is not wasted.

Then, just open up the prosciutto and wrap it around the spear.

Grill this up until the prosciutto looks crispy.

To check the steak, just get a knife and cut a little slit in the middle and take a peak inside. It's done when most of the pink on the inside is gone, but then again it depends on how well you like your steak to be cooked.

Here's a website with an index to help you decide:
http://www.redmeatandnutrition.com.au/Recipe/CookingTechniques/BBQ/

The meal over all was absolutely delicious. It was a little on the salty side, but that can all depend on what kind of steak rub one's using. Those are always up in the air.

The mighty left over

2008-09-21T21:26:00.000-07:00

In the column prior, about the dominance of Trader Joe's supplied homemade pizza, the left over ingredients were quite hefty. A good amount of mushrooms and sliced red onions were left.

And, as mentioned prior, a meal was quilted together to blanket the taste buds of any starving student, both in pocket and in mouth.

The dinner time meal was comprised of grilled, seasoned chicken breasts, rice and sauteed veggies, as well as the quite uncommon, but none the less delicious vegetable, swiss chard.

For college students, this may sound completely unreasonable and out of the price range and or skill, but the only difference between this and a lean cuisine is the dishes and a few extra minutes.

The chicken used was Foster Farms bag of frozen chicken breasts. The bag is about two and a half pounds and costs about $10.00. For the amount of chicken that is given, it is a pretty good deal.

The swiss chard you can get at pretty much every grocery store that carries a moderate amount of produce. For those who don't know what swiss chard is, the best way to describe it is an almost sweeter version of spinach. It's a leaf that looks a lot like romaine lettuce, big in size and green. But swiss chard seems to be more billowy with the way the leaf sprouts up and out from the main stem. It is usually tucked away in a corner, and might require some assistance in finding, but for the most part, it is usually labeled on the twisty tie that holds the leaves together.

It usually isn't to expensive and comes in a bundle about half the size of it's leafy look a like- romaine lettuce.

The only other ingredient is rice, which is a pretty common thing in a kitchen. If not, it should be and it's a pretty cheap item. Even if it's not used for a year, it is still good.

So, to put it all together, you'll need two pots and a sauce pan. Use a medium size pot to cook the rice. Boil two cups of water and pour the rice in. Leave it uncovered and turn it down a bit. Cook this for about seven to eight minutes.

In order to steam the swiss chard, there is a device cleverly named... a steamer.
They are moderately cheap and can be bought at places like Target or Safeway.

Fill the second pot with just a bit of water. Wash and cut the stems off of the swiss chard. Cover the pot and let the water boil underneath the steamer until the leaves are soft. It will cook down quite a bit.

For the veggies, the fun begins. Put about two spoonfuls of olive oil in the frying pan - just enough to cover it. Let it heat up, you can usually tell by when it starts to smell a bit, or the oil is steaming. Drop the veggies in and stir them every now and then until they are all soft and cooked. I kept the sliced mushrooms and red onions in a plastic bag in the fridge.I usually add some seasoned salt, but I add that to everything. It's a staple in all my meals.

Last, but definitely the best, is the chicken. I used a George Foreman grill which is amazing for any and all quick meals. It cooks the chicken breast - frozen - in more or less, depending on size, five minutes.

To serve it, put the veggies over the rice and add the chicken and swiss chard on the plate. I'd recommend adding some salt to the swiss chard.

Overall, the meal probably costs about $4.00 once everything is divided up and averaged out.

Homemade Pizza Revolution

2008-09-14T20:00:00.000-07:00

Pizza parties will forever be revolutionized.

No longer are they exclusive to the twelve and under, huddled in the party room at the local Round Table. Think back to your childhood when mom wouldn't take you out to your favorite pizza place, but instead she made the dreaded home baked pizza. They never tasted the same and never came close to as juicy and delicious as those greasy slices from the pizza joint down the street.

Take those thoughts and erase them completely, throw them out the window. Trader Joe's markets is writing their declaration of war on bad homemade pizza. Watch out Boboli, you're "Authentic Italian Crust" is being challenged to a dual of taste buds.

Trader Joe's sells all the ingredients one needs to make one scrumptious pizza pie. They have three different kinds of pizza dough you can try: garlic herb, plain white, or whole wheat. The doughs come in a bag, lightly covered in oil to keep them from sticking to the bag.

The great thing about the doughs is that since they are not baked, you don't get that dry, "all crust with a little pinch of toppings" taste in your mouth. It bakes in the same out of time it takes for the cheese and other toppings to be cooked all the way through.

The doughs sit in the refrigerated section, conveniently right next to a tub labeled "Pizza Sauce", which is a bit contradictory considering Trader Joe's is very intimidating for the new shopper. If you don't know exactly where the product is or what it looks like, it can be quite difficult to try and find. Spaghetti sauce works good for pizza sauce as well, but the pizza sauce compliments the dough better.

Mozzarella cheese is a couple sections down from the pizza dough. I prefer buying whole mozzarella and then grating it myself, but they come in pre-shredded bags. Also, the cheese comes in whole milk or skim milk. I prefer whole milk, although more fatty, the taste is uncompromisable.

From then on out, the fixings are all by choice. There is sliced pepperoni a bit farther down from the cheese, hanging underneath what little selection of lunch meats Trader Joe's has. The pepperoni has a kick, but isn't spicy per say.

There are plenty of other things that you can find at the store to put on the pizza. And that is part of the beauty of making a pizza at home, it can be made strictly to ones liking. The customization of the pizza is limitless.

My pizza includes (with prices):
-Garlic Herb dough: $1.29
-Trader Joe's Pizza Sauce: $2.29
-Whole mozzarella cheese (in whole or skim milk): 4.29
(just the basics cost all together: $7.87)
-Sliced Pepperoni: $2.79
-10 oz. Sliced Mushrooms: $2.29
-8 oz. Sliced Black Olives: $1.19
-two Red Onions (they come in pairs): N/A (Since I don't buy these every time I get supplies to make a pizza, I didn't keep records of how much it costs, but I know it wasn't that expensive.)

The great part about the pizza is that pretty much everything gets used in one batch with the exception of the mushrooms and the onions. There are just the right proportion of mushrooms and sliced onions left over to make another meal out of it.

I usually bag the left overs and saute (lightly cook) them together in a little bit of oil sometime later in the week. I put it over rice and cook up either some chicken or some breaded fish and it turns out pretty yummy. Surprisingly, it doesn't take that long to cook either.

But back to the pizza. The cool thing about all of this is that it's a great meal to cook with friends. Have each one of your friends buy an ingredient, and then each of them prep their own. One friend to stretch the dough, cut the onions, wash the mushrooms, open and drain the olives, shred the cheese, and so on.

A cautionary note about the dough, before you lay it out on a cookie sheet, make sure that you spray it with some form of Pam, or rub it with some butter to make sure the dough doesn't stick. Flour works good to, but I find that if you use to much flour, you can taste it on the pizza which is never good. I use a combination of the two, I use Pam so the flour has something to stick to. I pour a bit of flour onto the cookie sheet and then shake off the excess into the garbage.

While the pizza is cooking, it's a good opportunity to socialize and hang. When the pizza is done, it cooks for about 40 minutes, then it's chow time.

So grab your appetites and your machetes, there's about to be a taste revolution. Bad taste buds will no longer reign in the land of homemade pizza, viva la revolucion.

Input

2008-09-11T15:55:00.001-07:00

Here's the deal, I need three ingredients from you guys, and then I, the magical meal maker, will try to stir up some fast, cheap, easy concoction of a meal for all you starving college students who miss the "homemade" stuff to enjoy. Then, I'll write about it; if it was good/bad, how it was made: measurements in English, equipment, seasoning, the whole nine yards.

So here's what I need:

1) a meat (or for vegetarians, tofu or rice and beans will do)

2) a vegetable

3) a carbohydrate (such as rice, pasta, etc), or some other ingredient to make a side dish.

EX: I need ingredients like:

1) skirt steak
2) corn
3) white rice

I'm not sure how this will go, or if the result will even make it up here. Comment back with ingredients by Friday afternoon and I'll get cooking.
Ideas include maybe something you never had time or courage to make? Let me know. I plan to write step by step how I did it, costs, measurements, the whole enchilada (yuck yuck)

Drink suggestions are also good. I am not sure if I will include them or not, but feel free to add.

Thanks!
the anonymous A