I have a feeling there are lots of half-empty bags of potato chips around our rooms now that we are coping with the stress of a brand new semester. (Or…er….uh….always?) Perfect. You have the not-so-secret ingredient for this week’s fun, tasty, and super-easy recipe:

Potato Chip Chicken Tenders.

….And if you don’t, well, start eating, ladies! You’ve got some dinner to make!

Ingredients:

2 lbs skinless, boneless chicken strips (you can buy ‘em already cut up!)
1 cup crushed potato chips (any flavor)
2 teaspoons of melted butter

Instructions:

1. Thoroughly wash your chicken strips after taking them out of the package.

2. Put the melted butter in one bowl. Put your crushed potato chips in another. Dip the strips in the butter and then roll them in the crumbs to coat them.

3. Place the strips in a glass baking dish. Bake for 45 minutes at 375 degrees.

Add even more flavor to your potato chip chicken tenders with dipping sauces to compliment your chips (barbecue sauce, ranch dip, and nacho cheese work great with this recipe). Now that you’ve found something to do with the crumbs at the bottom of the chip bag, you’ll just have to party more often!

Curious about foreign cuisine? Want to see vegan, gluten-free, or diabetic recipes? Need something quick and easy? Drop your suggestions in the comment box and I’ll see what I can cook up!

Need more recipes? Get more awesome and yummy Intro to Cooking right here!

If you’ve been a CollegeCandy reader for some time, you know we run our Intro to Cooking series every week, where even the most kitchen-shy co-ed can find easy, yummy recipes to please her suitemates (and sweet tooth!). Well, we’ve changed up the syllabus for Intro to Cooking: you’ll still get the fabulous recipes you love, but we’ll be including background nutritional info on specific ingredients that are must-haves in every college girl’s pantry.

This Week’s Ingredient: Pineapple!

This tropical fruit is currently in season and has an impressive nutrient and health-benefits resume:

* One cup contains more than 125% of your daily value of manganese, a nutrient that keeps bones healthy and maintains blood-sugar levels.
* One cup contains more than 40% of your daily value of vitamin C.
* Pineapple is even more useful than carrots in preventing macular degeneration, a disease which causes loss of vision.

Easy Meals

1. Chop it up and add it to Greek yogurt for a sweet-and-sour combo.
2. Drizzle some pineapple slices in maple syrup, place on an aluminum foil-lined broiler pan for 5 mins (or until brown) and serve as a delicious dessert.

The Recipe: Pineapple Chicken

My father is, for better or for worse, your stereotypical Italian-American male when it comes to food. He loves veal, sausage, fish, cheese, butter, and is extremely critical of each meal’s preparation. If food isn’t prepared well, or is poor quality, he’ll make it known. Loudly. So the first time I ever made a meal for him, I knew I had to pull out all the stops, or risk soul-crushing rejection. I didn’t want to attempt one of his favorite dishes and miss the mark, so I steered away from the Italian standards and chose this pineapple chicken dish. When Dad told me it was “the most tender chicken” he’d had in a long time, I was more proud of myself than the day I got into college.

Pineapple Chicken [adapted]

1 can (8 ounces) crushed pineapple with juice
2 oz Gravy Master
1 tablespoon mustard
1/4 cup wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 red bell pepper, diced
4 chicken breasts

1. Stir pineapple, Gravy Master, mustard, vinegar and water, and simmer 5 minutes in a small saucepan, stirring frequently. Remove from heat.
2. Coat a large skillet with the EVOO (what up, Rachel Ray?), turn up to medium heat with a small diced pineapple piece. (This is an old trick to know when the pan is hot enough to cook!) When it sizzles, add the chicken breasts, turning occasionally, until the outsides are white.
3. Drizzle the pineapple mixture over the chicken gradually, turning occasionally, until cooked through (about 15 mins).
4. Garnish with the diced pepper, serve with fresh salad and brown rice.

I have never really liked meat. The idea of a bloody (or even well-done) steak with neatly criss-crossed grill marks on my plate has never been appealing to me, and I have basically limited my carnivorous intake to the occasional chicken breast. My boyfriend is a vegetarian, and I can go for long stretches of time without eating any meat at all. So why am I not a vegetarian, too, already?

Here are the reasons I’ve come up with (while sitting over a bowl of my mom’s famous beef stew):

- It still doesn’t seem to be quite accepted. If you’re invited to dinner at someone’s house or invited to a wedding or some other bash, it’s assumed that you eat meat. If you don’t, you either have to make everyone feel bad by arranging for a special plate or you have to forage for roots and berries among the side dishes.

- Some of my favorite dishes from childhood have meat in them. Sure, I don’t eat them now, but when I go home and my mom makes them, it’s sweet (and they’re still delicious). Knowing I couldn’t eat those anymore would kind of depress me. Wait, who am I kidding? It would totally depress me.

- One of my goals is to travel around the world, and I don’t want to have to limit myself in any way when I do that. Especially when it comes to eating local fare that may or may not come from an animal.

- BACON. Need I say more?

Okay, but lately I’ve been giving these things more serious thought. World Vegetarian Day – which is happening right now! – is arriving at a perfect time for me, because I’m finally considering just making the plunge and going full veg. After all, none of my reasons from above are really relevant on an everyday basis, and here’s something else: fake meat is surprisingly good. Yeah, that’s right. I said it. That Morningstar bacon will never come from a real hog and will always look and taste just a little bit off, but honestly, it’s pretty damn good. Good enough for me to give up the real stuff.

Plus, protein is everywhere. I didn’t realize I ate so much protein on an everyday basis until I started tracking my food with The Daily Plate and saw that I usually get about 250% to 300% of my daily protein requirement – all without eating meat. These foods are just bursting with protein and I happen to eat them (in large quantities) on a daily basis:

Eggs
Milk
Soy milk
Cottage cheese
Regular cheese
Yogurt
Peanut butter
Nuts
Lentils

I don’t need some artery clogging meat to survive. I can live meat-free and still get everything I need. So here it is: October 1, 2009 just might be the onset of my own personal journey toward vegetarianism.

PETA, call me! I wanna do one of those naked ads!

What do you vegetarians think? Is it easy? What made you decide? Why should I do it?

Easy.

It’s like your mom always said: the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Even if you aren’t exactly Julia Child, you can still follow instructions, and that’s all you need to do to bust out a romantic dinner that’ll have him drooling for your food and bolting with you to the bedroom.

Trust me, it’s way better to make food for your dude than take him out. Anyone can whip out a credit card, but it makes you look extra-special if you can whip out a spatula and use it like you’re supposed to. Plus, it’s obviously sweeter to make dinner than to buy it, and it gives you the opportunity to tailor what you make to what your guy really likes. (And it might even inspire him to cook for you . . . swoon!)

Before you get carried away, don’t go all Bridget Jones and try to make super-fancy recipes for multiple courses. Keep it simple, especially if you don’t have a ton of cooking experience. Odds are, your guy loves the classics: what meat-eating man would deny a nicely grilled steak or a plate of spaghetti just like his mom used to make?

So set out that tablecloth, light those candles, put on some tunes, and give these two tried-and-true recipes a whirl.

CHICKEN PARMESAN LINGUINE
6 oz linguine
1 chicken breast
1 tablespoon butter
2 garlic cloves, sliced thinly
6 oz mushrooms (any kind works)
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, shaved or grated
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Fresh parsley to garnish

1. Boil linguine for 8-10 minutes in a pot of salted water. Drain.
2. Chop up the chicken breast in bite-sized pieces.
3. In a saucepan, melt the butter. Add the garlic cloves and chicken pieces. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until chicken pieces begin to brown.
4. Add the mushrooms. Stir occasionally until the mushrooms release juices.
5. Add the white wine. Simmer until it’s reduced. (That means until all the wine is gone-zo.)
6. Add the heavy whipping cream. When it starts to bubble, turn off the heat and pour in the Parmesan, basil, and pepper. Combine the sauce with the noodles.
7. Garnish with the parsley right before serving.
8. Watch your boy melt into your hands like butter in a skillet.

CHOCOLATE FONDUE
8 oz dark chocolate or chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon hot water

1. In a heavy saucepan over low to medium heat, melt the chocolate with the heavy whipping cream. Stir often.
2. When the chocolate is melted and smooth, stir in the vanilla, sugar, and hot water.
3. Serve with cubes of pound cake, berries, or other fresh fruit. Or, you know, just stick your finger in there and lick it seductively. Whatever works.

It’s that time of year again: cold season.

Ew.

I’ve been noticing more people sneezing, which is why sanitizer is my new BFF. Unfortunately, thanks to all the common surfaces in college – computers, desks, ice luges – no matter how hard we all try we are gonna catch a cold. Pretty much everybody does. Even if they can avoid the germy keyboards and doorknobs on campus, the change in weather usually has them sniffling before too long.

But I have the cure for what ails us all: the best chicken soup EVER. Don’t use that canned stuff; the time and effort to make this soup is totally worth it. It will fill you up and make you feel all warm and toasty inside, no matter how chilly and snowy it is outside.

What you’ll need:

A pretty big pot

1 whole chicken

2 onions

3 carrots

About 6 small red potatoes

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon basil

1 1/2 teaspoons cracked black pepper

Salt to taste

1 bag egg noodles

Time to Cook:

1. First, you better clean the chicken. If you’ve never been witness to this before, the stores don’t take all their, um, insides out before they sell it. So you have to pull out the gizzard and everything else. Once you get the chicken cleaned out from the inside, give it a good wash inside and out. Just rinse the bird a couple of times in cold water. If you want to take the skin off or trim the fat, feel free to, but I usually leave them on. It enhances the flavor.

2. Cut both onions into quarters. Stuff one onion inside the chicken and salt and pepper the inside also. While you’re at it, peel the carrots and cut them into good size chunks and set them off to the side. Go ahead and wash the potatoes too, and cut them into even sized chunks.

3. Take the pot and fill it 3/4 of the way with water. It needs to be big enough that the chicken can soak and the water can boil but not boil over.

4. Add the other onion, the carrots, and the potatoes to the water. Add the garlic, oregano, basil, and pepper to the water. Add a little salt, but not too much (you can add more later).

5. Add the bird (carefully!) and crank the stove to medium heat. Bring the soup to a boil and then turn the heat to low.

6. Here’s where the waiting comes in: it’s going to take roughly six hours for the soup to get nice and yummy. Every hour, flip the chicken over in the pot (carefully!) so that it cooks evenly. Around the sixth time you flip it, the chicken should begin to fall apart.

7. Once the chicken starts falling off the bone, take it out of the pot. Leave heat on low to keep soup warm. Debone the chicken, making sure to strip the meat carefully. Once you’ve finished that, set that juicy chicken aside.

8. Take some standard egg noodles and add them to your broth. Turn heat back up to medium. Cook them for roughly fifteen minutes, then add the chicken back to the pot. Once you add the chicken back to the pot, turn the heat off.

You can store this soup easily and reheat it on the stove or in the microwave. It’s awesome with saltine crackers or some nice buttery ones. It seems kind of intensive, but trust me, this soup beats any canned chicken noodle any day.

(Photo courtesy flickr via edestlin)

Lean Cuisine has issued a recall of 9.5-ounce packages of “Lean Cuisine Pesto Chicken with Bow Tie Pasta,”  10.5-ounce packages of “Lean Cuisine Chicken Mediterranean,” and 12.5-ounce packages of “Lean Cusine Chicken Tuscan.”  citing that the food may contain small pieces of plastic.  If you own any of these dinners, you are urged to call (800) 993-8625 to speak with a customer service representative. 

So if you keep a stock of frozen dinners in your fridge, or you know someone who does, pass the word along!

All right so it might not be cold yet, but that doesn’t mean a bowl of something hot wouldn’t hit the spot. If you’re too broke to swing by the nearest deli every time you get a massive craving for a soup and sandwich, try this recipe for chili. It’s super easy, great for dorm rooms (assuming you can use a crock-pot there…or can hide it from your R.A.) and it makes enough to last a lot longer than one of those eensy bowls of Broccoli Cheddar soup (still, mmmm broccoli cheddar soup…).

Chili is extremely customizable. For instance, depending on whether you like yours really hot or not so much, it isn’t hard to adjust the spice of this recipe. Chili is kind of a free-for-all dish, meaning, throw whatever the hell you want into a pot as long as it sounds good. (Caution: do not try this when inebriated. I did and quickly realized that frosting does not go well in chili.)

So, for my perfect chili, here’s what you need:

1 lb. ground beef

Cumin to taste

1 can of chunky tomatoes

1 can Rotel

2 cans red kidney beans

1 can black beans

1 small onion, cut into chunks

1 can jalapeno peppers (for extra spice if you want it)

Chili seasoning (totally optional, by the way)

1. First, brown a pound of ground beef (or turkey, or hell, even chicken) in a skillet (or microwave). I typically like to add some cumin to it because it gives it a great smoky flavor.

2. Here’s where it gets easy: Take the ground beef and drain it. Then throw it in the crock pot. And then add all the cans. You may want to drain some of them, depending on how soupy you like your chili, but don’t drain the beans. The natural starch helps to thicken the chili a little. Add the onions and the jalapeno peppers (if you opt to use them) and any chili seasoning you wish.

3. Turn the crock-pot to high and cook for about an hour, just to get it nice and hot. Then turn it down to low and let it simmer for a while. I usually let it simmer at least two hours but the longer the better–the flavors totally come together the more time you give ‘em.

4. After you’re ready to chow down, serve up some hot chili with some shredded cheese and any other essentials you might need. My personal favorite way is to top it off with some monterey jack cheese with grilled cheese on the side. Talk about comfort food. So tasty.

I love Asian Food. Rice? OMG, perfect side. So, I used to find myself ordering out for it A LOT. That got really pricey. Cooking it on my own, though; not so much. So cheap. And so very, very yummy. Now you try it:

Honey Teriyaki Chicken

1 lb of boneless skinless chicken tenders

¼ cup of honey

¾ cup of teriyaki sauce

Teaspoon of fine chopped onions (optional)

Teaspoon of ginger (optional)

1) Mix honey, teriyaki sauce, onion, and ginger together.

2) Pour mixture over chicken and let marinate in the fridge for at least two hours. Overnight is better.

3) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4) Place chicken in a single layer in casserole dish. Cover with foil and place in heated oven.

5) Cook for 35 – 45 minutes (oven times may vary)

This dish goes great with a side of rice and broccoli, which also happen to be super cheap and easy to make. Seriously, it may take you less time (and money!) to pull this together than to wait for the delivery dude to knock on your door.

A perfect meal for the busy college lady.

[Photo courtesy of flickr.com] 

I’ll tell you: honey garlic chicken wings.

Did you just fall off your seat? Drool all over your chin? Drool on your seat and fall off your chin?

Anyway, they’re delish. So make ‘em and throw a party. Here’s how:

You Vill Need:

(For 4 servings)

2 lbs of chicken wings

1 1/2 cups of honey

2 cloves of minced garlic

6 tbsp of soy sauce

You Vill Do:

(1) Heat the garlic and honey and soy sauce in a saucepan. When it’s boiling, go to step 2.

(2) Put the chicken in a baking pan and pour the boiling mix on top. Cover the whole thing with foil and leave in the fridge overnight.

(3) Still covered, bake for an hour at 375 degrees. Turn those suckers after a half an hour, and then remove the foil and bake it for another 15 minutos.

(4) Remove wings from sauce and bake the chicken alone for another 10 minutes. Then turn them over and cook for another final 10 minutes.

(5) And then you’re golden!!! ENJOY THOSE WINGS!

[Image courtesy of timeinc.net]

Here’s the rundown on the mot popular kinds of wine and what to drink them with.

Reds

Cabernet Sauvignon is produced mainly in France and California. This red is what’s called “full bodied,” meaning it’s got a rich, strong flavor of dark fruits like black current. The best Cabernets taste a bit earthy and dry and they tend to get better with age, so pick-up a bottle with the earliest date (as in, 2003 rather than 2008).

Pair with red meat, grilled vegetables, or pasta with red sauce.

Merlot is arguably the most popular red wine. Merlot can range from medium to full-bodied and is high in alcohol and low in acidity. Flavors include plum and chocolate (yum!). Grown all over the world, this wine is easy to enjoy.

Pair with pasta with red sauce, beef, or grilled or smoky meats.

Pinot Noir is made from a velvety grape that is one of the hardest to grow, which makes a good pinot great and a bad pinot terrible. A good pinot will be complex, with flavors ranging from black cherries to earthy spices. Pinot Noir grapes traditionally come from Burgundy, France, but are now being perfected in Oregon and California.

Pair with salmon, pasta, or pork.

Zinfandel is an up-and-coming wine. The fancier Pinot Noir and Cabernet Sauvignon wines often overshadow this red, but California growers have started to turn Zinfandel into their pet project. Flavors can range from light fruits to peppery fruits.

Pair with spicy or highly seasoned foods.

Whites

Chardonnay is one of the most popular whites and the grapes for this wine are grown all over the world. This wine is slightly dry with some acidity and can have flavors of figs, peaches, and/or honey.

Pair with seafood, grilled fish, chicken, or pork.

Pinot Blanc is a bit simpler than a Chardonnay, and a younger Pinot Blanc is better than an older one because they don’t respond too well to aging. This wine is dry with high acidity, and it offers a hint of apples and spice. The grapes for this wine grow well in the Alsace region of France and in California.

Pair with vegetable-based dishes roast chicken, fish, or pork.

Sauvignon Blanc is sharp, acidic, and light- to medium-bodied. This white wine can taste of grass and herbs (in a good way, promise!) or of grapefruit, and it can be drunk when it’s young or aged, both taste good. Look for a Sauvignon Blanc that comes from a warmer climate for a fruitier, melon flavor. This grape grows well in northeastern Italy, California, and New Zealand, but the best ones are from France’s Loire Valley and Bordeaux region.

Pair with chicken, fish, vegetarian cuisine, or Asian food.

When in doubt, don’t be shy about asking a clerk in a good supermarket (like Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods) or go into a specialty wine shop and ask for a suggestion. And check out wine.woot.com, each week they’ve got a new deal on wine. This week, it’s two bottles of Little Vineyards 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon for $45 (one bottle usually retails for $30).