There’s really nothing better for a busy college girl than a dinner that tastes fantastic but took less than 15 minutes to make. Unfortunately, the two are almost mutually exclusive in my mind. I say “almost” because I can think of at least one notable exception: taco salad.

When I was a kid, taco salad was one of my favorite dinners. My mom would sprinkle some grated cheddar cheese on tortilla chips and pop them in the oven to make nachos, and we would eat the nachos as an appetizer while she made the taco salad. When we were done downing the nachos, the salad was ready to eat.

I love taco salad so much that sometimes I make the mistake of ordering it when I go out to eat. There’s nothing wrong with that—it’s usually pretty delicious—but then I remember that I can make almost exactly the same thing at home for a fraction of the cost. If you like restaurant taco salad, too, give this recipe a try. Read More »

Ahh summer time. The heat is blistering, the Natty Lite is chilled and the pool beckons. For those of us not taking summer classes, these three months are a glorious break from homework, studying and fluorescent lighting. Yes, the whole summer yawns out blue skies and cut-offs until late August and it’s hard to imagine ever going back to school.

Except, I do imagine it. I catch myself worrying about non-existent assignments and responsibilities that won’t resume until September. But even more, I constantly find myself spacing out at work, reminiscing about all the good stuff that comes along with college. Mostly the whole not-bored-at-work-9-to-5 thing.

And I miss it!

Meal Plans: While I’m lucky enough not to be taking classes this summer, I do have to work — which means I’m stuck in a college town all summer long without the benefit of visiting home, and therefore the benefit of home cookin’. My freshman year, I ate dining hall food. My sophomore year, my sorority dues included a meal plan. This summer, with my sorority house closed and the dining halls freshmen-infested, I’m armed only with my apartment’s kitchen and whatever the hell I find when I Google “easy, cheap, healthy recipes” and pudding. Do I enjoy learning to cook? Absolutely. Would I prefer a cook to prepare my meals? Uh, hell yes. Plus, there’s no clean up if you’re not the one using all the dishes… Read More »

Ah, pie crust. I could practically eat it raw . . .

Well, okay, that’s pretty disgusting, so I take it back (sorta). But baked pie crust is an entirely different story. It’s so versatile—you can use it for tarts, dessert pizza, and (obviously) pies. And you can fill those pies with anything—lemon curd, banana cream, fresh strawberries . . .

Now that we’re getting into some serious summer weather, fresh fruit (yes, the kind that you don’t take out of the freezer and probably haven’t had since you were home for Christmas) is soon going to be abundant in grocery stores and farmers’ markets all over the country. You’ll be able to pick your own berries for cheaper than the cost of a vanilla latte, and everyone knows that berries taste best in pie!

It’s easy to haul down to the store and pick up a ready-made pie crust, but who needs that? People (cute people, obviously) will be sooooo much more impressed if you can make your own. Not to mention the feeling of accomplishment that comes from putting a homemade pie on the table!

Here’s how you do it.

Stuff You Need
To make one double pie crust (bottom and top), get together:
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup unsalted butter or vegetable shortening
- 1 teaspoon salt
- A bowl of ice water
- A rolling pin Read More »

I am all about laziness—I mean, industriousness—and because of that, I love making dinners that I can use as leftovers later. Some things (salads) don’t keep quite as well as others (fruitcake), but it’s usually possible to find recipes that occupy a happy medium and can bail you out in a time crunch.

If you find yourself without the time to cook 3 meals a day, 7 days a week, these dishes are perfect for you. Get in the kitchen once and eat for days.

Door Number 1: Soup

Soup is a classic for good reason. It’s quick to make, it stays well in the fridge or the freezer, and it’s extremely simple to cook up a giant batch and use it for meal after meal. Soup is also incredibly versatile—in almost any soup recipe, you can add or subtract basically whatever you want (don’t like celery? Try some zucchini!) and it will still turn out tasting great. Plus, you don’t even know how much better it is than soup in the can until you’ve made it yourself and experienced the difference. A good starting point is this potato soup, which is All Recipes’s highest-rated soup recipe.

Door Number 2: Rice

My personal favorite thing to do with rice is to cook a huge pan of fried rice with tons of vegetables and bits of chicken or tofu, and then keep the leftovers for my lunches all week. Following this recipe will give you great Chinese fried rice. If you prefer a more Indian flava, leave out the soy sauce, sub the sesame oil with another type of oil (canola or mustard is good), and add turmeric, cumin, chili powder, and pepper. Read More »

Can you think of anything that says fall more than pumpkin? I can’t. And if you can, shut up.

Because here, for your reading pleasure, is a delicious recipe for pumpkin pancakes.

Imagine this: It’s Sunday morning and you’re snuggled in to have a nice “me” morning. Sound pretty good? Well, sure. But add pumpkin pancakes–and now you’re in frickin’ heaven.

So, pumpkin pancakes! Enjoy!

Stuff You’ll Need:

1 cup of pumpkin puree

3 tbsp of brown sugar

1 1/2 of milk

2 tbsn vinegar

1/2 tsp of ginger (ground

2 cups of flour

1 tsp of allspice (ground) Read More »

I have posted what seems like a million small-batch recipes here at CC, and I’ve adapted the vast majority of them from this book. If you live by yourself or with only one other person, you like good food, you don’t mind cooking, and you can only have one cookbook, buy this one. You will NOT regret it.

There’s absolutely everything in here, from general small-batch advice to a lowdown on ingredients to winning recipes of all kinds. And every recipe in here is truly excellent. I can’t stand fat cookbooks full of thousands of recipes that obviously were never tested, meaning you have to dig through the whole book to handpick the recipes that may have the potential to be edible.

Not so with Cooking for Two. The authors, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, have really tweaked every recipe, and it’s obvious. The ingredient amounts are right on, and you can expect fantastic taste with everything you make from here.

I can’t say anything specific about the seafood section since I don’t eat seafood, but the casserole and poultry sections really shine. Also, many of the recipes can be adapted for slow cookers to make them even easier! Read More »

Once upon a time, man survived by cooking his dinner over a fire. Then someone came along and invented The George Foreman Grill (I guess that someone would be George himself). And now? Now we don’t know how we could live without it.

But Georgie isn’t the only brilliant inventor out there; there are tons of kitchen thingies that will change your life.

I’ve compiled a list of cooking gadgets you don’t realize you need, but that is only because you haven’t used them yet. Forget DVR; these things are the best inventions since sliced bread.

1) I love corn on the cob, but I absolutely refuse to eat it unless someone cuts it off the cob for me. And since the only person who loves me enough to cut the corn off the cob for me is my dad, I don’t often get to enjoy it. But now that this gadget has been introduced into my life, I’m going to start eating it at every single chance I get! The corn on the cob stripper is the perfect dad replacement. If only it also gave me money… Read More »

Hit up any Chinese or Indian buffet and you’ll notice that a fixture of the line is fried rice — the kind that you can pile on your plate time after time and still enjoy with each new helping. It’s both delicious and addictive.

So wouldn’t it be great if you could make that rice in your own kitchen and avoid shelling out $8 for an all-you-can-eat meal of regret?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Here’s the good news: you can, and it’s easy. In fact, if you ever have stray vegetables or leftovers lying around (like I do almost… oh, let’s see, EVERY DAY), it’s even easier. Fried rice is incredibly forgiving—you can toss whatever you want in there, and it will still taste great.

So here’s a basic recipe, but feel free to play around with it! Read More »

I like to have some kind of baked good in the morning along with my cup of coffee, and honestly, there is nothing better than a scone to serve that purpose. Muffins are nice, but they’re too sweet (and often they are also the size of a man’s head). Biscotti go fabulously with coffee, but inevitably disintegrate into crumbs whenever I attempt to eat them.

But scones… aahhh. They’re just so close to perfect. Also, you can freeze them and just pop one out whenever you want to eat it—beautiful!

So I was rooting around for a great scone recipe this weekend, and I unearthed this monster on the mother of all recipe sites, the (aptly named) All Recipes. I will announce this publicly: I will never search for another scone recipe again. These are SO AMAZING!

To make a flawless recipe even better, they are also customizable. Yeah, that’s right. The recipe lists raisins as an optional ingredient, so if you don’t want raisin scones, you can basically throw whatever you do want right in the batter and mix it up.

I made cranberry-walnut scones, but the possibilities are endless. Chocolate-chip scones? Okay! Orange-lemon scones? Yes! Irish coffee scones? Well… I’m not quite that ambitious, but go for it and let me know how it turns out. Read More »

I’m sure I am not the only one who knows how frustrating it is to find the perfect recipe, start making it, and then realize that I am out of a crucial ingredient. (What’s that? You don’t make recipes without double-checking that you have all the ingredients on hand? Well, aren’t you special.)

Because there is nothing more annoying than having to run to the grocery store and leave your raw cookie batter sitting on the counter, I took the liberty of putting together a handy-dandy substitution cheat sheet of things you can use when you find yourself without the genuine article.

For self-rising flour, substitute flour with baking powder and salt. Self-rising flour is really just a fancy name for flour that already has baking powder and salt added, so you can cheat the system by adding those things yourself. For each cup of flour, just throw in 1 ½ tsp baking powder and about ½ tsp salt.

For cream/half-and-half, substitute milk. Keep in mind that this will only work sometimes. Milk is a lot thinner than cream and has a lot less fat (added health bonus), but that also means that it doesn’t behave the same way. For a recipe in which you’re mixing everything together anyway (quiche), it will work fine, but it’s not going to get you anywhere if you pour it in a bowl and try to whip it into real fluffy cream. If you don’t have regular milk, try using buttermilk, yogurt, or sour cream. Read More »