Remember my cookbook?

Back again from our final trip of the summer to the beautiful Berkshires where I reconnected with childhood places and happy memories of my now-gone relatives from Vienna. I continued some of the questioning I began in the Balkans and got more specifics on the dangerous  journey undertaken by my grandparents, mother, and others as they escaped Vienna in the late 1930s. Truly, my very existence is a miracle.

I may depart from my blog's original purpose--to spread the gospel of frugality--and turn to more personal matters as I attempt to wrest information from the very few surviving relatives--who themselves remember very little and were greeted with silence about those terrible times.

For the moment though, I am back to frugality. After all, if we weren't frugal we couldn't go to the Balkans to ask questions of Ildi, my mother's cousin's widow. Since I am interested in a return visit, I am once again checking the food ads and making lists of necessary items to search for in thrift stores.

And it is time to make yet another pitch for the cookbook Frugal Son and i put together from Miss Em a few years ago, when she went off with a scholarship that provided a dorm room but not a board card. How to cook with limited resources, no car, a small fridge, and NO STOVE?

Thus was born our little cookbook. I have not really made an effort to market it, but copies sell now and again. And now--after all these years--a review! A good one!

Seriously, get your college student a rice cooker (very cheap), some rice (ditto) and a few other things. This will be a much-appreciated gift. I and my post-college kids (and their friends) use the book all the time. Not just for the stove-free.

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5.0 out of 5 stars This book is great! I was on a trip with a fridge ... July 10, 2014

By JEC

Verified Purchase

This book is great! I was on a trip with a fridge available for use. Needed a cheap option for cooking meals, so I searched the Kindle Store and found this book. After reading I picked up a rice cooker and made a few of these recipes. I haven't tried them all yet, but I plan to, and I did enjoy the ones I made. This is an excellent cookbook for dorm, hotel room, and at home cooking.

A Plug for my Cookbook: A Gift for the Harried

We are not Black Friday shoppers. In fact, we have been lounging around all morning. No doubt the good deals are gone. Thank heavens for that!

Even so, I have a plug or pitch or whatever you want to call it. If you look at my other blog, you will see that my zeal for helping out the poor, hungry student--or any busy person really--has been reawakened. The reawakening is courtesy of a review in a college paper, which outlined the experience of a college cook: armed with a college cookbook (not mine!), plus $50.00 worth of ingredients, she produced 3 small meals, none of which came out very well. UGH.

For the same $50.00, you can buy your College Cook my cookbook ($2.99 on Amazon or for a pdf here--look to the upper right), a rice cooker, and a box of ingredients: rice, canned tomatoes, tuna, broth, canned beans, tortillas, and so on. Enough to make almost a week of meals. The book calls for a single shopping trip, mostly canned and shelf-stable ingredients, and offers a series of COORDINATED recipes that use the ingredients in different ways.

Rice Cooker Meals for Everyone, Even Me

Now that I'm back in school, I'm more frazzled than usual. Out comes the trusty rice cooker. I used a recipe in a regionally published cookbook as a base.

Like many regional cookbooks, this one has recipes that are all kind of the same, calling for Rotel tomatoes and Cajun seasoning in almost every dish. I put together something based on Cabbage Casserole, which involved throwing into the rice cooker some cooked ground beef (I had this frozen), some onions, bell peppers, green onions, 1 cup rice, 1 cup or so of water, a few handfuls of preshredded cabbage and OF COURSE a small can of Rotel tomatoes. Turn on the rice cooker. It will know when to stop. If you need to add more liquid, do so.

Serve with hot sauce, also OF COURSE.

My hero Roger Ebert is right: the pot knows. I left out several things, including a pound of sausage, that I didn't have. It was still good.


The author says that this tastes like stuffed cabbage. Well, I wish. My grandma (from Poland) was a terrible cook, but she made wonderful stuffed cabbage. They didn't have Cajun seasonings or Rotel in Poland--or Brooklyn--though they probably do now. This tastes like what your Cajun grandma would have made.

After a long day at work, I must say I enjoy throwing a bunch of stuff into a single pot, letting the pot do the work, and then having enough to eat the next day. At which point, you will have to wash a single pot.

Next time, I'll add some cooked red beans.

We are all College Cooks

What is a College Cook? Someone with limited time, space, know how, and facilities. In truth, I have only one genuine College Cook in my immediate circle: Miss Em, who is heading into her last year of dorm life.

Frugal Son just moved to an apartment in New Orleans: he packed his beloved rice cooker. Mr C--an affiliate of our family, though not officially a member--just moved into his post-grad apartment and received his first rice cooker (courtesy of me and Goodwill) and a copy of the little guide Frugal Son and I put together:

This is not just a collection of easy recipes: we recommend 20 easy to buy and store products; we then offer 2 weeks of recipes that can be put together quickly, with little mess, in rice cooker or microwave, two college approved appliances. Oh, and did I mention that you or your cook will save a ton of money--not to mention time?

We priced it as low as Amazon can go for our program: $2.99. For the same price, you can order it from us and receive an ebook.

Even though I like to cook, I am as lazy as the next person (lazier, probably). I cook with my rice cooker most nights.

Check out our college Cooking blog for occasional posts and suggestions too.

Any other suggestions for the College Cook--even if the College Cook is long out of college?

A Gift for the Grad: Using My Talents

The best gift, of course, is one the recipient wants. I recently bought a wedding gift, using the registry. Gnashing my teeth all the while, thinking I could get 10 things for the price of the one (biggish) gift I am buying. It was the right thing to do though. Right now, I am in the process of buying a graduation gift for Mr C, a recent family friend. On Saturday, I noticed that the 2.8 million dollar home a few blocks away had a yard sale sign. So off we went. Mr C found some sport coats (cashmere and camel hair!) in his size. I said: Let me buy those as part of your graduation pres. He was pleased, so I got him a nice belt too. Hmmm. This is really using my frugal talents. Next, I'm going to buy him a slow cooker (new) and a stick blender (ditto). I already gave him a second-hand rice cooker and a copy of the little ebook Frugal Son and I put together. Finally, I am going to get some food staples for his first real cooking adventures. Mr. C will be working in a Vista program next year while studying for the dreaded MCAT exam. If he learns to cook efficiently, he will have skills that will take him through med school and beyond. I've finally found the perfect recipient! Happy Graduation Mr C!

Give Away: College Cooking Crash Course ebook

Do you know a clueless student who would like the little ebook Frugal Son and I put together last summer? Or would you like one for yourself? You don't need to be a college student to benefit from our 20 ingredient/2 weeks of meals/cheap/easy/low mess system. Oh yeah: no stove. But it's good even if you have a stove. You do need a rice cooker for some of the recipes.

Anyway, I will give away one copy on each blog: see College Cooking Crash Course.

Entry is easy: just leave a comment below. You can double your chances of winning if you leave a comment on both blogs. I'd love it if you'd tell all your friends, but that is not required. The winner will be chosen on Friday.

If you don't win this time, don't despair. I'll be doing this now and again.

City Kitchen: A New NYT Column

It doesn't take much to make me happy. The latest happiness-inducer was a glance at City Kitchen, a column in the New York Times.

This is written for people with city kitchens: no space, no equipment, the usual limitations. In other words, real kitchens. Well, you see why I would like this: it sounds like the College Cooking close to my heart: no space, no equipment, and so on.

In fact, the plight of the College Cook is more difficult, since the City Cook at least has a few burners. I'm hoping to get some more ideas for my dear college Cooking daughter--and for my neglected blog: College Cooking Crash Course.

I guess the San Francisco Foodie establishment will miss the columnist: here is what they have to say about his first column.

It certainly walks the line between aspirational and instructional with steps like: "First, make thin ribbons of raw asparagus, fennel and radish. Then make a lemony, anchovy-inflected vinaigrette." Which prompts the question, are the bustling cities of the world ready to break out the "anchovy-inflected vinaigrette" en masse? Only time will tell.

INFLECTED. That word is--or was--overused in literary criticism for a while; I see it has migrated to food writing. Aside from the pompous word, I am so thrilled! The first column is on the humble bean.

Do you like the column, dear readers?

The Egg and I: For College Cooks and Others

I am going to start posting my College Cooking posts here too. Not to name any names, but CERTAIN PEOPLE WHO WERE SUPPOSED TO HELP ME HAVE NOT DONE SO.

EGGS just seem to be in the air these days. On the College Cooking front, I have this report. Always on the lookout for stove-free cooking options, I discovered this little item.

Really, this is silly. However, I spotted one at Goodwill for 99 cents, so I bought it. It's definitely worth 99 cents. I put some of the beaten egg for the pasta frittata in each side, cooked for a minute, added some cooked pasta and cheese, and finished it up. Then I folded it closed: tada! a very pretty fake omelet.

I think this would actually be good for microwave-only cooks: there is little clean up, really; it produces an attractive item (so important for solo eaters); it can accommodate all kinds of leftovers, and so on. Next time I use it, I'm going to try beating the eggs IN the contraption, for even less clean up.

Further on the egg front. I unearthed a cookbook I've never used.

Here is a knock-off of one of their recipes. I have probably already revealed my insane love of mashed potatoes, so it should come as no surprise that this one is on my to-do list.

Ingredients

* 3 cups mashed potatoes, heated through
* 4 eggs
* Coarse salt and cracked black pepper
* 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
* 1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs such as parsley, chives, oregano, or thyme

Directions

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Divide the mashed potatoes into four individual baking dishes. Make a deep well in the center of the mashed potatoes. Crack an egg directly into each well. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Sprinkle 1/4 of the cheese over each egg. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until eggs are done to your likeness.

Remove from oven, garnish with fresh herbs. Serve immediately.

Our New Blog!

Well, not much ON the new blog, but check it out: College Cooking Crash Course. Frugal Son and I have been testing recipes and hope to figure out how to make our concoction into an ebook.

Though we conceptualized this for the dorm dwelling student, our "system" would be great for anyone who would like to cook with no trouble--not to mention, no stove. We've come up with a plan that requires one shop for more than a week of meals, one rice cooker, little prep, little cleanup. We're assuming little storage space too, as befits the dorm focus. And of course it's CHEAP. Really cheap.

Of course, with all the restrictions, you're going to get a one-dish supper--not a three course meal. Tonight we had an Asian rice dish topped with Thai-inspired peanut sauce. Not too shabby.

Any questions? Any interest? Any ideas?

College Dorm Cooking: Advice Please

I have really and truly appreciated the advice that has been coming my way on my project. And, I promise, I will respond to all comments one of these days. I have been cooking away with the rice cooker: Thai pumpkin soup, mushroom and bread soup, Moroccan vegetable stew. And more. I am so glad I didn't spring for the expensive faux-pro stove 2 years ago (I came THIS close to a Wolf or Bluestar), because I think 90% of my cooking will be in the rice cooker henceforth.

Anyway, here is the latest evolution of my project. I would like to get something up before school starts. That desire is complicated by the fact that I will be on the road for much of July, and big sections of the road do not have easy access to the internet.

NEW CONCEPT:
20-25 ingredients
2 weeks of dinners (and not stuff like I've listed above; this will be more basic). Equipment will be rice cooker, knife, and stick blender as before.
Recipes will not require chopping or any complex prep.
Recipes will not require shopping, once initial pantry set up complete.
Recipes will not require a stove--just rice cooker and micro.
Minimal clean-up, owing to above factores.

So: no shopping, no equipment, no knowledge, no cleaning...

If I do this as an ebook--which sounds fairly easy to set up, especially since I'm going to have someone else in my family do it--I can put it on Amazon! Do you think anyone would pay, say, $2.00 for such a useful tome?

College Dorm Cooking: The Good, The Bad, The Dangerous

Should I continue with this project? Should I--as blogbuddy Chance suggests--write an ecookbook? So far, I have started a pantry, including a freezer pantry, suggested some essential equipment, notably, a rice cooker, and test-driven a recipe-less concoction in the rice cooker. So far, so good.

I continue to look around for helpful sources. I was in Barnes and Noble last week and saw a slew of slow cooker cookbooks, with nary a rice cooker book. I check around the blogosphere. Let's go through my subtitle in reverse order.

THE DANGEROUS. There are many blog posts that suggest going against dorm rules so you can keep a toaster over, a Foreman grill, even a hotplate in your dorm room. Many of these have a jeering tone: "Hey, I'm an adult. Can't I be trusted with a hotplate?" Uh, no. I remember reading about a dorm that burned down because a student tried to dry her underwear with a blow dryer. And I remember being in college myself, trying to stay up all night, and falling asleep over my books.

Some of the posts advising hiding proscribed appliances in your closet are written by PARENTS. Please, parents, your child is just as likely to pass out as the next kid.

THE BAD. I've already described some of these: ramen stroganoff, velveeta nachos, and the like. One recent discovery (no link--find it yourself if you want it) gave directions for microwave meatloaf, which consisted of 1/4 lb of ground beef cooked in a mug with various meatloaf ingredients. To me, this is simply useless. Assuming you don't have 1/4 lb of hamburger in a defrosted state, you need to trudge to the grocery, purchase your quarter pound of meat, pay, return to the dorm, and concoct your meatloaf.

The GOOD. Well, it doesn't exist. There are decent college cookbooks out there, but they are not dorm cookbooks. One I flipped through at Barnes and Noble gave the useful (I'm being sarcastic) suggestion that if you don't have buttermilk to make your muffin batter, you can sub yogurt. Gee, that's helpful for the average dorm dweller.

So this is what I think would be good.
First, a PANTRY. I've already started this. With basic ingredients, you can make any number of things quickly. It's the haphazard shopping that is a time-waster.

Second, a FEW recipes. Many blog posts on the subject advise buying your scholar a basic cookbook. Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything is often mentioned. That's a fine suggestion for someone like me, who loves to peruse cookbooks, but that sucker is over 900 pages long. I can just see your scholar flipping though, trying to decide. Remember: PARADOX OF CHOICE. So let's limit the choices.

My cookbook is written for my darling daughter, so my recipes will be her favorites. I remember reading Peg Bracken's I Hate to Cookbook, a fun read, though I never did cook anything from it. Anyway, she said: no one needs more than 28 recipes (or was it 30?). Well, I think that the college student needs even fewer.

These will be mine, decided on in consultation with my dear Lucy M.
1. African peanut soup
2. Thai coconut curry (shrimp, chicken, or vegetable)
3. Shrimp and corn soup
4. Burritos
5. Chilaquiles
6. Chile (beef and vegetarian)
7. Red beans and rice (of course!)
8. A magic spinach/ricotta dish that can be Italian or Mexican, depending.

None of these needs the stove; some can be put together and then microwaved. These--along with the rice cooker basics--provide plenty of variety. They are mostly one-pot meals. I seem to remember Peg Bracken also saying that you don't need to get all your nutrients in each meal; you can spread them out over time! Good point.

Anyway, I would be appreciative of any other ideas. Be looking for further development through summer.

Newsflash: Peg Bracken's book is being republished in a 50th Anniversary edition. Bracken is a great writer.

Polenta in the Rice Cooker: It Works

Soooo, I've already advocated polenta in the slow cooker. Now, fickle me, I am putting aside that cumbersome appliance for my new bff in the kitchen: the rice cooker.

Of course, I did this for my daughter's cooking adventures in the dorm next year. I was skeptical, but since cornmeal costs about 50 cents/lb, I figured I could take a chance. I put in one cup of cornmeal and two cups of water, stirred, added some salt. Turned it on. It was bubbling like crazy. I decided that maybe I hadn't added enough water, so I added another cup after a bit. Stirred again (watch out for the splattering polenta--it burns).

Much to my surprise, it was fine AND it stuck to the pot less than it sticks to the slow cooker insert. Mr. FS complained mildly about how long it took to get the stuck polenta off the slow cooker insert. (Yes, he does most of the dishes too.)

The reason I was skeptical is because the rice cooker goes against polenta rules. Polenta rules state long, slow cooking at barely a bubble, preferably for hours, preferably by your nonna, preferably in a copper pot. The slow cooker actually fulfills the first rule. Rice cooker cooking fulfills none: it brings the polenta to a boil very fast, then cooks furiously, then switches to warm. Who cares? It worked, no lumps, and no sticking.

By the way, in the interest of frugality, you don't need to buy that pricey grain labeled POLENTA. You can buy cornmeal.

I have a feeling that my rice cooker experiments will transform my cooking life more than my daughter's.

Any good toppings for polenta?

College Cooking: Smoothies with Your Immersion Blender

Now that it's June, my little project is taking on some urgency. You've all acquired an immersion blender, right? Smoothies can be made in regular blenders, but the clean up is a pain. With an immersion blender, you can just rinse off the blender and your container. I know that for harried students, even that can be too much sometimes. But yucky blenders are the worst!

Smoothies: These are ridiculously expensive in shops. One hardly needs a recipe: we use yogurt, frozen banana, and whatever other fruit we have that seems promising. A little sugar or honey and you're done.

For the dorm cook, even the simplest concoction comes with roadblocks. What if you don't HAVE a frozen banana (because packing bananas for the freezer is a pain)? What if you don't have fruit? What if you don't have yogurt? Besides, yogurt can get expensive; we make our own chez frugalscholar, but that would be too much for most students.

This morning I conducted an experiment: regular unfrozen banana, handful of frozen blueberries, powdered milk, water, sugar. It was just fine.

Then I tried a trick I read about recently: I put in a handful of regular flaked oatmeal and blended it in. It worked!

So here we have a healthy smoothie with roadblocks minimized.
1. You can use a regular banana.*
2. You can sub powdered milk and water for yogurt.**
3. Fruit is a problem area, because it's heavy to lug home from the store, fragile, and has a short lifespan.*** I suggest adding FROZEN FRUIT to your freezer pantry. The cheapest place in my town is Dollar Tree, where I can get blueberries, peaches, and strawberries. The fruit comes in bags, from which you can take what you want and then re-secure, either with a rubber band, a scrunchie, or a paper clip.
4. The oatmeal is a great add-in because it functions as a thickener, is VERRRRRY healthy, and gets around the problem of "I don't like oatmeal because it's slimy."

*Would it be unethical to snitch a banana from the cafeteria when you eat there? If not, you could use that banana.
**Same as above, except for yogurt. For some reason, I think the banana is OK, but the yogurt is not.
***For a wonderful children's book on mortality through the example of a peach, see

Frugal College Cooking: My First Rice Cooker Success

I was cruising through Roger Ebert's rice cooker blog the other day and discovered some words of wisdom. He was discussing Asian dishes, and said that, no, you can't make a stir fry, but you can throw a bunch of Asian type stuff in the pot--he specifically mentioned pineapple--and see what you will see.

As I had half a can of pineapple in the fridge, I was inspired to try, especially since I knew the pineapple would be en route to the compost pile pretty soon.

Here's what I put in: about 1 cup of rice, 1 1/2 cups water, small handful of chopped leeks we have in the freezer. A little salt. Turned on the pot.

After a bit, I added 1 chopped pepper from the garden, some of that moldering pineapple, and some of that Asian mini corn that comes in cans. I had an open can of that too, from the clean out the pantry project I've been discussing for several months now. I added a bit of soy sauce and some hoisin too.

The switch flipped to warm, and I had an idea: why not break an egg over it, as in that Korean dish whose name escapes me*. So I did. I flipped the switch on again.

I checked to make sure the white was cooked and hoped the yolk would be runny. Then I bestowed the dish on Lucy M, the reason for all my experimentation. The yolk was runny.

We added some of that neat hot sauce with the rooster on it.

And, Readers, it was good!
Thank you, Mr. Ebert, you are right. The pot knows what to do.

P.S. Lucy said the only part she didn't like was the pineapple.
*The Korean dish is called bibimbap.

P.P. S. I've already linked to this, but will do so again, in case you missed it. My mentor has a cookbook coming out:

Frugal College Cooking: How to Spoil Your Child and Add to the Pantry

Thinking about how my precious little one will cook in the dorm next year is interesting. It is a problem-solving activity, which I hope will delay the onset of memory-loss. So many limitations. Her suite contains a kitchen area with a decent sized fridge, a microwave, and a sink. Additional equipment so far includes a rice cooker, a stick blender, and a knife.

I asked Lucy M., who is home from her 3-week service project in the Black Belt of Alabama, if she would be inclined to mosey to the dorm kitchen, which does have a stove, to make something. She said, "You have no idea how lazy and tired I can be." That's my girl.

One can still read the ubiquitous articles about helicopter parents, who competitively oversee (or over-oversee) every aspect of their child's life, from school, to sports, to artistic activities, to the Holy Grail, "getting into a good college." No, that's wrong: getting into a TOP college.

I was a mediocre helicopter, partly because competition makes me retreat, partly because I am scornful of such activities, and partly because I am somewhat countercultural and will rebel at the drop of a conventional hat. To that mix of good and bad qualities, add some basic laziness.

But I love reading cookbooks and figuring out how to do things the frugal way. And here is where the helicopter parents can join the frugal parents. Now that the parent does not have to quiz junior on SAT words, or chauffeur junior to community service activities that look good on an application, he or she will have a lot of free time.

What can we do for our scholars to ease the arduous task of dorm cooking? Figure out the road blocks to health, economy, even EATING, and get around them.

For our dear scholar: When Lucy M comes home, she says "Where are the burritos?" These are black bean and cheese burritos, which we make assembly line fashion, wrap up and freeze. We all love them. So instead of telling Lucy how to make them (she already knows how, anyway), we will bring some to her--frozen--in a cooler. Think how little room 60 burritos take up. Think how that is at least 30 meals. Think how your scholar will not have to chop onions, deal with messy and smelly beans, or grate cheese. Think how much time your scholar will have to cram for that test. And, finally, think how popular your scholar will be with suite mates and friends, when said scholar magnanimously offers to share part of her cache?

Or how about helping out with the ingredients that are a pain? I hate chopping onions. Even if you like this task, it is messy and smelly. But how wonderful onions are and there is seldom a recipe that doesn't begin: chop an onion. One of my OLD Joys of Cooking has a gem of a comment, along the lines of "If onions were rare, they would be as expensive and treasured as truffles." So when you get to the college town, treat your little one to a bag or three of frozen chopped onions!

Wait! Even better would be to saute a bunch of onions for your scholar, put them in zip-lock freezer bags, and put them in the cooler next to the burritos. Then your scholar won't have to even use the stove--or wash a pot.

Two nights ago, I made Lucy's favorite shrimp and corn soup, the best version of which starts with a gumbo base of roux with onions, celery, and peppers. I had made a whole bunch of gumbo base when I had an overabundance of onions and company; it was stored in a ziplock in the freezer. With that base ready, the soup took 10 minutes to put together.

Tomorrow, my Frugal Son will be returning from France. To spoil him, I will make gumbo. It just so happens, I will use more of that gumbo base. Another almost instant soup.

One problem with cookbooks is that everyone likes different things. So you may have to modify my ideas to your own tastes and situation.

A freezer is a pantry too.

So in addition to the pantry list of canned and boxed foods I've begun, let's start the freezer pantry and spoil our children.

My list so far for Lucy M: burritos, sauteed onions, roux with vegetables. All in zip-freezer bags.

Frugal College Cooking: Rice Cooker Cookbooks

As usual, I am in a weird position vis a vis the zeitgeist. I am always a little too early or a little too late. Now it is the zeitgeist of rice cooker cookbooks.

There are two decent extant rice cooker cookbooks. I've gotten both at the library, which purchased them at my request. (Thank you, bookbuyer!). Decent, but not quite what I'm looking for. What I'm looking for: first, decent recipes that don't overuse oversalted convenience foods for the harried scholar. Second, recipes that use the RICE COOKER as it was meant to be used and don't tell you to try to saute an onion in the rice cooker (or brown meat in there). Others present recipes that depend on first sauteing something on the stove and so on, and if you can do that, why bother with the rice cooker. Perhaps what I'm looking for does not exist?

The first, which sounded very promising, is by the person who writes those excellent slow cooker cookbooks: This book is great for the grainhead: it tells you how to make almost every kind of rice imaginable (wehani, anyone?), plus every other grain from the common to the obscure. There are not all that many recipes that meet criterion #2 above.

The second sounded even more promising: This is a little book from a local small publisher. In fact, the author IS the publisher.

The Louisiana origin is, of course, a good sign. Some people here say they don't like to travel outside the state because "the food is bad." (I am not making that up.) But Louisiana cooking has a kind of split personality. There are lots of good local raw ingredients, especially seafood (sadly, thanks to BP, this may not be the case much longer). Still, if you look at the classic Louisiana homecooking books, you see many recipes that rely on canned soups, velveeta, and the like. So you'll see a recipe for shrimp or crawfish fettuccine--made with velveeta. Or crawfish enchiladas--made with cream of mushroom soup.

This book allows for searching, so I suggest you take a spin. Some recipes have you brown in the cooker. Another--for shrimp fettuccine--tempted me, but it called for pasta, water, shrimp, and a pound of Mexican salsa cheese (that weird orange stuff that comes in a jar). I decided not to subject my poor shrimp to that cheese.


I also discovered two books on the horizon. Like anything on the horizon, these may prove disappointing when met in reality. Still, I have put in a request to the agreeable bookbuyer at my library. Both are scheduled for publication in the next few months.

The first is guaranteed to be a good read, since the writer is a writer, Roger Ebert: I discovered Ebert's blog on rice cooker cooking last year, when I first started on my quest. He seems to have the right idea. For instance, he says he sometimes starts with a can of fairly healthy canned soup and then doctors it up--adding beans, veggies, rice, and so on, all of which would reduce the vile canned food quotient. Second sounds great, but who knows?

Check out Ebert's blog if you have the chance. It is a pleasure to read, but there are hundreds of comments.Actually, the comments are great and Ebert's responses to the comments even greater. (I have recently learned about Ebert's medical problems, which are such that he can no longer eat. Yet he still writes and is even putting out a cookbook. He must truly be an amazing person.)

The second book on the horizon is an "Everything" book. . Again, very promising; again, the proof will be in the pudding.

I've noticed that for newer books, Amazon no longer includes the SEARCH inside the book I mentioned in a previous post, but LOOK inside. The latter is much more limited, obviously, since Amazon controls what you see. Sadly, I will be able to do much less testing of cookbooks before purchase.

Frugal College Cooking: Pantry in the Dorm

i just noticed that some of my traffic is due to the search "college cooking" or "dorm cooking." Better get on with this. My sense of urgency comes from not only Lucy M's needs next year, but also a glance at what else comes up with the search. Martha Stewart recommending that you buy a set of her cookware at Kmart for your dorm. Or recipes like ramen stroganoff (ramen, cream of mushroom soup, hamburger) or Tex-Mex macaroni (box macaroni and cheese, salsa, hamburger). That's not how I want my girl to eat.

Before I start providing recipes, I will fill--both virtually and in reality--a pantry. It is a truth universally acknowledged that cooking from a well-stocked pantry is a time, money, and stress saver.

Remember, the college student doesn't need to cook everything in the dorm. A penchant for sushi can be satisfied at a restaurant, as can the urge for eggplant parmesan. I still remember cooking the latter for a bunch of people in a dorm kitchen and watching as they all left with thanks, on to a party, leaving me, the world's worst housekeeper, with a room full of dirty dishes and pans, including egg soaked breadcrumbs, tons of grease, and you know the rest.

BEVERAGES:
boxed soymilk
boxed milk
evaporated milk
hot chocolate mix*
powdered milk**
instant coffee (Nescafe Clasico is the only acceptable brand. I am not kidding.)

*It's as cheap in the envelopes as in bulk cans. Frugal Son gives me grief about excess packaging, but I say that we will use the envelopes as a way to the greater good.
**I will give Lucy some in a container. This is good for cooking.

PROTEIN:
tuna
salmon
peanut butter
I would buy these in the foil packages, which don't need draining. Draining tuna is a pain at any time, but in a dorm it becomes a major production.

BREAKFAST
instant oatmeal*
Again, a compromise. We prefer steel-cut oat groats! But this is acceptable for convenience. See above on hot cocoa mix for Frugal Son's likely objection and my riposte. There are recipes online for make-your-own instant oatmeal. but I've found that if you keep an eye out for sales, you can get it for between 8 and 10 cents a packet, which is as cheap as the homemade.

CANNED ITEMS
beans (black, kidney,whatever you like)*
refried beans**
rotel-type tomatoes***
canned tomatoes, preferably crushed or diced, so you won't have to chop. Also get stewed with onions, to save a step and an ingredient.

*If your scholar doesn't like beans, he or she should learn. It is a good thing economically and environmentally. Not to mention good for you.
**Ugh, hate these, but Lucy likes 'em. You can buy instant refried beans, which are great, but they are ridiculously expensive these days.
***If you have rotel-type tomatoes, you also have salsa for a lot cheaper than salsa. OK, it's chunky salsa. Live with it.

PEANUT BUTTER
A category unto itself.

RICE
See peanut butter. In a plastic container. See below for rodents. The rice is for the rice cooker i mentioned a few posts ago.

All these things can be stored in a bin under the scholar's bed. Note that all are rodent-proof. Since we got a note not to have crackers and such in our offices because mice can chew through the cardboard box, imagine in a dorm!!

One More for College Cooking: Kuhn-Rikon Knife

Today, I have a recommendation for a wonderful piece of equipment for the College Cooking enthusiast: the Kuhn-Rikon paring knife. I first heard of these via Frugal Son, who read about them somewhere. He asked for one for his birthday. Well! He is a Frugal Son: these knives cost around $10.00.

Needless to say, we fulfilled his desire. Then I tried the knife: I love it. And since I have very small hands, I use a paring knife for almost everything, including chopping onions. Then Lucy Marmalade asked for one. We even bought one for my mother, who refuses to cook, but we can use it when we visit.

We had a good deal of discussion over who got which color. Then we bought Lucy a utility knife too.

So far, the equipment closet consists of Kuhn-Rikon knife, stick blender, and rice cooker. The total is about $40.00. Not bad.

The knives come in great colors. This is no time to choose basic black.

Frugal College Cooking: Meet Your New BFF; It's Aseptic Packaging

I just added 18 quarts of soy milk to Lucy Marmalade's pantry for next year. It's good till February 2011. That's because it is in aseptic packaging.

Lucy will be using this in her cereal. Plus she likes to drink the stuff--even plain.

For a carless scholar, running out of milk is a pain. It's a pain to carry milk or to pack it in a bicycle basket. And you don't want your friends to think you are over-mooching rides, do you?

If you live in Europe, you know all about aseptic packaging, because that's how most milk is sold. More and more is available in the USA. I love it! It makes things so easy to store: just line up your goodies on a shelf.

I've been picking up soy milk at Dollar Tree, where--as might be expected--it's $1.00. It's a lot more at the regular grocery or on Amazon, but it may be worth the expense for the convenience.

In fact, it might be worth the extra cost to order from Amazon, which now has a grocery section. There you can find soy milk, milk, soups, and so on. Whole Foods also sells a lot of soup in aseptic packaging.

If you don't know what aseptic packaging looks like, here is a snap from Amazon:

I'll let you know when I find more of these treasures at Big Lots or Dollar Tree.

As a final comment, let me say this stuff is great to have in your emergency food cache for disasters. Those of us in the Katrina-area, now also known as the BP area, were happy to have aseptic milk and soup in days after the storm.

Frugal College Cooking: Immersion Blender

I am having so much fun conceptualizing Lucy Marmalade's en suite cooking next year. Some people define creativity as problem-solving. I agree, which is why frugality also is a creative activity.

Like many people, I have a Robot Coupe processor gathering dust. I use it now and then, but it is a pain and I hate to clean it. My most-used appliance is an el cheapo immersion or stick blender. I love it! Even if you are not in a dorm, you should get one. i love making soup, but always hated pureeing in a blender: it was messy even if all went well. If all didn't go well, you would have pureed carrot soup all over your kitchen and a few burns to boot.

With the immersion blender, you just stick it in the soup pot and push the button. It is also excellent for smoothies (warning: you need a tall container for this. I use something meant to hold utensils on a counter).

To clean your immersion blender, just rinse it off. Seldom do I really need to wash it.

Now I don't know how much soup Lucy M. will be cooking. But the blenders are so cheap that it doesn't matter. I scoff at suggestions to buy a Cuisinart version or a Braun. I'm still using one I got at Walmart for $11.00 many years ago.

I just looked on Amazon and here is the cheapie I will get Lucy. From the comments, I learned that this was recommended by Cook's Illustrated magazine: