I’m not complaining. I got to eat my apple drowned in caramel sauce and topped with a not-so-tiny dash of cinnamon. But I had to juggle feeding grapes and cucumber pieces to my bearded dragon Moose, who was crawling around on (and almost off) the counter beside me, and simultaneously trying to control my impromptu caramel sauce. My quiet morning quickly turned into a hectic one.

If I were to try to make this delicious snack again, there are ways to keep it under control. First, knowing that you are making a caramel sauce would help. You start with a couple of tablespoons of butter in a frying pan. I didn’t know this before I started, but the correct measurement is six tablespoons of butter to every one cup of sugar. Then you add the apples to simmer for a minute and dump the light brown sugar on top, stirring frequently. The sauce forms from the brown sugar and butter, and thickens as the apples soften and absorb the sauce.

Sounds yummy, right? But it’s not finished. You cook the apples in this manner for about 10 minutes, or until the sauce starts sticking to the spoon, and then take them off the heat. Don’t pull them directly out of the frying pan when you do, however, because you want the apples to continue absorbing the sauce while the mixture thickens and cools.

This process is similar to how you cook meat which is called “resting” the meat. If you cut it immediately after pulling it out of the oven or off the frying pan, the blood will run out and your meat is left dry. Don’t let your apples dry out. Believe me, you want every ounce of that brown sugar to melt into your apples. Absolute flavor explosion.

The flavors are made better by the textures of this snack. Even cooking the apples on medium-high heat for a good 10 minutes leaves them with a little bit of crunch. They are soft and melted on the outside, rich with flavor from the brown sugar and butter, and then crunchy on the inside, which helps retain some of that crisp apple tart as well.

Have I mentioned I’m not a food expert? But from what I’ve seen on TV, it seems like balancing a dish is important, and I think I (accidentally) hit this dish on the head.

Although I may have intentionally ruined a healthy snack with butter and sugar, I think it still is healthier than some other snacks I have been eating lately, namely my two good friends, carbs and fat.

Apples are really high in fiber, which, as we get older, becomes more and more necessary to maintaining a high metabolism. By eating this snack in place of bread or chips, you are helping your body out. I also heard recently that eating snacks and meals at close to the same time every day helps your metabolism out as well. Just a little factoid to carry around with you today.

I hope all of you take snacking as seriously as I do (ha), but don’t be afraid to experiment. You never know what path you will be led down, which in my opinion lends a little excitement to each day. Have a good one!

 This week I went to town with one of my old favorites, the peanut butter sandwich Girl Scout cookie. How fitting, since it’s Girl Scout cookie season. But if you don’t know a Girl Scout and one doesn’t come a-knocking down your street, don’t despair — this recipe is for you.

It’s basically a peanut butter and oatmeal cookie. The way I made it, the recipe was almost entirely vegan, minus the use of one egg.

Of course, back when I was a Girl Scout, all the way through 12th grade of high school — boy, is that embarrassing now — I was nowhere near vegan. I was your everyday meat-chomping, wilderness-crushing, banshee-screaming teenage girl. Isn’t that what every teenage girl is?

That’s beside the point. I had nothing in my mind concerning food justice and simply ate whatever arrived at my plate. Blissful ignorance.

This recipe is exactly what I need when I want to pretend to go back to that ignorant mindset. I can make these cookies taste exactly like the ones from my days of freedom from food justice, but also make them in a way that abides by my new principles.

So, let’s talk cookies. First of all, there is a substitute for everything. My substitute for butter, called Earth Balance, is versatile and acts exactly as regular butter would, even in a baked recipe. There are also substitutes for eggs, namely the elusive (and expensive) Ener-G Egg Replacer, which most of the time can only be found at specialty stores. This week, it would have stretched my wallet to its limit. Alas, I used a regular egg.

Just a note: Regular eggs, even if they say they are cage-free, usually come from factory farms that circumvent certain requirements so they can be labeled cage-free. In this way, factory farms are taking advantage of the organic, local and free-range movements that have become a recent fad in the states. They sell their product as one thing, when behind the scenes they are just the same as a company that doesn’t bother with organic, free range labels. I attribute the information above to the books “Eating Animals” by Jonathan Safran Foer and “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. You can read more about this issue and others in these books.

This recipe only calls for one egg and a whole lot of butter, so finding a milk substitute was not a problem. I cut out the filling — which could only have been described as sinful, because it contained heavy whipping cream — for which there isn’t a great substitute. The other ingredients are pretty sustainable and all vegan: peanut butter, oatmeal and sugar. They’re also healthy for you — well, except the sugar.

Peanut butter has a good amount of protein, but also a good amount of fat to counter-balance that. But who wouldn’t expect fat in a cookie? Then there’s oatmeal, which has an enormous amount of fiber, which is good for, ahem, cleansing. There’s also a healthy amount of iron in oatmeal, which is always something for vegetarians or vegans to look out for.

Who says you can’t be blissfully ignorant and sensitive at the same time? Obviously not me, since I ate these cookies up all by myself in two short days. Well… I always have a little help from my friends.

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/oatmeal-peanut-butter-cookies-iii/

Ingredients
●3/4 cup all-purpose flour
●1/2 teaspoon baking soda
●1/4 teaspoon baking powder
●1/2 teaspoon salt
●1/2 cup butter, softened
●1/2 cup peanut butter
●1/2 cup white sugar
●1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
●1 egg
●1 teaspoon vanilla extract
●1 cup quick cooking oats
●3 tablespoons butter, softened
●1 cup confectioners’ sugar
●1/2 cup smooth peanut butter
●2 1/2 tablespoons heavy whipping cream

Directions
1.In a large bowl, cream together 1/2 cup butter or margarine, 1/2 cup peanut butter, white sugar, brown sugar and vanilla. Add egg and beat well.

2.In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder,and salt. Add these dry ingredients to the creamed mixture. Stir. Add oatmeal and stir.

3.Drop by teaspoons onto greased baking sheet, and press each mound down with a fork to form 1/4 inch thick cookies. 
Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 10 minutes, or until cookies are a light brown.

4.To make filling: Cream 3 tablespoons butter or margarine with the confectioners’ sugar, 1/2 cup smooth peanut butter, and the cream. Spread filling onto half of the cooled cookies, then top with the other half to form sandwiches.

I was experimenting with living out of California, feeling the rush of an inter-city internship and then the equally terrifying rush of learning a school system in a different country. I experimented with lifestyle choices, some pretty gross Irish-vegetarian cuisine — that thank goodness did not include the blood sausage my friends ate on several occasions — and plenty of beer. Oh my gosh so much beer. But at least it was vegetarian, as my overly zealous nighttime drinking crew often reminded me.

So, obviously, an experimental dinner was in order. I didn’t look at any of the 100+ recipes that I had saved to my laptop since last summer, though I have been waiting for a chance to try them. Instead I searched my brain, which I should say is supplemented with quite an extensive knowledge of food, all learned from the Food Network. With that I came up with something I might not have otherwise made. But I was so glad I did.

It was a Panini with an assortment of vegetables that somehow came together: avocado, eggplant, spinach, garlic and shallot, as well as a heavy heaping of vegan butter-spread. I put the eggplant on the Panini-maker first to cook it through, and then fried the spinach with the shallot, garlic and vegan spread. I layered the avocado and eggplant onto the bread, and then topped it with the cooked spinach and threw it back onto the Panini-maker. There was even some cooked spinach left over to use as a side.

The results sent tingles down my spine. I’m convinced that humans do not have a sufficient vocabulary to put into writing the feeling you get when eating caramelized shallot. Besides the taste though, this 100 percent vegan meal is completely healthy for you. Goodness knows I need a healthy diet after three months of drinking beer for dinner. (I did STUDY abroad by the way.)

Spinach is a huge power food, as well as eggplant, so using those two ingredients together with the soft, lush avocado creates a combination of flavors your taste buds will rejoice at, and your body will thank you for later. That is especially true if you are lacking iron or Vitamin A, which are supplemented by the spinach, or fiber, which is supplemented by the eggplant at almost no expense to your calorie-count.

But these are definitely not the only foods you should be on the look out for at the nearest farmers market or grocery store. It’s also a great idea to buy in-season vegetables and use them as an excuse to learn how to properly cook them. That’s one way to greatly expand your cooking skills, and believe me, winter vegetables are nothing to be scoffed at. And as always, this is a great way to get to know where your food comes from and who grows it.

So, go experiment! Try the Santa Cruz farmers market this week and buy something completely out of your comfort zone, or simply walk into a grocery store without a menu planned. You won’t be disappointed, and you’ll probably surprise yourself!

Farmer’s Markets are Wednesdays downtown (the corner of Lincoln and Cedar streets) and Saturdays on the Westside (2801 Mission St.)

Recipe:

Two slices sourdough bread

One eggplant, three slices

One avocado, sliced

One bag spinach

One shallot

One garlic-clove

Two tablespoons vegan buttery-spread

Grill the eggplant slices for two minutes, then lay on sourdough bread with avocado slices. Fry the shallot, garlic-clove and vegan buttery-spread until shallot is translucent, then add in a quarter of the bag of spinach. When cooked thoroughly, remove from heat and add a layer of spinach on top of the avocado slices. Put the sandwich in a Panini-maker for two minutes until golden brown. Serve with extra cooked spinach as a side.

A lone cheese straw. Photos by Emily Wolper

This blog is slowly becoming less and less healthy– we’ve gone from quinoa to chocolate cake in just a few weeks. However, I think this week’s entry offers an important caveat. By learning how to make these, you may well free yourself from ever feeling the need to purchase snack foods again. Or at least Cheeze-Its and other such nibbles. We’ve got to start somewhere.

These are cheese straws. You should get to know each other, because you’re going to be spending a lot of time together. For all intents and purposes, these are glorified cheese crackers, whose ilk haunt the isles of every grocery store ever (especially late at night, when your impulse control is…hindered). There are important differences though. These taste like cheese. They are buttery and flaky. And you can put spicy bits in them, which may be the only deterrent from eating all of these in one go.

You’ll need a food processor to make these, but otherwise they’re really low-tech.

Ingredients.

1 1/2 cups (about 6 ounces) grated extra-sharp Cheddar cheese
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick or 2 ounces) unsalted butter, softened and cut into  pieces
3/4 cup flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1 tablespoon half-and-half (or milk)

Directions.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In a food processor, combine cheese, butter, flour, salt and red pepper flakes. Pulse until the mixture resembles course crumbs. Add the half-and-half and process until it resembles dough. Pull out the dough and form it into a ball with your hands.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough. Using either a knife or a pizza cutter, cut the dough into strips (6 inches long seems to hold up the best).

Place these strips onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake on the middle rack for about 12 to 15 minutes, or until slightly browned at the ends.

You can make any shape really, but they’re called cheese straws and so straws are what was made. Enjoy in excessive quantities.

Recipe credit given to Smitten Kitchen @smittenkitchen.com.

Photos by Emiliano O'Flaherty Vasquez

It’s too bad that by the time most of you read this, our glorious Halloween Monday will have come and gone. Alternatively, this cake may make a great hangover cure, and we all know there’s nothing easier than seizing initiative and cooking something while you’re seeing the world through a red mist of hatred and dehydration. Plan ahead is what I’m saying, I guess.
Here’s the great thing about this cake. The concept is ridiculously simple and genius in its execution. Instead of milk, you put red wine in it. That’s really all it comes down to. Yes, it tastes a little boozy, so don’t put anything in it that you wouldn’t drink yourself;
you may have to give Mr. Charles Shaw a miss on this one. Still, it’s not going to get you drunk. My professional medical opinion (sidenote: I’m a Politics major, and haven’t taken a chemistry class since high school) is that this cake will alleviate all of your ills, including self-inflicted ones. Have at it.

All humor aside (serious cake time now), this cake is pretty cheap to make. And as it’s a cake, assembly is as standard as can be expected. I think it keeps really well too, but it was only in my apartment for three days after my girlfriend and I made it so that’s just idle speculation.

Also, one bowl and one pan, people. This is so low maintenance, you don’t even know. Also, this cake is easily one of the best uses for leftover bottles of red wine. Don’t laugh, it happens sometimes. This is a judgement free zone.

Ingredients

6 tablespoons room temperature unsalted butter
3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup white granulated sugar
1 large egg and 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
3/4 cup red wine, (you can be picky and look for a red that has chocolate overtones, or you can use two-buck-chuck. This is a recipe for the masses)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup and 1 tablespoon flour
1/2 cup Dutch cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Making le cake

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line the bottom of a 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper, and either butter or nonstick spray the interior of the pan. In a large bowl and with an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy. Add the yolk and egg and beat well, then add the red wine and vanilla. The batter might look a little janky here; don’t worry about that.

Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt over your wet ingredients. If you don’t have a sifter, just pour these in incrementally and carefully; it makes a difference (the cake will be lighter and won’t have weird clumps). Mix together until mostly combined, then fold the batter with a spoon (or preferably a rubber spatula).

Spread batter in a prepared pan, then bake for 25-30 minutes. The top of the cake should be shiny and smooth when you pull it out. Cool in pan for about 10 minutes, then flip it out of the pan and cool it on a rack or a plate.

You can sprinkle powdered sugar on top, or you can make/buy whipped cream (you should make it, you’re already on a roll here). However you choose to approach this cake, you can’t really go wrong. Happy-post Halloween everyone. Enjoy.

Credit given to Smitten Kitchen for the recipe, and to my girlfriend Emily, who saves me from lumpy cakes. Seriously, this could have gotten real ugly.

Stewed Lentils and Tomato Soup. Photos by Emiliano O’Flaherty-Vazquez.

I don’t live on campus anymore, so this year I was denied the pleasure of hearing the roar of (likely the first of many) First Rain as its devotees stampeded through the Porter quad. I get excited about the first rain of the season not because it means I get to be naked (seriously, who needs a day set aside for that? Be spontaneous!) but because it tends to mean that I get to cook different things. We both celebrate atmospheric discharge in our own way, First Rainers. And that’s okay.

This being Santa Cruz, the littlest hint of colder, wetter weather is immediately followed by weeks of mid-70’s sun, as if in defiance of my plans to make things that require all-day oven use or heavy root vegetables. I’m not easily dissuaded though, especially if I’ve already spent (admittedly not very much) time and money on autumnal ingredients. The weather told me it was time for stew, even if it was for just one day, and I listened.

Regardless, stew is what was made, and stew is what we got. Be cheered by how fundamentally perfect this stew is, never mind its poor timing in the seasonal cycle. This is reasonably quick, very healthy, and once again, very cheap. A theme is approaching in this blog– maybe next week I’ll have to compensate with something bourgeoisie and artery-clogging (like deep-fried foie gras, if that’s a thing).

The heart of this stew is lentils, but what makes it infinitely superior to other lentil stews is the curry powder and the unassuming red wine vinegar. Honestly, I don’t see the point in making vegetable stew without either now.

This makes a large pot. I really can’t be more specific than that, but you can freeze it and it will last indefinitely (well, probably not that long. Use common sense. If it moves, don’t eat it).

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from Barefoot Contessa.

Ingredients.

2 teaspoons olive oil

2 cups large-diced yellow onions (2 onions)

2 cups large-diced carrots (3 to 4 carrots)

1 tablespoon minced garlic (3 cloves)

1 (28-ounce) canned tomatoes

1 cup French green lentils (sometimes called Puy lentils, they are smaller, nubbier, and don’t fall apart as easily as other lentils)

2 handfuls of torn fresh kale

2 cups low-sodium vegetable or chicken broth

2 teaspoons mild curry powder, more to taste (Sun Brand Madras worked well, only a few dollars at New Leaf)

2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme leaves (1 tsp dried works, or you can buy a small thyme plant for a few dollars at a nursery. #futureinvestment)

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Heat oil in a large saucepan. Add onions and carrots and cook over medium low heat for eight to ten minutes, until the onions start to brown. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon. Add garlic and cook for one minute more.

The original recipe calls for pureeing the canned tomatoes, but Emily and I decided that we liked tomato chunks and just mashed them with a wooden spoon as they cooked. Texture is everything.

Rinse the lentils so that you don’t bite down on a stone (tricky buggers).

Add the tomatoes, lentils, curry powder, broth, thyme, salt and pepper to the pan in which the onions and carrots should still be residing. Raise the heat to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer covered for about 40 minutes, until the lentils are tender. About halfway through this process (20 minutes in), add the torn kale; if you add it at the beginning, it’ll cook down too much.

Remove from heat and allow to sit covered for about 10 minutes. Add the vinegar, season to taste, and serve hot.

Credit given to Ina Garten, to Smitten Kitchen, aka Deb, who thankfully has the time to consistently blog something engaging every week (ish), and to my girlfriend Emily, who’s brilliant about food. Seriously, this should be her blog.

Quinoa Patty with a garnish of avocado. Photo by Emiliano O’Flaherty-Vazquez.

Apparently, quinoa is a pseudo-grain. Like a beet.

With that obligatorily wiki’d fact out of the way, let’s talk about what we can do with quinoa apart from gush about how amazing it is for you and how if you only tried it, all the world’s problems would be solved.

I think we should fry it.

Or rather, other people think you should fry it, and I’m easily influenced by other people. Here’s the rub. Quinoa is really healthy, really cheap, and you can buy it in bulk (one of the only cheap things at Whole Foods). Also, remember, frying. You know a food is great when it can be a cereal, salad, or burger with minimal alterations. With an astronomically high protein content and complete lack of gluten, there’s really no reason to not try quinoa at least once.

This is a slightly adapted recipe taken from Heidi Swanson’s “Super Natural Every Day,” a book that may be unsustainable for everyday use in terms of financial expenditure. However, like I said earlier, these quinoa patties are cheap. Mrs. Swanson kindly threw us students a bone. A pseudo-grain burger bone.

My girlfriend Emily and I made these over the weekend with the intent to have some to save as an in-between-lecture snack, but we ate them well before Monday rolled around.

This makes 12 patties, but it’s easy to scale it up or down.

Ingredients.

2 1/2 cups cooked quinoa.

4 eggs, beaten.

1/2 teaspoon salt.

1/3 cup finely chopped chives.

1 onion, finely chopped (put it in the freezer for 20 mins before chopping, you’ll cry less).

1/3 cup grated parmesan or gruyere.

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped.

1 cup bread crumbs (make a piece of toast, dry it out, crumble it up. Don’t buy bread crumbs).

Water (in case you need to alter the moisture of the mixture).

1 tbsp olive oil or butter.

Cooking the Quinoa.

Place 2 1/2  cups of quinoa in a saucepan with 3 1/4 cups of water and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil, decrease the heat, and simmer for about 25 minutes. Test it, make sure it’s tender.

Making the Patties.

Combine the cooked quinoa, eggs and salt in a bowl. Stir in chives, onion, cheese and garlic (Note: This stuff is pretty optional. We sautéed the onions and garlic instead of putting them in raw. Or you could leave them out. Feel free to experiment). 

Add bread crumbs, and let the mixture sit for a minute so the bread crumbs can soak up the moisture a bit.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil or butter on a skillet/frying pan. Form the mixture into small patties and place them on the griddle. Cook until browned on the bottom, about 7-10 minutes. Flip with a spatula, and brown the other side. Enjoy.

The great part about this recipe is that you can save the mixture in the fridge for a few days, or you can cook them all and save the cooked patties in the fridge for about the same amount of time.

We placed a few patties on a bed of mixed salad greens, and then put a fried egg on top of that. One of the only meals I’ve ever made that I felt could really work for any meal of the day.

Enjoy! Patty with fried egg atop. Photo by Emiliano O’Flaherty-Vazquez.

Recipe credit given to Heidi Swanson, innovator of Andean foodstuffs and author of Super Natural Every Day.

Photo by Nick Paris

When I lived in Orange County, my friends and I would often go to the mall on weekends — if not to shop, then to see a movie or just walk around and get out. More than a few times we would end up eating at the food court, which may not provide the best healthy food you can get, but it still holds so many great memories for me. Many of these include us running through stores hopped up on handfuls of candy that we had bought earlier at the movie theater.

Photo by Mikaela Todd.

This last weekend I got to have my last fling before I actually began buckling down not only on my schoolwork, but also on my diet. I drove to San Luis Obispo, hiked an architectural graveyard and went swing dancing. Not your typical, run-of-the-mill weekend, and it wasn’t complemented by my typical grass and nuts diet, as my mother would call it. Instead it was complemented by a massive amount of chocolate, fried food and an entire family-sized bag of Cheetos.

So when I came back to Santa Cruz, I wasn’t quite ready to give up my chocolate streak. I went online to find something easy and quick to satiate my insatiable palate and I found fudge, college-kid style. That is to say, microwave-style.

After this recipe, you’ll be cured of your sweet tooth for just long enough to make it through finals. All it comprises is peanut butter, frosting and a pan. You heat the frosting (vanilla or chocolate), mix it with the peanut butter and let it set. That’s the easiest recipe I’ve heard of in a long time, and it’s a really quick way to whip something up for a potluck. Best of all, it’s a crowd pleaser. Who doesn’t enjoy fudge at a party? And for under 10 bucks, my wallet’s enjoying the view too.

No, I’m not going to sit here and tell you all of the great things that chocolate and frosting can do for your body. This is a recipe that your fitness trainer would gawk and swear at, so maybe try to keep this snack away from the gym or any other place where you wouldn’t feel comfortable licking your fingers and digging in for seconds.

But who doesn’t deserve a little break from a healthy diet once in a while? Maybe there is something to be said for making a little room for indulgence. Just take a look at the tip of the food pyramid — even USDA approves of it.

In my opinion, happiness stems from breaking the rules every once in a while, so let me enjoy my fatty treat. Who’s with me?

Recipe: http://www.food.com/recipe/super-easy-microwave-peanut-butter-fudge-42547

Photo by Kyan Mahzouf

I’ve eaten five 15-ounce packages of raisins in the past month alone. 

It’s not such a bad thing to be hooked on — it could be worse. Besides my super-hot salsa from a couple of weeks ago (which I’m still making regularly), my fruit intake is a little below normal, to say the least. So eating raisins like an elephant eats leaves, in large quantities for all of my waking hours, actually benefits my health.

This past weekend I went with my friend Rachel to the beach — something many of you may identify with, as summer and the lull between midterms and finals is upon us. Translation: time to procrastinate! You can tell we were at the beach and lying out in the sun because our skin (or at least mine) is currently peeling off in huge sheets.

Before we left for the beach and at the last minute, I decided that instead of bringing raisins I would bring graham crackers as a snack for the day. I immediately regretted it. But later, I was thankful.

After briefly dipping our feet in the water, Rachel and I came back to a giant swarm of seagulls devouring every last graham cracker on our towels, to the obvious dismay of our neighbors, who were in proximity to the feeding fest. Shooing them away with all manner of curses and death threats, all I could think about was how they weren’t eating my raisins, which were, thankfully, safe at home.

At the end of that day, my dessert of choice was a heaping handful of raisins. I can’t often say that I eat fruit for dessert, but it really does taste like candy. I can see why chefs use it as a sweet addition to balance any savory dish (recipes below).

Raisins have all the essential sugars that you need to stay energetic throughout the day. But the extra benefit is their size. For those of you who hike or backpack, or even bike up to campus, you know acutely well how much you would rather carry a serving of raisins rather than a serving of oranges or apples in your bag. Weight alone may convince you, but for me, the taste seals the deal.

If you’re still not convinced, all you have to do is look at the nutrition label on the back of your raisins box, which will tell you how awesome this quick snack can be for your body. It can give you high energy, a solid five grams of protein per serving, and virtually no fat, cholesterol or sodium to mess with your balanced diet.

So as the quarter begins to wind down a little before finals start to kick in, and you’re looking for a go-to snack for the summer that’s easy to find, easy to buy and easy to eat, say hello to good eats in the tiniest of packages. Go for raisins, but don’t forget to hide the evidence under your towel.

Some cool raisin recipes:

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/oatmeal-raisin-cookies-i/Detail.aspx

Cinnamon Raisin Bread: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/cinnamon-raisin-bread-i/Detail.aspx

Photo by Prescott Watson

I have two great fears: ghosts, and more embarrassingly, bees.

Ghosts are a fear of many, as is evidenced by the multitude of Hollywood thrillers that make use of this type of faceless villain to bring a chill to any viewer’s spine. But when it comes to bees I feel alone, and I have come to accept the fact that when I see one of those tiny, flying stinger machines, I am abnormally terrified. This is coming from the girl who’s been stung twice, possibly three times, although I think I blocked it out. God help me if I ever have a job interview at an outside café or near a flower bush.

So it may be surprising that from something that I determine to be so evil springs something so sweet. I devour honey by the bottle these days, using it with everything from my toast to my mashed sweet potatoes, secretly cursing and worshipping my worst enemy for supplying me my new favorite condiment.

Even when I was vegan I ate honey. I really couldn’t give it up. Despite moral objections to the employment of the bee expressly for human consumption, I figured I would take a little wisdom from the Bee Movie — which glorifies the bees’ right to work in a way similar to industrial propaganda movies in Soviet Russia — and let bees do what they were meant to do. This is one case where I can comfortably stretch my moral compass in order to secure sweet happiness.

But there are other things that honey does besides taste great. It boosts your immunity and increases your energy. Honey is similar to fruit in the way it benefits you. Runners even use it to keep their energy levels high during long-distance races, as my brother reminded me just this past weekend.

Honey is also an antioxidant, helps get rid of the excess bacteria in your body, and can actually prevent cancer, according to the Environment News Service. And if that isn’t enough evidence to prove that honey is good for you, it has also beeb proven to help hangovers and sore throats, and put you to sleep when you’re tossing in bed thinking about your big test in the morning.

There are many other circulating, partially proven rumors about honey’s good health, like how it can help you lose weight while you sleep and cure bad breath. However, as much as I might not believe in all the benefits that I’ve heard about honey, one thing is indisputable: that honey is overall a huge benefit to your health.

All I can hope now is that honey gives me the strength to face its creator, and that the bee can keep me happy with a never-ending supply of my favorite sweet treat, no matter how much I want to swat away at (or more likely run away from) my much loved and coveted adversary.

Photo by Molly Solomon.

Earlier this week I was sent my housing option for the summer. An entire three months on the East Coast, and all I could think about was how I could get my entire kitchen from here to Washington, D.C. It was then that it hit me how much I actually think about food.

Thinking about my meal choices has become a mind-boggling thought experiment that I carry around with me for days when I have nothing better to do than think about food, and also when I do have better things to do — like homework.

Even thinking about what I want to pin down as my favorite food of the week for this food blog has become a challenge. There are just so many spices and breads and sauces out there that I can hardly keep myself from making five dinners a night. But I restrain myself on behalf of my parents, who still think my brother Brennan also needs to eat. Of course, his diet is a little easier to fund: chocolate and Lay’s potato chips.

This week, though, it was a no-brainer. I bought a little container of plain couscous from Safeway and haven’t eaten very much else in days. There’s this great recipe I found that combines couscous with shallots and vegetable broth, and somehow, it is just the right mix of all my favorite things. I keep making it over and over again.

The great thing about couscous: It’s portable. You can often see me trekking the campus hills to the library, 10-gallon rice bowl in hand. The better thing about couscous: It tastes just as good cold as it does hot, so no need to locate a microwave to reheat.

Couscous is one of those foods that will stay good for years, similar to dry beans. So there’s also no need to worry about buying a food that might not last over summer break, because couscous is about as hardy and unwavering as my relatives when they’re arguing politics over the holidays.

For this recipe, I replaced the chicken broth with vegetable broth, which made it completely vegan, and also nixed the nuts and currants, but you can add them in for extra crunch and flavor. What I’ve found with the many, many batches I’ve made of this recipe is that it’s very filling and doesn’t take a toll on your daily calorie count.

It’s healthy and delicious, and a great comfort food to come back to at the end of the day, especially when I spend the majority of my class time dreaming of it.

Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/moroccan-couscous-recipe/index.html

Photo by Kyan Mahzouf.

I’m sitting here sweating, and no, it’s not because I’ve been exercising. Everyone who knows me even a little knows that the only time I sweat is when I eat something hot, because everyone who knows me even a little also knows that I never set foot in a gym. Ever.

This week I’ve been hooked on salsa, probably because it reminds me of summer and sitting out by the pool. My mom used to make roasted salsa from scratch in the summers when I was still living at home, so most of the time I don’t like to settle for store-bought salsa, which usually has a weird consistency. Also, typically even the hottest flavors of Tostitos’ or Safeway-brand salsa cannot appease my need for heat, so homemade salsa has quickly turned out to be the only solution for me.

My best friend Kim and I can sometimes finish an entire bottle of Tabasco hot sauce over the span of one meal, so when I was looking for an easy salsa recipe online, I knew I wanted it to be fry-your-mouth-off hot. I found just the thing, but decided that instead of one banana pepper I was going to use two habanero chilis. I blended together the ingredients and then opened the blender to pour it out. The smell was like a punch to the face. Success.

The second time I made this salsa, I took it to a potluck where I immediately became famous. People started tasting my salsa just to see what everyone else was talking about, and it became sort of a challenge between friends to eat it. Recently, when I ran into a couple I met at that potluck, they couldn’t remember my name but still remembered the salsa I made, if that tells you something.

But there is something else to all this hot and spicy business: Hot foods actually boost your metabolism, which is why you break into a sweat when you eat them. This makes my salsa part of the reason why I don’t have to exercise at all (even though I should). I also don’t worry about gaining weight from this recipe, because it’s made of a healthy blend of vegetables, it’s completely vegan, it tastes great and it costs about $5 to make eight full servings.

Of course, if you’re not one for spicy foods, you can always cut the heat by simply leaving out the banana pepper and jalapeños or using less of them. It’s still just as healthy, but doesn’t quite pack the same knockout punch.

So if you’re looking for a fiery way to make an impression, or just a way to enjoy Santa Cruz’s transition into a beautiful summer season, check out this recipe and share it with friends!

Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tays-hot-and-spicy-salsa-recipe/index.html

Photo by Molly Solomon.

A few weeks ago I received an email from a man with the PB&J Campaign. Yes, there is such a thing, and the campaign’s purpose is to spread the word about healthy and vegetarian options. He had read the City on a Hill Press food blog and told me that I should help spread the word about National Peanut Butter and Jelly Day, which was a couple of Saturdays ago, on April 2.

My closest friends know that I’m not the type of person to take these kinds of suggestions in a good way. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It’s like when my parents told me not to speed when I was 16: It took me two tickets and close to $700 before I figured out that I probably had to listen to them. So of course, in light of the PB&J campaign email, I wanted to write about meat or these fried tortilla wraps I’ve been making lately – just because I don’t like being told what to do.

But once I set aside that initial inclination to run in the other direction, I started thinking about how long it’s been since I actually sat down and made a PB&J sandwich. I’m sure that if you’re like me, a PB&J sandwich embodies much of your childhood memories in its delicious simplicity (i.e. eating about a bite of it and then feeding it to the dog). I thought it might be nice to find a way back to those childhood roots by making a PB&J this week, but with a twist.

I immediately went online to the Food Network website, which should just be my homepage, considering how much I look through its recipes these days. I found a great recipe for a PB&J sandwich that was grilled and had bananas inside. Yum! I made it immediately.

But the best thing about this sandwich is not its amazing flavor or the fact that it only took 10 minutes to make. As the PB&J Campaign member and his email reminded me, a PB&J sandwich is completely vegetarian, which means less carbon footprint and no need to worry whether your meal suffered for you to eat it. For me, that hit home. There’s really nothing more important to me than how my food makes it to my plate.

If everyone in the world took just one day to choose PB&J over a turkey sandwich or a BLT, it would mean less torture, less feeding money to a warped factory farm system and less feeling guilty about being human and destroying the planet in which we live.

I know what my go-to meal is for the week!

Recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/tyler-florence/grilled-peanut-butter-jelly-and-banana-sandwich-recipe/index.html

Photo by Prescott Watson

If you’ve read this blog in the past, you know all about my partial-vegetarianism/moral dilemma with almost every food that makes it to my stomach.  I only eat meat from organic farms and humanely treated animals, and recently I’ve been transferring this buying practice to my butter and milk (I’m still working on the cheese).

And you know me… I like to cook! So, a lot of times you can find me at Santa Cruz’s local farmer’s markets, basking in the happiness that comes from knowing where my food comes from, gathering up some local strawberries and kumquats, romaine and onions, tomatoes and cilantro — my choices made depending on what I’m in the mood to make in the coming week.

All of this generally unnecessary background information may show the reader why my experience at Ristorante Avanti, which took all of my values, transferred them to restaurant form and created blissful delight in my mouth, turned out to be so first-rate. This ‘ristorante’ is one of the only restaurants I’ve ever eaten at that buys locally on a daily basis, and only buys meat that has been humanely treated and is organic. They buy meat and dairy from farms that I have bought from myself in the past few months, such as pork from Niman Ranch and butter from the Strauss Family Creamery.

I had almost given up on my dream of being able to eat meat in a restaurant again until my mom took me to Ristorante Avanti last weekend. That’s why I love when she visits: She feeds me good food.

My dish was great. I ordered the chicken cacciatore, and it was the first time in four years that I’ve put chicken (knowingly) into my mouth. The chefs marinated it overnight in red wine, which made it so soft it fell off the bone and I didn’t need to use a knife.  It was served with delicious green vegetables and a side of mashed potatoes.

Photo by Prescott Watson

Not only was my dish great, but so were all the dishes everyone else at the table got too, and choosing what to eat off of the restaurant’s fabulous menu was almost as hard as choosing which chocolate to eat out of your Valentine’s Day heart-shaped box.  Our table ordered chicken pasta, grilled chicken, steak and to top it all off, a deep chocolate pot de crème.  Of course we all dabbled around each other’s plates, which was a newfound pleasure for me.  Usually I can’t do that without coming across something that I can’t eat.

And the specials are always changing, as the food they buy is always fresh and local, and depends on the seasons.

All in all, this restaurant made my taste buds cry out in exaltation. I’m ready for my second course!

Visit Ristorante Avanti online

Photo by Sal Ingram.

[Note: This post was originally scheduled for the end of Winter Quarter, hence all the references to the "cold" weather. Due to technical issues, this post was delayed until now. However, with "April showers" now upon us, we hope you may still find this useful. Enjoy! -CHP Web Team]

As the rain this has kept many of us indoors —and even now, with the cold still keeping us bundled up and under covers I decided it was the perfect time to whip up a warm drink.

Usually this means just steeping tea in boiling water, but this past weekend I decided to change it up and go a bit over-the-top making stovetop hot cocoa. Browsing the Internet, you can find various types of hot cocoa and hot chocolate recipes, but I’ve opted to mix and match different tips and recipes to meet my own tastes.

Warming a sauce pan on the stove over medium heat, I added unsweetened cocoa powder, a bit of granulated sugar, a little water and some dark chocolate (70 percent cocoa), stirring constantly until the chocolate squares melted and the mix began to boil. Although the task of melting chocolate can seem a bit daunting, it really is simple and well worth it in the end.

At that point, I added milk — still continually stirring — and once that had become hot, I added a splash of vanilla and cinnamon. It’s important that you do not let the milk boil, so keep an eye on it.

And that’s it! After it’s piping hot, it’s ready to drink. My housemates and I decided to top off the concoction with whipped cream and chocolate shavings, but you can feel free to use the traditional standby marshmallows.

Upon tasting, my housemate declared that it was the best thing he had ever drunk, and he proceeded to down a big floral mug of the sweet treat.

The great thing about making hot cocoa at home is you have the option of making it to your taste and trying out different recipes. You can opt to add a pinch of chili pepper for spice or ingredients like peppermint or raspberry extract to make it entirely your own. If you want to make it even more decadent, you can add a shot of espresso or a little coffee for a jolt, or for those of us old enough, a bit of liquor.

Of course, keep in mind this isn’t something you should be making too often. It isn’t great for your waistline, and it can eventually leave a dent in your wallet. Nonetheless, it’s a nice little indulgence for you, your friends and your housemates when the night is uninviting.

Photo by Morgan Grana.

This week brought monumental changes not only to my life in general, but also to my cooking situation. I moved from a large house into a garage, from living with six girls to living by myself, and from having a giant kitchen to having two fryers and a microwave.

Yes, I’m taking the next step, the step from college partying to college studying, from college dining to — well, I guess more college dining. That’s a phase I won’t be outgrowing for a while still.

It’s great, but believe me: Living in a garage does have its downsides. First of all, I spent the first few days of my new life buying bait traps and Raid to rid my “kitchen” of ants (yet to be fully accomplished). I’m also lacking an oven, and it gets so cold at night that I can leave my frozen food out on the counter and break my teeth trying to bite into it the next morning.

To me, these are merely minor setbacks on the road to freedom. Laugh at my situation if you will, but joke’s on you, because I’m still cooking up delicious meals for a cheap price — and doing it without having to worry that my vegetable oil will be mistaken for someone else’s and be gone by dinnertime. Thank you, roommate-less garage.

To celebrate my new arrival, I broke my kitchen in with an old favorite: gnocchi. It’s really simple to make, good to eat fresh, and sounds much fancier than just saying pasta.

Gnocchi is great, because it doesn’t take many ingredients to make the dough, and takes relatively little time to procure. I cheated a little and used instant potato flakes, but they taste just as good as the real stuff. You mix the flakes with boiling water, and then you add an egg and a lot of flour. After that, you knead the dough for a little bit, cut it into bite-sized pieces and boil them for a couple minutes. Top that off with some sauce, and you’re done! It’s that easy.

Besides being easy, it’s very inexpensive and highly nutritious. A lot goes a long way, so you can save your ingredients for later or to use in another meal. It’s a really great cost-saving dish. Potatoes are very filling, as you’ll know if you read my potato blog from a few weeks back, and they’re a good staple food to any good diet.

The smell of gnocchi filled my tiny space in the world for a fleeting minute this past week, spilling out the windows and helping create what my boyfriend calls the “chi” of my little garage. There will be many more meals to come, turning the awful smell of Raid into the sweet smell of home.

~~~~~~

See the recipe here: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Quick-Gnocchi/Detail.aspx

Photo by Nick Paris.

This week, I finally got around to eating meat again. After a short break from meat, I made beef lasagna that was good enough to make my lizard Moose jump up and down in his cage at the smell. Well, maybe not because of the smell, but I like to imagine that’s why he does that.

My friend and newspaper co-worker Nicole gave me some beef that she and a friend had bought from Princess Beef in Colorado. Princess Beef is a farm that’s friendly to their animals and is completely organic. The beef is not certified, because the small farm can’t afford the expensive certification process. Nicole told me a great story of how she visited Princess Beef and she couldn’t even find the cows until the farm owner’s turkeys herded them out of the forest that runs through the farm’s property. That’s what I call natural farming — none of that big business bullshit.

So of course I accepted her offer to give me some extra meat she had stored in her freezer, in the hopes that this week’s food blog would show the world that I have stuck to my resolve, only eating meat that has been raised under a friendly hand. On its website, Princess Farms has videos of the cows and calves running through fields. You can just feel — and taste — the love.

After running over to Nicole’s to grab the meat and making yet another dash to the grocery store — my stomach is feeling the pain — I got to work on a pretty intense dish. First I boiled the lasagna noodles, and then I fried up the beef with some chopped onion, added some spaghetti sauce to the beef and then layered it all up with some ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses.

In addition to being a delicious and tear-inducing meal, it was also surprisingly cheap. I got all of my ingredients for a little over 20 bucks, and it’s going to last me four meals. Plus, I didn’t use all of the cheeses or lasagna noodles, so I’m sure there will be more lasagna cooking to come next week.

For those of you looking for more than just taste to fit your budget, beef lasagna is also healthy on so many levels. The beef provides protein, which I’m always craving, as does the cheese. On top of that, a small amount of pasta noodles can keep you going through the day — more bang for your buck.

Strict vegetarians can also make a great version of this recipe by simply excluding the meat and doubling the sauce and cheese, or by substituting faux beef or eggplant. I find that it works pretty well with eggplant especially, but it’s up to you.

So escape your stressful day and do some cooking! It always helps me.

~~~~~~
See the recipe at dianaskitchen.com/page/recipes03/0922_lasagna.htm.

Photo by Molly Solomon.

Did you know that if you eat the same thing every day, your body begins to reject it?

That must have been exactly what happened to me last week with poached eggs. I learned how to make them right, got way too excited and then ate enough of them to keep the free-range chickens busy for months.

When you get to the point when you can’t even look at an egg, much less any animal product without feeling sick to your stomach, you know it’s time for a vegan meal. This week, that meal was vegan chili — and in no small amount. I made an entire slow cooker full of it, deciding I would have meals for the week.

Boy, was I right. Not only did I have enough for the week, I also had extra to feed my boyfriend and anyone else who happened to walk by my house with a spoon.

I got the recipe off of the Food Network’s website, my newly discovered Mecca, and trekked for the umpteenth time to the grocery store, where an old lady behind me in line asked why I was “playing house” and buying so much tupperware.

A little thwarted but still on a mission, I proceeded back to my house to send my kitchen into a sudden state of tornado. I threw knives around in a flurry of excitement as I haphazardly chopped vegetables and tossed them in a growing mix of vegetable broth, diced tomatoes, beans and spices.

The whole process took less than 30 minutes, and then I left it all in the slow cooker for three and a half hours. At the end, I had a boiling stew and steaming corn bread hot out of the oven: a family-portioned miracle meal.

This recipe was a little on the expensive side, but considering I had enough chili made to feed me for a full five days, I think it was money well spent. You can also always split the cost with roommates or friends, and probably still have leftovers to spare.

I never knew what the ingredients of chili even were until I took it upon myself to actually make it this week. Turns out it is full of a very healthful and filling variety of vegetables that can keep your stomach happy for a greater portion of the day, which is great if you have to spend a long day up on campus and don’t want to pack a meal.

The beans give this meal a much added punch of protein, and the tomatoes and veggie broth fulfill your daily intake of vegetables, usually a hard thing to include when eating on a budget.

It’s also a great alternative to poached eggs or anything else you might have eaten too much of lately. Yes, I’m talking to you with the Valentine’s Day chocolate.

~~~~~~

The recipe is available here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/robin-miller/vegetarian-chili-recipe/index.html. When I tried it, I skipped out on the couscous part.

All I can do is thank whatever earthly force has brought color back to our beach-side city in usually the most dreary of months — and celebrate. Of course, you know what celebrating means: spending an entire day cooking delicious-looking food that takes less than half an hour to devour.

Last Saturday I drove to my friend Rachel’s apartment in Porter, because she has a cleaner kitchen than mine, and we immediately proceeded to grease up the frying pans and chop up a multitude of variable vegetables, creating a rainbow of different colors and scents that tickled the senses and would have make my mother blush with pride.

Photo by Rachel Singer.

We planned on creating veggie mozzarella sandwiches and potato salad — an already enormous meal by itself — but caught up in the colorful trend of our food, we decided to add a drink to the mix: orange juice and Pellegrino with a few frozen strawberries plopped in as ice cubes. It was summer splash with a clear, cool tang.

Drinking those and boiling the potatoes for the salad, we then cut thin slices of mozzarella cheese and pared an eggplant, and cut a yellow pepper and red onion into long strips. We also cut French bread into slices and drizzled a bit of olive oil onto them, preparing them for the grill fryer.

Photo by Rachel Singer.

Once those were set aside, we marinated the peppers, onions and eggplant in an olive oil, salt and pepper paste, and then dumped them in the pan to fry. Those were done and we took them out of the pan, putting the veggies on the sandwich bread, throwing it back on the fryer and hoping the mozzarella would glue the entire concoction together. Luckily, it did, and we ended up with an artfully tempting final product, but we had to restrain ourselves for another minute and finish the potato salad.

The potatoes were boiled, and so we stirred up some dijon mustard, red wine vinegar and olive oil to form the base. We added it to the potatoes, and our dinner was complete.

Photo by Rachel Singer.

However unhealthy and expensive this meal turned out to be, it was worth it to catch a taste of summer. We did have a lot of leftovers, and if you read my fried rice article you’ll know what a fan I am of those.

We may not be playing tennis or swimming in our parents’ pools this week, but through this meal, I caught a glimpse of that distant world of bikinis and barbecues, and I continue steadily to hope for a spectacular Santa Cruz summer.

Photo by Molly Solomon.

Today, after a long day of being on campus studying, walking Science Hill 10 times and generally living at the Press Center, I arrived back at the East Remote parking lot to find my car completely covered in bird poop. Loads of it.

The first question I asked myself was, what kind of bird can generate that much crap? And second, why is it all on my car and nobody else’s?

After coming to terms with the fact that I would need to wash my car for probably the first time in a year, I jumped inside, careful not to touch the gooey bit on my door handle and started home.

Halfway there, another bird pooped on my car. I’m not kidding.

Needless to say, I was more than a little disgusted. Nobody deserves to see that much poop in one day, and I was more than a little sure that my car’s paint was disintegrating off of it. I had been so hungry on the way home, and now I could hardly think about eating without picturing white, gummy, runny bird crap all over my food.

Luckily, there is always one cuisine that seems to bring me out of nausea and back into reality, and that is the potato: fried, baked or even just microwaved. Potatoes are a good, solid food that look nothing like milky egg whites, if you know what I mean.

An interesting thing about the potato is that I’ve had a bag of them for a little over four months and they still haven’t gone bad. That means when it comes to the end of the month and to the tapering end of your allowance, you can have some reserves stored up to get you through. One bag of potatoes is generally less than $10 at your normal grocery store. Just buy them, forget about them, and then remember them again in a few months and you’ll be glad you did.

You can feel pretty good about buying bagged potatoes from the market not only because they are inexpensive and last a long time, but also because they are high in nutritional value.

A single potato contains no fat, little sodium and about 7 grams of protein. It’s also bursting with fiber, about 25 percent or the equivalent of your daily intake, which seems amazing since they are only a little over 250 calories each. Potatoes make a sizeable addition to dinner or sometimes for me, become dinner all by themselves.

The best ways to cook potatoes are by baking them and then filling them with butter and cheese or sour cream, by cutting and then frying them, or by boiling them with veggies for a soft, tender texture.

I know it’s not the classiest thing to say, but the next time your crappy day gets the best of you, find comfort in a simple bag of potatoes, and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Photo by Prescott Watson.

With the quarter coming into full swing now and being stuck at the library for hours in a day, it’s been a little challenging finding food to keep the pit in my stomach from growling at my neighbors during class. It’s hard enough having to read about a hundred pages a day, so sometimes I have to resort to leftovers.

As college students, I’m sure all of you are familiar with the concept of leftovers. For some, it might even constitute more of your diet than food you actually make on the spot. In college my dad would make a giant pot of pasta at the beginning of the week and eat it through to the next week, and then make the same pot of pasta again, and repeating that throughout the year. That’s not a great balanced diet in my opinion.

So with all my lack of time and short resources, I headed into my kitchen this week with a heavy heart and ravenous appetite, but emerged with a crowning jewel of a dinner: fried rice.

It may not sound so spectacular, but when you’re hungry, it really doesn’t matter as long as there’s a lot of it. Rice is definitely one of those foods where you can make a lot out of a little, and in fact it can last for days. All I did was make copious amounts of brown rice on Sunday, and I’ve been using it since to fry and mix with scrambled eggs, peas and carrots. And then I drown it in too much soy sauce.

It’s a really big cost-saver, but be careful if you’re not a runner, because I’ve done a lot of unnecessary carbo-loading off of it lately. As long as you spread out your dinner over multiple days, rice can be really good for you, especially with the added ingredients.

Peas and carrots are good to fulfill your daily veggie intake, and scrambled eggs have a lot of protein packed into them. You can also add other vegetables like celery or onions to increase the flavor. Honestly, I just fried the rice in garlic-olive oil and it added all the punch I needed to complete the range of flavors I was craving.

Rice itself is also good because it contains little fat and a lot of fiber. It also has no sodium, but I almost left that part out because it depends on how much soy sauce you slosh on top, and for me it’s more than a little.

I can wait a few more weeks to lose my winter break weight, right?

Photo by Mikaela Todd.

This week I went back to the bare basics. I think it had a little something to do with the new year and starting over, or maybe it’s just because I’ve eaten my way from Mexico to California this past month, but I’m glad to have my simple Santa Cruz lifestyle back again.

In either case, the best way I could think of celebrating the simplicity in my life was by making breakfast. I felt it was sort of like waking up after a really long day.

When I began my research into the perfect breakfast food, I thought I would try to find something with a lot of protein, as this was something I lacked over winter break. There were no happy or sustainable farms near my house and thus meat was in short supply. What could I expect? I live in Orange County.

Surprisingly, it’s not hard to find high-protein vegetarian food, and I found it in a place I would have never suspected: I found it in bagels. So what did I do? I made them myself.

It was quite a process, but actually turned out to be very cheap, which is good for a college student on a budget … me. All you need is bread flour, sugar, salt, vegetable oil, instant yeast and warm water — all pretty common baking items. And not only are these bagels way cheaper than getting store-bought ones, they taste 20 times better. They’re also fresh, which is good, because usually I have no idea if the bread I buy is years old by the time it reaches my table.

Besides tasting delicious, bagels are an extremely practical breakfast food because of their high protein content. One plain bagel generally contains almost 20 percent of your daily protein intake. There is also a high amount of carbohydrates and sodium in them, but the good seems to outweigh the bad each time I take a first bite.

Of course, you don’t have to make your own to enjoy the benefits of bagels. There are many great brands out there, so if you’re low on time, head on down to your favorite grocery store and get in on this scrumptious snack.

Recipe: [Link]

It’s no surprise it’s one of my favorite things to eat — and make. Graham cracker crumbs and sticky peanut butter rolled together and covered in milky chocolate prepared to be exactly one-bite sized — what could be better?

This recipe is exceptionally easy to follow. It seems the candy was made for college students, as all the ingredients are cheap and easy to find, and it takes hardly more than an hour to conjure your very own sweets with nothing more than your bare hands. (We did have a little help from a food processor, but you can survive perfectly well without one.)

Forget nutrition. Everyone knows that flew out the window on Thanksgiving and won’t reappear until everyone makes their New Year’s resolutions tomorrow. These chocolate peanut butter candies were invented for holiday indulgence, so enjoy!

Hope everyone had a great holiday season! Next week maybe we’ll be a little healthier…

~~~~~~

Recipe:

2 sticks of butter

1 box of graham crackers, finely crumbled

1 box of powdered sugar

1 18 oz. jar of peanut butter

2 bags chocolate candy melts

(ingredients pictured are doubled)

Directions:

Mix butter and graham crackers into a paste. Add sugar and peanut butter. When thoroughly mixed, roll into quarter-sized balls. Heat chocolate, and dip to coat.

Photo by Molly Solomon.

Many people have their staple breakfast food. They eat it nearly every day and can always rely upon it to taste good enough to start their day off right. For my roommates and me, it’s cereal. Some people give a little extra effort and make eggs. There are just some days though — usually weekends — when the staple food won’t cut it, and you need to go the extra mile for that delicious breakfast food you hold dear to your heart. In my case, French toast.

It wasn’t until last year that I learned how easy French toast is to make. If I’d known when I was younger, I probably would’ve made it every day over summer vacation. I’m guessing my parents are glad I didn’t know and thus avoided the blast of sugar in the morning.

French toast can be made quite simply with bread, eggs, butter, and a pan. However, there are ways to bump the delicious factor until it’s off the charts. I have my roommate to thank for this recipe. Once he showed me how he made it, I never made French toast the same way again.

Before we begin our culinary journey, let me offer a little warning: This recipe has been known to cause strong feelings of euphoria and infatuation. Especially when served with coffee to the many coffee-addicts that occupy a college town.

Depending on how many you’re cooking for, begin by cracking eggs into a bowl. When I cook French toast, I usually make two slices for every person and will break three eggs per every two slices. Mix the eggs in the bowl until it’s a similar consistency throughout. Now comes the fun part. All of these ingredients are optional, but I assure you: They make it quite delicious.

For every three eggs you used, add a quarter cup of heavy whipping cream. The next ingredients are up to you depending on how strongly you want them to affect the mix. Add cinnamon, brown sugar and vanilla. Once I have finished mixing all of this, I like to put in a square Tupperware piece. Many of these are the perfect size for dipping a piece of sliced bread in. Put a piece of bread in the Tupperware and let it soak in the mix. The bread you use is up to you, but I’ve found white breads to be the most absorbent. Make sure both sides of the bread are coated.

Put a pan on the stove and put a bit of butter in. Put it to medium heat and make sure the butter coats the majority of the pan where the bread will be. Once it’s melted and some heat has built up, you can add the first piece of bread. A key part of cooking French toast is to keep the heat at medium to low so that the inside of the bread cooks just as well as the outside.

Before a minute has gone by, use a spatula to check the underside of the cooking bread. When it looks golden brown, it’s time to flip it. Pick up the bread with the spatula, but before putting it back down, drop a thin slice of butter where the bread will go. This makes sure both sides get an even share of the butter while they cook. Put the bread down on the uncooked side and again let it cook until that side is golden brown.

Pull it off the pan and onto a plate, which you then cover with tin foil to keep warm until the second piece is ready. Once the second piece is ready, add it to the plate.

If you want to go all the way, put a little bit of powdered sugar on top and before you put on your syrup. Something my roommate likes to do is add a little jam to the side, but I keep it simple, prefering only heaping mounds of maple syrup.

Next, pull up a chair, and enjoy your French toast while it sets the stage for a great day.

Photo by Nick Paris.

“Good ol’ spaghetti.” This was the reaction I heard when my roommates saw what I was preparing for dinner. This reaction was perfect, and I couldn’t have agreed more. While growing up, spaghetti for dinner was almost a weekly occurrence as it was my dad’s all-time favorite food. At Italian restaurants, there are many varieties of spaghetti, and they are all delicious.

Spaghetti has many good aspects going for it. It’s inexpensive to make, it’s easy to make in large quantities (great for those large gatherings), and it’s a dish that can be made in a healthy manner as well.

There are several steps to preparing the spaghetti, but first let’s start with what you’ll need. My favorite spaghetti is spaghetti bolognese, which is simply spaghetti with meat sauce. For this, your grocery list will consist of an onion, a clove of garlic, 3 cans of tomato paste (the smaller size cans), 2 ½ of diced tomatoes (canned or fresh), and a pound of ground beef, turkey or pork. The last one’s up to you.

Your first step will be to chop up the veggies. Dice the onion until it is pretty small pieces. As our food blogger, Mikaela, said in her article about onions, these are great vegetables, as they are healthy and can add great flavor to almost anything. Next is the garlic. Something to note here is that one clove is enough, but I actually like putting two for the extra flavor. Two will add flavor but won’t overwhelm it. You want to chop the garlic up a lot finer than you did the onions. This way, people can avoid getting an abnormally large mouthful of garlic while enjoying their spaghetti. If you have more vegetables on hand you can chop them up and add those as well. The only one I usually do is a whole zucchini — but experiment! That’s half the fun of cooking.

Once the veggies are chopped, you can leave them on a plate for the time being. The next step is to get out a decent-sized saucepan. One which is about a foot in diameter and about two inches deep will work perfectly. Add butter to the pan and put it over low-medium heat on the stove. Add a pound of your meat of choice to the pan. With a wooden spoon, begin separating the meat in the pan until there are no clumps remaining. At this point, you’ll need to season the meat. Add 2 teaspoons of salt and 1 teaspoon of pepper to the meat. A little bit of oregano is a great addition as well. Keep moving the meat around with your wooden spoon until it has browned on all sides.

Add the chopped onions and garlic. This stage will last for about 10 to 15 minutes as you stir the garlic, onions, and meat. One great thing about this stage is that now that the meat is cooked, you can begin nibbling it as you cook. This is a good way to test the flavor and make sure the meat doesn’t overcook. It is also your right as chef to enjoy mini-samples along the way.

Once most of the onions have started to turn a golden color and are a bit softer, you can add the remaining ingredients. Add the 3 cans of tomato paste, the 2 ½ cups diced tomatoes as well as 2 cups of water to the saucepan. If you’re adding a zucchini, now’s the time to do it as well. Set a timer for 40 to 45 minutes and leave it while stirring it frequently.

After the sauce has been cooking for 20 minutes, put a pot on the stove and begin boiling water. Once it is boiling, add a pound of pasta to it. Be sure to stir the pasta as well so that no noodles stick to the bottom and burn. This step is also where spaghetti presents a healthier option of using wheat pasta.

Once the noodles are done, drain the water and put the noodles back in the pot. Once the sauce has been cooked for 45 minutes you can add it to the noodles. This amount of sauce will provide for a good ratio of sauce to noodles so there will be enough spaghetti for about four people.

If you’re like me, you love to put parmesan on most Italian foods. With spaghetti, it’s a necessity. Other great foods to have with spaghetti include salads, bread or garlic bread, and, of course, some vino.

As you sit down to eat your meal, be sure to raise your wine glasses in a toast to the great country of Italy for one of its best contributions to the culinary world. Now enjoy!

Photo by Mikaela Todd.

Recently, I’ve been re-thinking my vegetarianism. Animal and environmental protection are both extremely important to me, along with food quality of course, and so I’ve always told myself that being vegetarian was the best way to stick it to the man, go against the grain and save the world.

But then I read a food blog called Voracious, authored by a girl named Tasha, who was vegan for over three years. She recently posted a blog entry to her website explaining her choices for introducing meat into her diet again, mostly detailing her experience being unhealthy, weak and depressed. The one argument that stuck with me was that she was not content sitting on the sidelines, simply calling out big corporations for their inhumane treatment of animals and environmental degradation instead of doing something to counteract those evil practices.

By shopping locally, she argued, the meat consumer is helping farmers that not only treat their animals humanely but also contribute minimally to global warming fight against and compete with corporations like Tyson, stopping them with the invisible hand of the market. Instead of just activism, which Tasha said had become harder and harder for her because of her lack of energy, the combination of that and buying power is a more effective way to bring attention to the issue, in both her opinion and mine.

Reading her blog, I simultaneously laughed and cried as Tasha described her first experience eating meat, the way she felt once she had had her first taste, and the idea that she was not going to miss out on a single bite of life. Now she didn’t have to eat with guilt in her heart. Every word she said resonated in my mind, and I carried those words around with me for days, weighing my options and thinking hard about whether or not this was also the path for me. Eventually, I concluded that it was, but it was not an easy decision.

I want the same things that Tasha wants, food justice and environmental protection. I want to contribute to fighting the corporations in a tangible way. I want to feel powerful again and healthy. I want to be able to walk around the beautiful UC Santa Cruz campus and enjoy the scenery without having to focus on my too-heavy breathing.

And so, I bought fajita beef and made fajitas last Friday. I fried vegetables, onion slices and meat strips, heated tortillas and topped it all off with avocado slices, salsa, cheese, lettuce and jalapeños. My boyfriend made me count to three before I ate the first piece of beef. As I held the meat in front of my open mouth, my eyes teared up and I started crying, but he reassured me that I was doing the right thing. I knew I was. I closed my eyes and brought the meat closer, thinking all the while that I had killed the animal I was now bringing to my lips. At once it was in my mouth and I was chewing, the flavor exploding in my mouth, the texture something I had forgotten altogether but was now remembering again.

After my initial hesitation I picked up my fajita and ate another bite, and another, and another. I finished two entire ones within 10 minutes, with Jeff warning me to slow down but me refusing to heed his advice. It was too good, and my body craved it, had been craving it for years despite the fact that I had learned to ignore my natural instincts.

Obviously, everyone is different. I know many vegans and vegetarians who have been very successful with their diets, but my body is one that simply can’t be. I have become semi-anemic and very weak over these past few years, and I’m happy to find an alternative that fits my morals but doesn’t compromise my health.

I still wonder if I will notice changes in myself as I gradually reintroduce meat into my diet. It’s not going to be easy eating meat. In fact, I know that I will still be grossed out by it for a while. But besides being healthier, the most important part for me is that I am able to eat the food that I love without the guilt I have always associated with it, and that I know I am making a visible difference by buying locally and sustainably.

Like Tasha says on her website, “Life is short, and I don’t want to miss a single bite!”

Fajita recipe: http://www.texascooking.com/features/feb98fajitas.htm

Vegan blog: http://voraciouseats.com/2010/11/19/a-vegan-no-more/

Photo by Mikaela Todd.

My Thanksgiving at home consisted of three main ingredients: food, shopping and wine, all in excess. The food and shopping I can deal with, but believe me when I tell you that my family can get a little unruly after the first cork has been popped. There’s never been so much truth in the phrase “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere” as there has been at my family functions.

Given the fact that we needed to cook pretty much all day in order to prepare a dinner complete — turkey, vegetarian stuffing and mashed potatoes, included — we were far more than ready to eat when the time came around. Already a little drunk off wine, I heaped dish after dish onto my plate and sampled everything before I decided which things to eat first and which ones to save for last. I always save the best for last, and in this case, that was the sweet potatoes.

My mom makes killer sweet potatoes, but not until recently did I discover that I had the same talent. My roommates and I decided to throw a faux Thanksgiving dinner at our house the Monday before we all left for the holidays. We had everyone contribute something, and my contribution was the sweet potato dish. I had never made them before, but luckily they turned out well and became a huge hit with my friends.

Sure, they’re not the healthiest things to eat. In fact I could probably argue that they are the unhealthiest item at both of my Thanksgiving dinners. But who can’t afford to splurge a little around the holidays? And besides, sweet potatoes themselves are actually very healthy— just not with the overabundance of butter and marshmallow (and in my mom’s case, pecans too!).

Sweet potatoes boiled and served with their skins can be very filling and nutritious. They are high in carbohydrates, but most of that comes from their high content of dietary fiber, which is very good around the holidays when you’ve got too much going in and not enough coming out.

They are also a good source of protein, and contain immense amounts of Vitamin A, 769 percent of your daily recommended intake in a small, one-cup serving, as well as over half of your recommended intake of Vitamin C. In addition, there is also a good amount of B6 in sweet potatoes, making it great for energy, especially if you’re vegetarian.

No, my sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving were neither boiled and served in their skins nor served without a good heaping of butter and brown sugar, but it’s still nice to know that beneath all that bad stuff, there’s something good inside, which is what the holidays are all about.

For a personal favorite sweet potato recipe, go to http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/candied-sweet-potatoes-5

Last weekend I went to San Francisco with my boyfriend, Jeff, to see “West Side Story” at the Orpheum Theatre. My parents paid for us to get dinner at this tiny Italian hole-in-the-wall restaurant at the edge between the residential district and the heart of the city. The dinner was great, and the waiting staff must have overheard me talking about my birthday, because our dinner came with a rose and a free tiramisu. It was probably one of the best dining experiences I’ve ever had. Jeff made sure to shake every person’s hand on our way out to the point where we were almost late for the musical.

I’m telling you this because when I got back home from San Francisco, I looked up the caloric content of one single serving of tiramisu, and let’s just say I was looking to skip a few meals in the next week. But after a little research, I know that I can still stay healthy even with a few high-caloric slips in my diet. Yes, you still have to make sure you are keeping your calorie count in check, but a few good things can actually outweigh the bad, and there’s a few foods that I had no idea were so good for you. The one I wish to share with everyone today is onion.

I’m sure many of you have watched the film “Shrek” at one point in your life. If you have you’ll remember that Shrek is a (supposedly) mean ogre who eats disgusting things like charred rats on a stick and raw onions. Although in the movie those two foods are pretty much equated to each other in terms of quality, onions are actually very healthy for you and can be used to spice up any dish.

Onions are very filling and nutritious. They are strongly anti-inflammatory and are low in saturated fat, cholesterol and sodium. The nutrients they contain the most of are Vitamin C, dietary fiber and manganese. A single serving also contains 2 grams of protein.

It’s not the best choice if you are trying to cut back on sugar or carbohydrates, but those things can also be good for you in small quantities. And the best thing about the onion is that it’s low in calories, with approximately 45 per cup serving, which means you can allocate more calories to your other foods, like tiramisu for dessert, and not feel guilty about it.

Chopped onions go great in everything from omelets to burritos. They’re also great in things like burgers, chili, rice and pizza. Personally, I love grilled — or caramelized — onions and peppers mixed together with an abnormal amount of salt on top. All in all, it’s an extremely versatile food and can be added to almost anything to spice it up a bit, and can add a healthy twang to any meal.

So I guess Shrek did have one thing going for him: good health!