Vegetarian

I've been vegetarian for 9 days now. I started the day after World Vegetarian day and have been going strong since. What motivated me to go vegetarian was seeing the film Food Inc. and the fact that many people in my tower were going vegetarian. My original goal was to do it for a week. Then I extended that to ten days. Perhaps tomorrow night I will extend it to a month? We shall see. Anyway, last Friday I, along with a few fellow members of the Green Tower held a vegetarian dinner (though the dishes were actually Vegan). We made spicy potatoes, cabbages & peas over rice and garbanzo bean burgers. I must say, the garbanzo bean burgers were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I got the recipes here: http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/nutshell.htm#nut

Song of the moment: Dive In by The Dave Matthews Band

Double Birthday Party

Yesterday night we had a joint birthday party for two of the Green Tower members. I decided to bake two cakes. They were swiss chocolate with cream cheese frosting with strawberry, blueberry and chocolate swirl toppings.

Song of the moment: Wait For You by Eliot Yamin

Spanish Tortilla

Since classes have started, posting here has become harder and harder. That doesn't mean I haven't been in the kitchen though. Been a baking machine lately as people in my tower like to call me. A few days ago or maybe a week ago, I can't really remember, I made a Spanish tortilla. It's made with 5 eggs, 2 potatoes, onions and various spices. I ate the whole thing myself. ohhh yeaaa

Song of the moment: Is This Love by Bob Marley

Baking Bug

I seem to have some sort of baking bug as you can tell from my last few posts. I guess I'm just overjoyed about having an oven in my new dorm. Anyway, I baked cupcakes for the first time in my life tonight. I decided to make them pirate themed. Haha. I thought they were alright. Everyone else seems to have loved them. I guess I'm just losing my love for desserts and anything else sweet...that reminds me, I need to go buy some pickles! I'd take pickles over cupcakes any day. (No joke. Pickles over cupcakes any day.)

Song of the moment: Float On by Modest Mouse

Cheesy Salsa Baked Tortilla Chips

I don't really have much to say right now but I wanted to put the picture up so enjoy it. I made this a few days ago.

Song of the moment: Santeria by Sublime

Pre-Semester Stress

Was feeling really stressed out today so I decided I wanted to bake something to work off my stress. I would have ran but it was too hot out. I walked to Shaws with a friend with the intention of baking cupcakes. Unfortunately Shaws didn't have cupcake trays so I ended up baking chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies.

Song of the moment: Never Let You Go by Third Eye Blind

I'm Back!

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Spent a week in El Salvador building houses for Habitat for Humanity and then spent another week at home. Got back on campus and spent about two days settling into my new room in the Green Tower. I'm finally satisfied with how things look. If only my posters would stop falling down! Anyway, I cooked for the first yesterday night. And I was able use an oven finally because my new dorm has an oven! I made Italian baked chicken pastina. It was a featured dish on the Food Network's website.

Song of the moment: Penny Lane by The Beatles

Nonsense Dinner

My dinner tonight was such a mix things that don't really belong together. I couldn't decide what I wanted. I made roasted chicken and garlic flavored rice pilaf, spicy shrimp (though it did not turn out as spicy as I intended) and tortilla chips with salsa and cheddar cheese baked on top (this was really yummy and oh so easy).

Song of the moment: Watching the Detectives by Elvis Costello

Pasta First

My main dish for today is roast garlic and cherry tomato pasta. This was my first time making pasta. FYI Bengali people aren't big on making pasta. Now I'm contemplating between making chessy salsa baked tortilla chips or going out for a run before it gets dark.

Oh to be a bored college student stuck on an empty campus in the middle of suburbia.

Song of the moment: Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol

Light Snack

Meant to post this yesterday. I made paprika roast potato strips. They were supposed to be paprika roast potato chips but didn't turn out crunchy as they were supposed to because I'm working with a conventional oven here. Still good though.

Song of the moment: Imperfectly by Veruca Salt

Epic Meal

What to do when on a deserted campus with nothing to do and not many people to hang with? That's the situation my friend Carlos and I were in tonight. So we decided to walk to Whole Foods and agreed to each make a dish. I decided to make my specialty of balsamic chicken with avocado salad and sauteed broccoli. Carlos made smoked salmon on baguette brie with italian cherry tomatoes. For desert we had cannoli.

Too bad I lost my apetite by the time I finished cooking and Carlos started to get sick. Well enjoy the pics even though we didn't get to enjoy the meal.

Song of the moment: Amber by 311

Theft

For the past week or so everytime I went to the kitchen I noticed that my cooking pot (technically my roommate's) was missing. I figured someone cooked something and took the pot into their room and forgot to bring it back. I did not fret too much as I rarely use the pot to cook. I mostly use the pan.

Today I meant to wake up at 6am and go for a run but ended up waking up past noon. Typical. Anyway, I showered and got ready for the now half gone day. I didn't want to make breakfast food so I decided I wanted to make balsamic chicken because I hadn't cooked that in a while and also because the chicken in my freezer was going to go bad soon. I walked into the kitchen and what do ya know? My pan is missing! I look around to see if the pot was returned and it wasn't. Not only that but three of my plates were gone. Freaking ridiculous! I stomped back to my room and decided to make a sign and post it over the sink.

Now I am just sitting in my room starving because all the food in my room that I want to eat require cooking and I have nothing to cook in. I really really don't want to eat Easy Mac or Ramen. =(

Song of the moment: Here Comes the Sun by George Harrison

Too Often

So I apparently go grocery shopping way too often and buy way too much each time I do so. I was analyzing a report generated by bankofamerica.com on my spendings and realized that I spend 27% of my money on just food. This is a serious problem as I still have to pay $2,000+ for my Fall '09 semester tuition. I made a bet with a friend of mine that I won't buy any more groceries (with the except of milk) for at least two weeks. It's been less than a week and I already want to make that 1.5 mile walk down to Whole Foods. I get bored with my food so easily. I need to get through all the of Easy Mac and Ramen I bought over two months ago before I allow myself to go shopping again. This will be quite a challenge. In the meantime, I need to stop being so lazy and making myself sandwiches. I need to get back in the kitchen and get creative with what I've got!

I just realized I forgot to do the song of the moment for the last two posts so here goes:

Song of the moment: The Man Who Sold the World by David Bowie

Perishables

What to do with food going bad? I got back from New York and noticed that my bananas were going bad and the milk in my fridge was going to expire in a day. Soooo I made banana milkshakes with my Magic Bullet. I kind of eyeballed it so can't give accurate proportions. Each consisted of 2 small bananas, 4-5 frozen mango chunks and approximately 15 oz of milk.

One week!

It's been over a week since I last posted. My sincerest apologies to my non-existent blog following community. I got an infection early last week and my antibiotics have been making me sleep a lot. Only I would get an infection that lands me in the emergency room from a simple mosquito bite!

Anyway, to make up for lost time, I'll be posting twice tonight. Hooray!!

The pictures show a quesadilla I made. It has mushrooms, jalepenos, onions and cheddar cheese.

My Own Room!

One fact of my life is that I have never had a room of my own. I shared a room with my sister for all my life and then got to college and had to share a room with three other girls. This summer I decided to room again with one of my former roommates. She was only here for the first half of summer so she left yesterday. Now not only do I have my own room for the first time in my life but I also get to have a double as a single. Finally I can unbox my stuff and stop living like a squatter!

By the way, today has been the longest day ever. I've been up since 4am! I don't know what to do with myself since classes are done and I don't have work till Monday. I walked to Whole Foods in the morning (even though I have a month's supply of food in my room) and bought so much fruit and other such yummy-ness that I was $3 away from getting an overdraft fee. I need to stop spending all my money on food and appliances. I rearranged things in the room to make it look less cramped and I have 1.5 three shelf bookselves filled with food (and more in 2 fridges). I admit, I have a problem. At least I'm past denial...

I've been really lazy about cooking this week. It had such an intense beginning with three finals and all. I cooked today but it was such a simple dish it shouldn't even count as cooking. I made sauteed broccoli. Took 30 seconds to prep because I chopped the the onion and pepper with my Magic Bullet and the broccoli was bought precut. All that was left to do was stir it in the pan for 5-10 minutes and salt to taste.

Sorry for the ugly presentation of the dish. And I wish I had an SLR. I should be eating Ramen and saving my money for that.

Song of the moment: Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes

Jalapeno Ranch

It isn't often that I voluntarily eat vegetables but a new dressing/dip that I found has changed everything. It's Litehouse's Jalapeno Ranch-dressing & dip. Some of you might be thinking jalapeno? it must be crazy hot! Not true.

I must admit though, I bought it hoping it would be crazy hot since I love all things hot and spicy. Hot or not, it makes eating carrots and celery bearable for me so it must be good.

Next time you wake up in the middle of the night wanting food, like I just did, opt for this rather than that oh so tempting cookie.

Cooking at College

Not too long ago I finished my first year of college at Babson College in Wellesley, MA. College has been a great experience thus far and I'm continuing the journey by taking classes here over the summer. The one thing I did not enjoy about my college experience was the fact that my dorm did not have a single kitchen in it thus when I grew tired of the options available at the dining hall I had to resort to ordering food. This was a frequent and expensive habit. I had to move to a different building for the summer and luckily it has kitchens! I love to cook and now I can freely. This blog will chronicle the food I make and perhaps a few random thoughts along the way.

Here is a picture of the first dish I made with my roommate before I moved into the new dorm. It's balsamic chicken with avocado salad.

*Note to self: wipe the edges of the plate before taking a picture for a cleaner image.