Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Need another side to go with your turkey? I know everyone likes those quick and easy recipes. Check this out. Classic Baked Acorn Squash. You can find the recipe at simplerecipes.com. It sort of sounds boring but wait until I tell you what else it is baked with.

This recipe is explained for one acorn squash since it's easier to give directions but make more because everyone will want their own. Trust me!

1 Acorn Squash (cut in half)
1 Tablespoon butter
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Teaspoons Maple Syrup

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, mix the butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup in a bowl then divide it evenly between the two halves of acorn squash. Get a pan and put in a tablespoon of water just so the skins of the squash don't burn while baking and then bake for 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The mixture will loosen and become thick and sort of a soupy texture. It soaks into the squash so that each bite is sweet and tasty. It's as simple as that! It's almost like a dessert! It's delicious! Let me know what you think.

Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy with your family and friends!

Cream Cheese Bacon Crescents

Click photo to see Kraftrecipes.com

 

So I happen to stumble upon this recipe of Cream Cheese Bacon Crescents from Kraftrecipes.com about a year ago and it has all of my absolute favorite things to eat. These are fantastic for holiday family gatherings as appetizers or even Super Bowl. It has everything that everyone loves especially bacon. This probably sounds terribly bad but I do not prefer to mix bacon in any of my food except for these crescents. Cream Cheese Bacon Crescents are definitely that food that you can't have just one.

This recipe is incredibly easy and especially fast to make which is great for me and those of you out there that like to make something that's simple, quick, and not that many ingredients.

The recipe entails:
- 1 container Philadelphia Chive & Onion Cream Cheese (8 ounce)
- 3 slices Oscar Mayer bacon, cooked and crumbled
- 2 cans refrigerated crescent dinner rolls (I like to use Pillsbury)

To start off you need to preheat the oven to 375 degrees. While that's getting hot, combine your Philadelphia Chive & Onion Cream Cheese and crumbled Oscar Mayer bacon into one big bowl and make sure everything is mix up well.

Next you can lay out the sheet of crescent rolls and cut each triangle in half making one into two triangles. Now that you have your triangles, scoop about a heaving teaspoon of the combined cream cheese and bacon and place in the middle of each triangle. The recipe will tell you to spread it throughout the triangle and then roll the triangle from the shortest side in, but I like to put a glob of the cream cheese mixture in the middle of the triangle and then take each end and bunch the dough together making it into a ball full of cream cheese and bacon. Place all of the cream cheese and bacon crescent balls on a greased baking sheet.

Once you have all of your crescents finished and on a greased baking sheet your oven should be hot enough at 375 degrees. Put them in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes or when they're golden brown.

Like I said, this is a kind of food that you can't just have one so normally I like to double the recipe when getting together with family and friends. These Cream Cheese-Bacon Crescents are excellent as appetizers for the holidays that are approaching and especially for those football Sundays that many people enjoy and like to have a little finger food to snack from. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

Granola Treats

With the holidays approaching, I usually have dessert duty. Each year I try to make something a little different than the year before since myself along with the family like to try something new. This Granola Treats recipe was given to me by my cousin and my family and friends can't get enough of it. So it was one of the recommendations for Thanksgiving dessert.

Always feel like you're that ungrateful college student who attends holiday gatherings empty handed. Well guess what! With this recipe you don't even need an oven. When I went away to school, I hardly knew how to cook and would try to avoid the stove and especially the oven. The Granola Treats just need a microwave. It's extremely simple and very time friendly.

The ingredients contain the following:
- 1/3 cup honey
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 4 cups Jet Puffed Mini Marshmallows
- 6 cups Honey Bunches of Oats cereal
- 1 cup peanuts, chopped (optional)
- 4 squares Baker's Semi Sweet baking chocolate, chopped

First, you want to start off with greasing a 13x9 pan and set it aside. Have all of you're ingredients measured out and ready. Microwave the honey and butter in a large bowl for 1 minute and then stir the mixture until it is blended well so that the butter is mixed and melted. Next you want to add the marshmallows to the honey and butter and stir them around coating them. Stick the bowl in the microwave for 1 minute and 30 seconds. You'll see that the marshmallows puffed up and now you can add the remaining ingredients. Add half of the cereal and mix around for a bit then add the other half. It will get stick and especially sticky so prepare to get a little bit of an arm workout. Stir the mixture around for everything to be completely blended.

Lastly, scoop the granola out of the bowl and spread it out into the greased 13x9 pan and let it cool.

Now you don't have to show up to gatherings empty handed. You can attend it with a delicoius chocolaty treat that everyone will love and enjoy for a dessert. And may I say, it is excellent when you put it with vanilla ice cream!

Hope you enjoy this treat. Happy Holidays and Happy Shopping! :)

Chicken Stir Fry

In response to a suggestion for food with more vegetables, I thought of a great recipe.

I love Chinese food! Who doesn't, especially if you're from New York? As much as I love it, I either eat all of the food I order or if it is too much at once I always end up going back for the left overs to finish it off. So instead of ordering that Chinese take-out, why don't you actually bring it to your kitchen, make an easy dish yourself, be able to eat a small portion and also feel full after that meal?

Chicken Stir Fry can be a very inexpensive meal and also incredibly easy to make for anyone who wants a quick and easy cooked meal. I would actually like to talk about two ways of making a delicious Chicken Stir Fry. One way is using Kraft Asian Toasted Sesame Dressing and another involves taking an extra step with Kikkoman Less Sodium Teriyaki Marinade & Sauce and brown sugar.

Ingredients are as follows and feeds 4 people:
- 1 regular pack of chicken breast
- Flour
- 1 regular size bag of frozen mixed stir fry vegetables
- 1 cup of White rice
- 2 1/4 cups of water
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 1 bottle of Kraft Asian Toasted Sesame Dressing (it can be light) OR Kikkoman Less Sodium Teriyaki Marinade & Sauce
- Brown sugar

First we want to start off with cooking the chicken. I like to rinse the chicken after I open the package just to get the sliminess off. I chop the chicken up into cubes and fill a bowl with some flour and coat the chicken cubes in the flour. I set up a frying pan and coat the bottom with vegetable oil and set it on high. Once the pan is hot enough I turn the heat down to a medium to medium high and put the flour coated chicken into the pan. It will sizzle and if you feel that it is sizzling and splatting out of the pan too much, turn the heat down a little more. Stir and flip the chicken cubes around so all sides get cooked. The chicken cooks fast so you don't want to leave it in there too long. Once all sides are white you may want to take a piece out to cut and see the middle to make sure it is cooked thoroughly. Take out all the chicken and put to the side.

Now we can start our rice. I like to buy the Uncle Ben's Original Rice. Boil 2 cups of water, toss in 2 tablespoons of butter and 1 cup of rice. Once it is boiling, turn the heat down to a simmer and cover for about 20 minutes stirring occasionally.

While your rice is cooking for the 20 minutes, take another frying pan and turn the heat on a medium high. Here you will put in the frozen stir fry vegetables  and the frozen are good because then you basically steam them. You want to stir them around for a while and pay attention. You want them to be cooked but also have that crispness to them. This could take up to 5 to 10 minutes.

When the vegetables are cooked you can mix your cooked chicken cubes in and then if you want the Kraft Asian Toasted Sesame Dressing, you can thrown in about half the bottle. Mix it around letting the heat loosen the dressing a little bit.

If you are feeling ambitious, you can take the extra step and put almost a whole bottle of the Kikkoman Less Sodium Teriyaki Marinade & Sauce in the frying pan then you slowly sprinkle in brown sugar. I like my food sweet and tasty so I end up putting in 1 cup probably even more. This goes upon taste and what you prefer on sweetness.

Now you can take a scope full of rice on a plate and lay over the stir fry on top. It creates a great mixture of foods along with you get that good serving of tasty vegetables. I find this Chicken Stir Fry to be very filling with the rice and sauce so it's great for a small portioned but also filling meal. So sit down and enjoy this quick and easy meal for you and your family.



(The photo above is used from ladybugbeck.wordpress.com. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture, but this is what it would look like.)

Light Italian Chicken, Pasta Salad, and Tossed Spinach Salad

To start it off, college students do not have a lot of time on there hands but it doesn't mean they should not have a tasty, yet also, healthy meal. Who here has heard of the "Freshmen 15", where you have gained 15 pounds during your first year of college due to unhealthy eating? I know I have and also experienced this one.

 Recently I have read a story about a man from Fulton, New York and he lost a total of 191 pounds due to a bet that him and his wife made. Before the weight loss, he weighed at a total of 366 pounds. By losing this weight, his main requirement that he followed was cutting back on all the unnecessary portions of food, eating less, and adding exercising to his life style.

This meal, I made on my own without any recipe to follow. This is a light Italian chicken with a side of pasta salad and a tossed spinach salad. It is wonderfully easy for any college student to make and also is very healthy.What makes this meal great is instead of using butter, I'm using olive oil which has all the good unsaturated fats where as butter has saturated fats that are not very healthy for you. Chicken is also very healthy with lower calories compared to red meat and full of protein. I add the cheeses just for a little bit of fat, and I love cheese so it's adding something that I enjoy in little portions. Ingredients for each of these foods are:

Light Italian Chicken
-Thin sliced chicken breast
-Light Italian dressing (any brand of your choice is good; here I used Wishbone)


Pasta Salad
-1 box of Penne pasta
-1 small jar of Roasted red pepper
-Mozzarella Cheese
-Olive Oil
-Salt
-Pepper
-Garlic powder

Spinach Salad
-Fresh spinach
-Fruit and Nut Trail Mix
-Croutons
-Feta cheese
-Raspberry Vinaigrette 

For the Light Italian Chicken, I placed my thin sliced chicken breast in a big zip-lock bag and poured Light Italian dressing in the bag to give the chicken a thick coat to marinate in. I put that aside and start cooking my penne pasta. Boil water and cook the pasta to al dente, which means its just cooked not over cooked where its mushy and not crunchy. This takes approximately 15-20minutes. You want to start tasting and testing the pasta about 10 minutes after it has been cooking. Drain the water of the pasta once finished place in a big bowl and put it in the fridge to cool.

Next you want to chop up your roasted red pepper and mozzarella cheese. Once your pasta has cooled you are going to throw in these ingredients and add about half a cup of olive oil. Put it in a little at a time and stir. You can put less or more in if you prefer. Then you want to season to your preferred taste. This you would also like to put in a little at a time to make sure you are not over powering the meal with certain seasonings.

Now that the pasta is done, you can start cooking your chicken.Take a frying pan and just cover the bottom of the pan with olive oil.Get the pan hot and then turn it down to medium to medium high depending on your stove. Place the Light Italian marinated chicken breast in the pan. Cook it by flipping and you'll see it'll turn white. Thin sliced chicken cooks fast so you don't want to under or over cook. I like to take a knife and cut in the middle to make sure it is white on the inside and cooked. Here is your main course.

The tossed spinach salad is extremely easy and fast to make so that's why I have saved it for last. Grab a heaving handful of spinach and place it in a small bowl, take a small scoop of each remaining ingredient for the salad and drizzle a raspberry vinaigrette dressing over and Voila! You have a tasty and healthy meal.

So go ahead! Try this easy and healthy meal for yourself and enjoy.  :)

Let's Bring It Back!

It's been a long time since I have posted recipes and I am happy to say that I am returning and bringing College Cooking 101 back to life.

For those of you that don't know about me and my blog, my name is Alexandra Peters (please call me Alex). I am currently a college student living away from home on Long Island. Growing up I never learned how to cook nor was I really allowed in the kitchen to cook because I came from a family where my mother always did the cooking and the children did not have to help. When I went away to school I had very little knowledge in cooking. It was unfortunate to say that at the time it was possible for me to actually burn boiling water. Let's face it, college students like quick, easy, and "cheap" food or even if its just grabbing that granola bar to go just so they can get to class on time. Been there done that! That quick and cheap food always resulted in stopping at the closest fast food joint just to stay away from the unsuccessful cooking. Enough was enough after spending so much money and feeding myself very unhealthy food. But now and though the previous experiences that I have had in my learning how to cook, I have come a long way from burning that boiling water to being able to make simple and tasty meals that college students living away from home can successfully make.

I have new recipes to try and new ideas to share. Check in with me each week here on College Cooking 101 where I will be discussing great recipes that I have found and tried and even easy meals that I have created on my own without having to look at a recipe.