college food part 2

There are many tricks to stretching those dining dollars out. A ruthless Chinese Buffet take-out packing strategy was previously detailed. Other general tips, such as getting the veggie delight at subway, or IU-specific tipis, such as using Union Plus and never buying cookies from Sugar and Spice, are numerous. But the best money-saving tactics are the ones that are self-developed. Those feel the best, anyhow, so I'll leave that area for you all to explore. Instead, this post will summarize some of my cooking experiences in the past few weeks. Cooking your own food saves a lot of money. For instance, Filet Minion from Malibu Grill, $20 Beef Flavored Ramen Noodles, $.20 Case closed. So a key skill for all cheap students is home-cook'n! I'm no god of cookery, but I'll share what I've found out. 1) COOKS.COM, GOOD. Cooks.com has many, many recipes in an easy-to-navigate site. It provies the cheap student with simple instructions and good ideas. Unfortunately, there is no option to search recipes by number of ingredients. I don't know about you, but "25 Different Ways to Cook Squid" isn't on my list of cooking priorities. But there are some hidden, easy recipes. Like Danish Rice Pudding. 2) BE CAREFUL WHEN FRYING FOR THE FIRST TIME. If you're not cautious, frying will scar you up. Actually, I've only fried once so far this summer, so I can only tell you what NOT to do. Don't put too little oil in--the whole pan needs to have a layer of oil over it. Don't fry on low heat or it takes too long and all your food tastes like vegetable oil. Don't fry w/o a cover, or else the oil will spit onto your hands--ouchies. 3) DON'T LEAVE EASY MAC PLATES UNWASHED FOR MORE THAN 48 HRS! I dare you to disregard this advice and find out why it deserves an exclamation mark. 4) GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL, GOOD. 9 minutes, and a burger is cooked fully and [relatively] healthy. Excelente. Now if only I didn't have to clean it... 5) DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY. As wonderful as Ramen is, try other staples. Jasmine Rice. Rice Noodles. Hell, just to try eating different foods, try some Macaroni & Cheese. Did you know, there is no www.collegecooking.com ? What are hopeless students, including myself, to do? If any student at a culinary school would like to open such a site, I would be honored to help publicize it. Shanky and I were discussing Shanky: I should write a cookbook for extremely lazy kids like myself Sibo: There will be no measurements Shanky: Anything that takes over 10 minutes is taboo...another requirement for collegecooking.com: no stove required Sibo: You know, collegecooking is a really good idea. If I ever get more recipes under my belt I'll start collegecooking.blogspot.com Shanky: I wonder if there's some way to profit off that idea. Obviously advertising Sibo: Thefacebook has very little advertising Shanky: They make quite a bit of money...