Squashapalooza!!

Starting a blog is a bad idea the week before midterms. And starting a food blog is even worse, because every time i ate ramen or easy mac, i felt horrendously guilty. But, two midterms and three papers later, i'm free to start cooking again.

My produce started to pile up over the last two weeks, so when i finally had time on my hands to make something and looked at my secret food-stash cupboard, i found four different squash staring at me accusingly. So I roasted the suckers. And made them into two different soups. And I learned the following lessons:

1-Pumpkins are ridiculously hard to cut into. That whole Halloween cut the top of and pull the junk out business simply did not fly. I needed to cut that thing in half, using whatever means necessary. And it took forever. Granted, my knife wasn't exactly the sharpest in the world. But still. That skin was killer! My friends and excellent sous chefs Kali and Julia came over to hang out/watch me attack squash/help me cook/eat the soup, but the ended up hiding around the corner so they didn't have to watch me. They mentioned something about me looking like a mass murderer wielding a knife. Whatever. I was being safe, and emerged from my fight with the pumpkin victorious, and without cutting myself. The pumpkin, however, didn't fare so well. And the apartment kitchen, not so much either. There were seeds and pumpkin guts everywhere-- the cabinets, the counter, the stove, the floor, you name it. The people living in our apartment next year will probably find some under the refrigerator. oops?

2-Butternut squash are amazingly, ridiculously good. And much easier to deal with than pumpkins. I was going to do something involving bacon and gorgonzola, but i forgot to buy bacon. So i sauteed onions, carrots, celery, and garlic, then threw in the roasted squash and chicken stock. It cooked down into a suuper yummy soup. I probably should puree it, but we were all hugely hungry and I didn't feel like doing the extra dishes.

3-Acorn squash taste like nothing. They need serious flavor help! I threw it in with the butternut squash soup since the butternut squash i used was small to begin with.

4-Lite coconut milk + curry powder= easiest lame curry ever. I call it lame curry because well, it's suuperr lame. Most people would laugh at it, and people that eat legitimate curry would be horrified. But for me, it worked. I've been craving curry forever, and anything with the slightest hint of currylicious flavor is automatically amazing to me. The recipe i based it off of said it was pumpkin stew, but really, it was curry. And the recipe said to serve it over rice. So there went the stew idea. And the pumpkin I had was super mild, so it didn't really taste that pumpkin-y. But it was still good. I think i'm going to throw a lot more curry powder into the leftovers.

So, two soups, two friends to share them with, it was a fun night. And now i have two containers of leftovers to heat up for the rest of the week while i catch up on all the reading for classes that I got behind on last week. Its going to be a great week.

Yes another food blog

So there are a million food blogs out there, I know. And I'm not a gourmet chef. But I like to cook, and I need a way to document all of the grand adventures (and small triumphs) that occur when cooking in a dorm kitchen.

Sometimes I can't believe I'm doing this whole cooking thing. I mean, college students are supposed to live on ramen, hot pockets, and easy mac, right? And i do love me some easy mac. But there's only so much of those college staples and dining hall food I can take. I start to get antsy. And i want to eat healthy food. And cook. Last year I had a dream entirely about broccoli and pot roast. And then I hijacked the kitchen in my friend Julia's building and made a berry pie (not healthy, I know, but work with me here....I needed to cook something.)

This year I have a kitchen in my suite and more time on my hands (I'm on the crew team but am sitting out this year due to hip injuries...). I belong to a CSA program that delivers fresh fruits and vegetables on campus once a week, and I let what I get in my box influence the food I make. I search recipes on the internet for inspiration, but I mess with them, adding and subtracting ingredients depending what I have on hand.

This isn't another Julie/Julia blog, a recipe repository, or a baking brag-athon. This is my scrapbook of sorts of my attempt to make my own healthy(ish) food, and my growth (hopefully) as a cook. I don't really do measurements. My go-to ingredients are garlic and cumin. And I'm still somewhat limited on making actual entrees. But whatever. Veteran cooks beware, some of the recipes I try out and the methods I use in the kitchen may make you cringe. I'm really, seriously, making it up as I go along. I burn stuff, I forget to add ingredients, and I add too much salt. But I'm working on it. This is me, being in college, and becoming a cook. So here we go.