Graduate Food

Now that I am finishing with my first year of graduate school, I think I should start writing about my impressions and experiences. I decided to comment first on the food ;-). You see, when you are so busy sometimes you can forget that you need to eat food at least twice a day. I tried having three meals a day. Since there is so little time to cook, I thought of sharing my usual meals and some recipes.

Breakfast

The easiest breakfast by far is cereal. I fluctuated between Frosted Flakes, Honey Nut Cheerios and regular Cheerios; most of the time buying the generic brand. I know, all this are not very healthy. In fact I do not eat that healthy. But I try! Anyway, some mornings I had late classes (10:40 AM), and since I tried waking up everyday at 8 AM, I had some extra time. These days I made scramble eggs with toast, or pancakes.

I am particularly fond of pancakes, they were the cheer-up meal. Usually I just followed the recipe in the box. But of course, one gets pretty tired of things, so I started experimenting. I remember that my father use to add cinnamon to the batter. I also had some oatmeal pancakes during last summer. Combining these with bananas and some vanilla, I came up with banana-oatmeal pancakes. Just prepare the usual pancake batter. Then add two drops of vanilla, a sprinkle of ground cinnamon, and a mashed banana. These were mostly prepared during the weekends, to my loving girlfriend who also loves them ;-).

My girlfriend and I are also very fond of French toast, but again this is a slightly complicated meal that takes a bit of time. So I guess my final advice for breakfast is cereal. If you really are on a hurry, there is always a bagel or a pair of toasts.

Lunch

My lunch is also not that healthy, but I found it very popular among graduate students. In order to force myself to eat some fiber, I have been eating peanut butter and grape jelly sandwiches on whole wheat bread. This is money friendly, since with less than $10 you can buy lunch for the whole week. In fact, the jelly and butter will last for a few weeks. Sides include a fruit, mostly a banana, apple or an orange; and sometimes white corn chips. All this drown under a litter of water, all important.

Maybe I will try to experiment with salads during the summer...

Dinners

Dinners are also sometimes rushed. I found that it is best to pack something and heat it on the microwave, than to walk back to the apartment or buy something at the student center. I am pretty sure pasta is the most popular food for graduate students, since it is easy to cook. Well, I am convinced now that pasta with marinara sauce does not saves well. Once you save it in the fridge, the next time you heat it it is very dry and nasty. But pesto saves the pasta, maybe because I love pesto. I had never heard of pesto before I came to the US. Two years ago I had my first basil pesto pasta. I liked it, and I am happy to say it saves well, after a couple of days it still tastes fresh. Just buy a big box of pasta and a jar of traditional basil pesto, boil the pasta, then just add the pesto. You will have three days worth of dinner. I found that helpful, cooking on Sunday night and then not bothering until Thursday night.

Another popular thing is the Mexican tortilla. You can make burritos, quesadillas, etc. Quesadillas are easy to make and are a quick meal. But my favorite are the spinach enchiladas. I learned about these two summers ago, but finally tried them last summer while at Stanford. This is the only dish that has any type of vegetable, I feel bad about that... but they are really good! I guess I add lots of cheese, which is not good for your veins... Anyways, here is the recipe:

Spinach Enchiladas

1/3 of a package of frozen chopped spinach, defrosted of course
ricotta cheese
sour cream
Mexican cheese blend
one can of enchilada sauce
flour tortillas

In a big bowl add the spinach, three spoons of ricotta, one small spoon of sour cream, half of the Mexican cheese blend and a drip of sauce. Mix well. Spread over tortillas and roll. Place enchiladas on a baking pan, maybe you want to add a layer of sauce at the bottom. Cover the enchiladas with a layer of sauce and the rest of the cheese blend. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven at 435.927778 Kelvin for about 25 minutes or until the cheese is melted; you might want to uncovered them so they can get a bit golden. This makes about 4 servings.

You can make enchiladas on a Sunday night and have dinner through Thursday! Other things I tried were rice with frozen vegetables, but that never came out fine. There is always delivery. Here in the Stony Brook area so far I have tried Lan Wo, Chinese food that is cheap and they have SUNY student dinner deals. There is always Domino's and I also tried once a nearby Greek place, but that was a visit. There is an Irish pub, but I asked for a Parmesan sandwich and they brought me a chicken Parmesan pasta, which was not bad, but i was sick of pasta. When I visit Merideth in Boston, we always stop by Anna's Taqueria in the MIT campus. Their chicken quesadillas are just amazing.

Another favorite dish is the pita-bread-pizza. Just take a pita bread slice, spread some tomato sauce and add some mozzarella cheese, then bake in the oven for about 15 minutes or you can also try the microwave oven for about 2 minutes. I just love these!

I am not going to say it is very original, but after some time I decided to sprinkle some Italian garlic seasoning to the top layers of a grilled cheese. The result now is pretty tasty, you might want to try it.

There is not much meat in my usual meals. I found that meat takes longer to prepare, and I have grown comfortable with the simplistic attitude in the kitchen. I love my pork, sometimes I made some pork chops with mashed potatoes. But these were very rare.

Desserts!

This might be a surprised, but desserts might be the thing that can keep you happy through a week of exams, homeworks and grading. Mostly I made brownies. Just follow the recipe on the back of any mix box. I also rediscovered pumpkin pie. Again just follow the recipe in the pumpkin can. Pumpkin pie will also be my holiday dish for March 14th (3/14).

All this made me feel hungry...