Swimmingly Swell Tacos

I always assumed that making homemade fish tacos involved some overly complicated recipe and a million different ingredients. But there's an easy way to make fish tacos if you have a microwave and an oven. And if you have a good fish place that will fry your fish for you, all you really need is a microwave. I know a lot of Fred Meyer or Top Food locations have deep fryers, so just ask for cod or halibut, depending on personal preference, deep fried.

Ingredients:
Fried cod or halibut fish (fried fish from your grocery store, or bake frozen fish fillets in your oven following the instructions on the box).
Medium flour tortilla
1 Tablespoon of tarter sauce
Grated cheddar cheese, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, salsa, and sour cream, as desired

Recipe:
First, cook the fish, or rewarm the fish in the microwave.
Next, heat your tortilla in the microwave for about 20 seconds.
Then, spread about 1 Tablespoon of tarter sauce on the tortilla.
Then, place warm fish on one half of the tortilla. Add cheddar cheese, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, salsa, and/or sour cream, however you desire.
Finally, fold the tortilla over in half, to form the shape of a tortilla.

Now that I know how easy it is to make fish tacos, I don't know why I didn't try them earlier. Plus, if you buy the fish and tarter sauce when it's on sale, you can make these for pretty inexpensively. Now, how's that for dorm food? I say DELICIOUS!


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Mini Chocolate Doughnuts with Coconut Glaze

I got a wonderful gift for my birthday a few months ago: a Babycakes Doughnut Maker. I've wanted to use it, but haven't had any real reason to make doughnuts. But, today I had my bestest friend over. We wanted to make brownies, but didn't have the ingredients, so we decided mini chocolate doughnuts would be good instead. And boy were they good! Just look at these!

Ingredients:
1 egg
1/2 cup water
7 Tbsp + 2 Tbsp melted butter (separated)
2-3 tsp milk
1 package of doughnut baking mix (chocolate with coconut glaze)
       This includes a chocolate doughnut mix and coconut glaze mix

Recipe:
First, whisk together egg, water, and 7 Tbsp of melted butter.
Then, stir in the doughnut mix until it is well combined.The resulting batter will be very sticky. But that's ok.
Meanwhile, preheat the doughnut maker. Once it has been preheated, pipe or spoon about 1 1/2 Tbsp of batter into the greased cooking reservoirs.
Bake the doughnuts for about 4 minutes. Then, remove the cooked doughnuts from the doughnut maker and repeat with the remaining batter.

While the doughnuts cool for at least 5 minutes, combine the glaze mix with 2 Tbsp of melted butter.
Then, add in milk, one teaspoon at a time, until it reaches a thick smooth texture. This is where I made a slight mistake. The box wrote tsp with a capital T, which meant that I misread it and added 2 Tablespoons. Don't do this! But if you do, simply spoon out as much of the milk as you can, then add in powdered sugar until your glaze reaches the desired texture.
Finally,dip the tops of your cooled doughnuts into the glaze. I found it easiest to dip the tops in, and then spin them slightly to gain full and even coverage on the doughnuts. Allow the glaze to harden before serving.

These were so delicious. For the best results, you should avoid overmixing the batter and be careful not to overfill the cooking reservoirs. Also, much like with other makers, try not to check on the doughnuts in the first couple minutes of baking, because opening the lid too early may cause the halves to separate.

I highly recommend making this recipe. It's so tasty. I can't wait to make more doughnuts like these.

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Egg in a Basket

If this isn't college food, I don't know what is. Seriously, this is so easy, yet so savory and filling. And, like Top Ramon, you can season it however you'd like, so that you don't get too bored of the same taste over and over again.

Ingredients:
1 slice of bread
1 egg
Salt, pepper, or whatever other seasoning you would like
Cooking spray
A small amount of butter

Recipe:
Spray a frying pan or skillet with cooking spray and heat over a medium heat.
While the pan heats, cut a circular hole in the center of your piece of bread. If you don't have a circular cookie cutter and you can't make a perfect circle on your own, you can place a glass on top of your bread and trace around it, using a knife.
Then, place the bread in the frying pan. Melt butter in the hole of the bread.
Then, crack an egg in the hole of the bread.
Use a spatula to move around the egg whites so that it cooks all the way through.
Once the egg appears solid enough to remain in tact, flip the bread/egg so as to cook the other side.
Cook until the other side of the bread is golden brown, but be sure to remove before the egg white begins to brown.

The perfect egg in a basket will have solid whites but a runny yoke, like an egg cooked over easy. However, if you prefer, you can cook longer so that your yoke is solid as well. You cans season your egg in a basket however you please, and, if you prefer, you can toast the circle you cut out of your bread. Use your frying pan to toast it, then use the toast to soak up the runny yoke.
So there you are. This is one of the easiest things that even a college student can make. Just egg and some bread. That's all you really need to be well fed.

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Lobster Pasta Salad

For Mother's Day this year, my mom and I made lobster pasta salad to share with our family. I have to say, I became very quickly addicted to this stuff. As in, I had leftovers for lunch several days in a row. The best part is, it was simple to make at home and, since we found lobster tail on sale, it wasn't as expensive as you'd expect.

Ingredients:

3 boxes of Betty Crocker's Suddenly Pasta Salad (Classic flavor)

3 lobster tails

1 can of whole black olives

Recipe:

First, boil water (2 quarts per box of pasta) in a large pot. Once boiling, empty the pasta mix into the pot. Gently boil uncovered for 12-15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Next, drain the pasta in a strainer and rinse with cold water. Be sure to shake it to make sure that it has drained well.

Then, put the pasta in a large bowl. Toss in and stir the seasoning packet that comes with the box. Then, cover the bowl and place it in the fridge.

While the pasta is kept cool in the fridge, steam lobster tales. We did this using a double boiler, but I suppose you could cook your lobster tales in whatever fashion you are most familiar with. The trick here is that we didn't use any seasoning on the lobster tales. There was plenty in the pasta itself, so if you are grilling your lobster, resist the temptation to season it.

Next, peal the shell from the lobster and, with washed hands, pull apart the meat so that there are many decent sized chunks of lobster to be incorporated into the pasta salad. Take your bowl of pasta from the fridge and place these chunks of lobster on top of the pasta.

Then, open and drain a can of black olives. Place these on top of the pasta as well.

Finally, mix using a spoon or well washed and dried hands. Mix until the lobster chunks and the olives are well incorporated into the salad. And, there you are. Be sure to keep refrigerated until serving.

This recipe makes A LOT of pasta salad. You can easily make it smaller for a smaller get together. I recommend dividing the recipe by 3 if you're making it for your family or a small get together.

I love Betty Crocker's Suddenly Pasta Salad. I'm addicted to it. And my mom loves it because it's so easy to make her own version using it. Use it as a base to make any pasta salad you please. We were going to also add avocado slices and tomato, but we forgot to add it before we left. But that's ok, I don't mind losing some of the veggies.

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French Toasted Angel Food Cake

My extended family had a brunch to celebrate Mother's Day. When my aunt asked me to bring something for dessert, I was unsure of the perfect recipe to make. I considered muffins and all sorts of other things, before remembering Sprinkle Bakes' recipe for French toasted angel food cake. I've wanted to make something from Sprinkle Bakes for the past 2 years. This recipe, in particular, sounded interesting but I never had quite the right situation to make it. Angel food cake is too dessert-y for breakfast, but French toast is too breakfast-y for most people to have as dessert. But, as dessert after a brunch, this recipe was actually perfect. This made me so excited. I altered the recipe just slightly, but it remained in the same vein, and I'm sure the original recipe is just as good.

Ingredients:

8" Angel food cake purchased at grocer's

6 eggs
1 cup milk
2 Tablespoons + 4 Tablespoons granulated sugar (separated)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 Tablespoon of maple syrup (more, if desired on top of the tosted cake)
2 1/2 containers of strawberries
1 container of raspberries
1 container of blueberries
1 container of blackberries
1 can of whipped cream

Recipe:
First, beat the 6 eggs. In a shallow dish or bowl, combine these eggs with milk, 2 Tablespoons of sugar, vanilla, and 1 Tablespoon of maple syrup. You can use whatever combination of ingredients you typically use in making French toast. I've never used vanilla in French toast before, but I'm glad that I did with this recipe, so I recommend it, even if you're hesitant like I was.
Next, slice the angle food cake. I sliced into 12 pieces, but Sprinkle Bakes recommended 8 pieces, which I think would work better so that the pieces are big enough to stand on their own. Also recommended was using a serrated knife. I let my dad use his electric knife, but I think angel food cake is too sensitive for that much power.
After slicing the angel food cake, heat a skillet or frying pan over medium to medium-low heat. Use butter or cooking spray on the pan. While the skillet heats, soak your angel food cake in the egg mixture. Sprinkle Bakes recommends doing this for no longer than 1 minute, but I found soaking half of a piece at a time for 15-20 seconds each worked just fine.
Next, cook the slices of cake as if it were a regular piece of bread. I recommend cooking all of the exposed sides of the cake slice, but spend the most amount of time on the two larger ends allowing those to get somewhere between a medium-gold and a medium-brown color. Depending on the size of your skillet, you can cook between 1 and 4 slices of cake at a time.
Next, place slices on a plate or platter in the original upright position.
If you have a helper, you can have them do this next step for you while you bake. Or, do this in advance. Wash and dry your berries. remove stems and slice strawberries in a large bowl. Mix in the other berries and 4 Tablespoons of sugar. This will help to draw out as much juice as possible from the berries.
It is best to allow people to chose their own toppings (berries with whipped cream, or syrup, or a combination of the two), but my personal preference is the berries. What can I say, berries go well with French toast AND with Angel food cake, so they seemed like the perfect fit for this dish.

This recipe was absolutely incredible. I enjoyed it, my mom enjoyed it, and everyone that tried it enjoyed it. I seriously can't wait to do this one again, or any other recipe from Sprinkle Bakes. Please, can somebody have a birthday or something?


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