(re)Learning a Lesson

I decided in the middle of doing my French homework that I wanted a bagel and cream cheese. Boy, it sounded nice. So, I got out my bagels, opened my cream cheese and...this is what I got:

I apparently learn lessons the hard way, and after having to repeat said hard way over and over again. So, today's lesson: the expiration date doesn't count after you open the package. I learned this lesson before with my fermented pineapple experience (Superstitions), but apparently that lesson didn't stick.

By the way, if you were wondering about the mold, I did some collegiate researching (ok, I googled it), and discovered that mold of any type when found in a soft cheese like cream cheese means that you cannot eat it at all. The green mold is the most common kind and (dare I say) most tolerable (it'll still make you sick, but it won't be scary sick). The red kind is the least common and least tolerable (it's apparently one of the most dangerous kinds of mold out there). So, today I learned two things. Boy, and they say college is a waste of money.

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How to Make Easy Mac (taste good)

So, this blog has kind of turned into more of a personal blog than a food blog, which is partially because I keep getting food from the cafeteria, rather than making it myself. So, I'm going to try to get back to the old style of things by making my own food as often as possible again (and using my food points to get ingredients at the cafeteria instead of full meals, as often as possible). Today's recipe: Easy Mac.

I tried eating Easy Mac by following the instructions and anyone who's had it before can tell you, it's quite disgusting. It tastes nothing like normal craft mac n' cheese (possibly because it contains none of the same ingredients). So, I did a little research online and found some helpful hints on making Easy Mac edible (Yahoo Answers). A compilation of everything I found that actually sounded edible, turned into this:
First, soak the noodles in warm water (however warm you can get your tap water to become) for about 2 minutes. This will slightly soften the noodles, but most importantly get all the milk powder and other disgusting stuff off the noodles.Be sure to fill the water up to the "Fill to Here" line, to ensure that all the noodles are being properly soaked.

Next, strain the noodles. This is where the strainer I picked up (in Why I Should Pay Attention to Warning Signs) comes in handy.

Then, fill the cup to just below the "Fill to Here" line using ACTUAL MILK (which can be picked up from your cafeteria, if you don't happen to have milk in your fridge).

From here on, comes the hard part. Unfortunately, in order to make Easy Mac taste good, it no longer gets to be easy. However, it's still a single serving of mac n' cheese that you can make on your own (which is the important part anyway).

Microwave the cup for about 30 seconds. Then stir.

Then another 30 seconds. And stir.

Another 30 seconds. Stir.

And yet again, 30 seconds. Stir.

Continue this until the noodles are soft enough to your taste. *NOTE: the milk will eventually start to bubble over. For this reason, try to let it cool completely between each round of microwaving, microwave for no more than 30 seconds at a time, and keep LOTS of paper towels handy. Also, be sure to watch it carefully. Once it starts bubbling over, take it out and clean up the mess immediately. Let it cool completely as you clean the mess because you'll probably need to put it back in for at least another 15 seconds after this point. Try to limit how much you let it boil over, though, because you do want to keep as much of the milk as possible.

Once the noodles are soft enough to your liking, immediately add all of the cheese packet, and stir completely so that there are absolutely no chunks of cheese powder (these taste disgusting, so avoid them like the plague).

Allow it to cool and let stand until it is thickened.

Then, eat, enjoy, and clean up the mess. Luckily, there's no bowl to clean up after this. Unluckily, the microwave will need to be washed thoroughly after you are done with it (I recommend doing this while you let it cool).

The final product should look something like this:

Easy Mac is still not the tastiest of mac n' cheese, but by following this preparation process, it is at least edible. Using the ones that come in cool shapes (mine were SpongeBob) makes your taste buds 10X happier. After all, ma n' cheese is a children's dish, so being a little silly with it is completely acceptable.
For more tips on how to make Easy Mac taste better, I recommend checking out the Yahoo Answers page I cited earlier, as well as this post by JPDsmiley.

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Why I Should Remember My Previous Lessons

So, you remember the post I did about warning signs? (Why I Should Always Pay Attention to Warning Signs) And I decided that I would never buy anything that contained meat but didn't require refrigeration? Yeah, well I did anyway.

I was really in the mood for burritos Monday night but I didn't feel like walking all the way to the cafeteria. So, luckily, I purchased some premade Mexican over Fall Break. Old El Paso just came out with a new line of premade burrito stuffers. I read reviews of it online and it sounded like a good idea. It was easy enough to make and I could keep the leftovers in the fridge while I finished eating them throughout the week. To make it, all you have to do is rip open the top of the plastic package and put it in the microwave for a couple minutes. Then, put it on a tortilla (folding tortillas is an easier task if they have been warmed in the microwave for about 15-20 seconds), and maybe add a little cheese or lettuce or whatever, so that it looks like this:

It's already got rice, beans, and meat in it, which makes it quite convenient since to make burritos the normal way, you would need a different pot for each of these items. Once you have your inners on the tortilla (on one half only, fold the burrito. To do this properly, you must first fold the two ends so that each end of your string of insides are covered (this ensures that your beans and stuff won't fall out while you're eating your burrito). Then, roll the burrito starting with the half that has the insides on it, going towards the blank part of the tortilla. It should end up looking something like this:

Then, in theory, you should eat it, enjoy it, and clean up the mess.
Here's where the problem lies: I did not enjoy it. It was super salty, a tad bit spicy, and underlyingly bland. I dumped the leftovers in the trash and it stunk up our whole room. I couldn't take more than 2 bites of it. So, in the end, I walked all the way to the cafeteria and picked up a burrito anyway. Where I learned that, while I really love their chicken burritos, I am not a fan of their beef (it's rather spicy and I'm just not fond of spices).


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Superstitions

Today is my first college choir concert. I want everything to go right. But of course, besides actually practicing and focusing in effort to make things perfect (which I've been doing, kind of), there's only one way to ensure perfection: superstition. So today when I woke up I knew one thing: I am not going to have any dairy today. Now, for many singers, this is not superstition. Milk, cheese, and other dairy tend to coat the throat and mess with any chance of singing well that day. However, I do not have this issue. Possibly because I sing low, but possibly, too, because it just doesn't effect me. Which is nice. But, still, I am superstitious. So I don't eat it anyway. I want everything to be perfect.

So, I woke up knowing I couldn't have cereal and milk, couldn't have a bagel and cream cheese, couldn't have toast and nutella...which left me with fruit. My happy little fridge happened to have pineapple and raspberries just waiting for such an occasion. Thus I made this:

Doesn't it look delicious? It's actually nothing fancy, literally just pineapple chunks and raspberries. But, man, I could just eat the entire thing right now.

I took my first bite.

Didn't taste quite right.

So I took my second. Then looked up how to tell if pineapple from the jar has gone bad. Guess what?

My pineapple fermented. And I wasted all my raspberries on this fruit salad. And by this point they are covered in pineapple juice and completely ruined.

So now I have no breakfast.

But my superstition above the one about not eating dairy is eating breakfast. Ok, so not really a superstition, I just happen to know all the important information about why you should eat breakfast in the morning. Like the fact that carbohydrates eaten in first hour of your day are used for building up and strengthening the cells in your brain (eating breakfast makes you smarter). And the fact that breakfast starts your motabolism - you cannot burn calories until you have first eaten them (eating breakfast makes you skinnier). And the fact that breakfast tends to be one of the most well rounded meals of the day, with carbs, proteins, milk fats, calcium, and fruit all at once (eating breakfast makes you healthier). But I get none of that today because my breakfast is: 2 bites of fermented pineapple, which makes me no longer hungry for anything ever again.

I feel like I've just wasted a whole heck of a lot. This darn pineapple was supposed to stay good until November. The jar said so! But, perhaps that means it'll stay good until November, if left unopened...which it was not. Shucks. That's probably what it meant. Well, I guess that's a college student mistake that everyone must make at some point in their life.

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Why I Should Always Pay Attention to Warning Signs

Today I was in the mood for a hot meal, but not in the mood for walking all the way to the cafeteria to buy some (partially because it's Monday and I'm tired and I'm lazy, but also partially because it's so darn hot that I don't want to do anything). Thus, I took a look at my food stock. Again, too lazy to make any real food, I decided to make a pre-prepared meal. I happened to buy one such item at the grocery store last week. Healthy Choices' Steak and Portebello Mushroom Noodles sounded appetizing at the time, and it wouldn't take up any room in my mini fridge. This should have been my first warning sign. Anything that contains meat but does not require refrigeration should be banned from my list of delectable items. But, of course, I wasn't thinking about that when I bought it, nor was I thinking about that when I made it. Instead, I thought FOOD, FOOD, FOOD. And that's basically all it was.

I couldn't even finish the whole thing, which was disappointed because I'm still hungry, but my taste buds are ruined for all future food. Seriously, it was awful. The noodles were tasteless and the sauce was pretty much just onion sauce. I kind of hate onions, so I wish the packaging had been more clear about the fact that it included pretty much just onions, with a few pieces of dried steak and sliced mushrooms. Perhaps, too, I should have been warned because it is supposed to be healthy for me. Healthy food just doesn't taste good. But this was what was on sale and, let's be honest, I'm always in the mood for steak, mushrooms, and pasta. Just not in this form.

If you like onions and honestly care about how healthy your food is, then maybe this is for you. But, for me, this was not a pleasant way to end my day.

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Non-Dorm Food

I almost skipped lunch today. And my stomach wasn't happy. My usual Thursday allotment of time between my two classes was shortened, as I had to venture to Vancouver, WA today. When I returned, I spent the remainder of my break studying and getting only 1/4 of one assignment finished...which is way less than I intended to complete. Thus, I was unable to eat until after my second class...which begins at 2:30. After class, my stomach was yelling at me to eat something and the rest of my tired body agreed, so I went to the nearest food...the cafeteria. I already knew this was a bad idea because a) it was in between meal times, so food was scarce, b) I have to walk past giant mint leaves to get into the cafeteria and the smell of mint makes me gag, c) the food there is really, really expensive...especially the to-go food that they sell between meal times, and d) to-go food is never all that good. Yet, knowing all of that, I still went because I have very little non-breakfast food items and because I really wanted something hot and was hoping there would be hot food (it's literally been several days since I had food that wasn't pre-packaged).

I was wrong to hope such vile hopes. The cafeteria had virtually no food. So, I bought the only things that looked good: an egg salad sandwich and a pear. This totaled to $6.25 (remember, Oregon doesn't have sales tax, then look at that number again. $6.25 for hard broiled egg and a couple sliced of lettuce on bread, and a pear). Still, knowing the price, I bought it, and walked the long walk back to my dorm. Too hungry to handle the stairs, I took the elevator up all 8 floors of my dorm, the entire time thinking about the money I had just wasted.

I decided to save half my sandwich for dinner because it was between meal times and why not split up the food...make all $5.25 of sandwich worth every bit. It was a tasty sandwich, don't get me wrong. And the eggs are only cage free eggs. And the bread contained no high fructose corn syrup. But still, it was expensive.

Worse than the sandwich, though, was the pear. For the same amount of money that I could probably buy several pears at the local grocery store, I bought one, single, crunchy pear. That's right, crunchy. I know what you're thinking, and that's what I was thinking on my first bite as well, Pears are supposed to be soft, not crunchy! I wasted a whole dollar that could have been used elsewhere on a single unripe pear.

This is why I'm experimenting with making my own food. Because at least when it's a waste of money and a waste of food, it's my fault.

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Triple Something Hot Water

I woke up this morning with the thought I need something warm to drink. Perhaps it was the first night that I actually felt cold with the windows open and no blankets (I knew I would be too lazy to make my bed this morning) and I wanted something to warm me up. Or perhaps it's because in celebration of the fact that choir auditions were over (or so I thought) and I missed being able to drink milk. Or perhaps it was because hot chocolate has always been a de-stresser for me and I kind of needed that to get me through my long Wednesday (I have 6 classes on Wednesdays...yay double majoring). Whatever the reason really was, I decided I wanted hot chocolate. Actually, to be more specific, I wanted a white chocolate steamer to go with my Honey Smacks. So, I took my giant University of Portland mug and filled it about 3/4 the way full with water, and heated that in the microwave for about a minute and a half, so it was steaming. Meanwhile, I ate all of my bowl of Honey Smacks.

Then, I added my leftover milk to the water, and stirred.

Next, I took the white hot chocolate mix my mother gave me for Easter. The container was a glass Eiffel Tower, filled with what I swear my mother told me was white chocolate, though it was unlabled when she gave it to me. I used one spoonful an it didn't quite taste right. So I added another. And another. And then one last one just to be safe. After stirring, it still didn't taste right, so I decided it must have been powdered vanilla or something.

So, I decided to add some flavor. My roommate happened to have some chocolate, so I took what was there (3 chunks of Hershey's milk chocolate with almonds) and added it to my drink, allowing the chocolate to melt in the heat and stirring until it was uniform. This still didn't taste ok.

So, I decided to add Nutella. I happen to have a Costco pack of Nutella because Nutella is my favorite thing in the whole wide world. So, I added one spoonful of Nutella. Still not good so I added one last, declaring that if it didn't taste good, I was done trying. It still didn't taste good and I only had 10 minutes to get to class, so I gave up and dumped it down the sink.

So, long story short, DON'T DO WHAT I DID!

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