Salad rant

I hate salad. I am sorry, all you people who exist only in my mind who read this and think salad is great. It is not great. It is crap. Nutritious crap, but crap nonetheless. And somehow, for me, salad dressing does not improve matters.

I realize that if my mother ever reads this blog, she will twinge over the fact that she has completely failed in bringing me up to be someone who eats well. I mean, I don't eat terribly, but salad is the easiest thing in the world to eat and be like, "Wow, I made a healthy choice today." Whereas pasta, which is my favorite food, is the easiest food to eat and be like, "Wow, I should probably take a spinning class later to make myself feel better." Not that I've ever taken a spinning class either, thank GOD.

Anyway. So I ate a salad for lunch today. It was gross. I even put a hard-boiled egg, asiago cheese, and chicken nuggets in it. The problem is, I started trying to eat all that stuff and avoided the greens. Or just wince every time I ate greens too. I am not exaggerating.

SOO the only solution I have come up with for my hatred of salad is that I need to find things to eat that are both delish and nutrish, as my boyfriend would say. The problem is, my best idea of that so far has been putting a ton of cooked veggies in with my pasta and sauce and eating it that way...unfortunately, my roommate has pointed out to me that cooked vegetables have less of something important (nutrients? I dont remember) in them than fresh vegetables. (SHE likes salad. Freak.)

Dinner 1

Okay. I would like to start by saying, sometimes I get in a really bad mood that lasts like a month before I realize that I am simply being too hard on myself. And the reason I haven't posted for a while is because this blog is supposed to be a testament to the fact that I am good at creating adventures in life, which I haven't felt lately.

So.

I am actually doing pretty well, I am basically on top of my school work, or at least not in danger of being unable to catch up before any big exams or anything, I haven't managed to drive my boyfriend too insane, and there are no emails or facebook messages to which I have neglected to respond.

SOO last Monday I did my first new dinner recipe. I forgot to take a picture, probably because I forgot that it was a new recipe on account of the fact that I made it up. It consisted of:

Rice
Eggs
Baby carrots
Cheddar cheese
Turkey burger
Mixed herbs

Recipe #1: Chocolate chip cookies

When I got back to school on Sunday, I made chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate chip cookies are dear to my heart because I often make them with other people. They have provided both food and entertainment in many what-should-we-do-now moments. This time, my super awesome boyfriend Mike helped me mix and measure. AND unlike other times I've made cookies, we had plenty of volunteers for consuming them, including a few apartment mates and the Sunday night girls.

The recipe was EXCELLENT. The cookies came out looking like something from a dream. Or an illustrated cookbook. AND they were soo good.

TA-DA!!! 

Recipe: 

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temp

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

2 cups (12 oz.)chocolate chips

preheat to 350

grease cookie sheets with butter

put butter and sugars in large bowl. beat with an electric mixer or wooden spoon until smooth and creamy. Add egg and vanilla and beat again. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt, and beat on low speed until blended. Add choc. chips and walnuts (1 cup, if using) and mix by hand thoroughly. Scoop a portion of the dough, roll with your hands, place onto cookie sheet, bake in oven, etc. 

SOOOOOO GOOD. Oh, and my (not so secret) secret ingredient: A sprinkle of cinnamon.

One down!

Working

I have a job!

Okay, not a "real" job, but I will be making money on my breaks from school. And the place is awesome. It's called the Fair World Marketplace, and it's a fair trade store. Fair trade means that everyone who produces goods sold in the store is from an area of poverty, typically a third-world country, but is paid a livable wage for his/her goods. It also means equal opportunities for women, who produce many of the crafts, and healthy working conditions, which is not otherwise guaranteed by the livable wage part.

(For more info on fair trade, and specifically this store, go to http://fairworldmarketplace.com/.

I didn't really mention this as a goal, but considering I am a literature major at a liberal arts school, it is not likely that I will have job offers straight out of college. And this kind of work - while it is retail, which makes me nervous - is at least something I can believe in.

I'm sure this will be an unusual occurrence, but...Goal achieved before I even mentioned it!

The only downside is, I am once again working at a private business, which means that in this economy there is no guarantee that this winter job will turn into a summer job. The store has been open for six years, but things are looking down lately. Hopefully an awesome Christmas season will raise store profits, but right now it is 11:44 am and I've been here at the store since 10, with zero customers so far. (I was trained yesterday and I'm on my own all weekend because the owner is at a Fair Trade conference in Boston and every other employee - of which there are about 3, I think - is either sick or busy.)

As far as the cooking goal goes, I just packed a cardboard box full of ingredients, cookbooks, measuring cups, and oreos (who knows) for my future baking projects at school. Yay!

Cooking

Ok. Junior year of college. Some people take this year to travel - see the world, become fluent in a language, eat weird food, broaden their horizons - I'm staying on my nice rainy SUNY campus, in my comfort zone, and I am still just as overwhelmed as if I were in a foreign country. I've chosen to deal with life by having an amazing boyfriend and a lot of hobbies, instead of going abroad (not that any of the above are mutually exclusive).

So, hobby number one I'm adding to my repertoire, now that I live in an on-campus apartment with a full kitchen: cooking/baking.

I'm in an a cappella group at my school, along with my aforementioned boyfriend and two of the girls I live with. Two other girls in the group and the ones I live with (which, including me, is 5/6 of our group's female population) have decided that we will alternate apartments every Sunday night and cook dinner for each other.

To avoid every single one of these dinners including pasta and cheesy bread, my personal specialties, I've given myself the goal of cooking at least 5 new dinner recipes in the next month (I know that doesn't sound like much, but I'm a college student. I eat a lot of sandwiches and leftovers) and 4 new desserts (desserts go slower. I'm trying to be realistic here).

I'm going to try to post with a picture of each food, the recipe, and my success/failure with meeting my goals. And I might come up with goals in other areas of life.

Just a disclaimer: I did like the movie Julie and Julia, but what really gave me the idea for this whole blog thing is a friend of mine who is posting a blog about being abroad. Hopefully, if I keep up with this, I'll be able to look back on the year and think that staying home in lovely central New York was somewhere near as interesting as her year in the DR and France. Hopefully. So I guess I plan to post this as though thousands are reading it, but expect that my real audience consists of me and my conscience.

So. Today is September 8, and I will be back in school (I'm on a short Labor Day & Rosh Hashanah break at home) cooking with my friends on the 12th, so my "month" will be September 12-October 12.

Thank you and good morning.