WARNING: Do not read if you are hungry!

Who knows if I’ll get around to writing later, I’m determined to miss that one entry and only that one…  I might miss posting over Thanksgiving Break, but I’ll keep writing!

So I’ve been craving cooking.  I used to cook a lot back at my old apartment.  There was always pudding, jello, fresh bread, homemade tomato sauce, homemade pasta, biscotti, chicken, potatoes, fresh veggies lying around to eat or be cooked and eaten.  Cinnamon rolls in the freezer that you threw in the toaster oven to warm up, then slather with homemade icing.  (Remember, I don’t have a microwave!)  I loved to cook.  Newfie knew he could come over any night of the week and I could whip up a meal in about an hour or less.  Pizza pies, calzones, you name it – I would attempt it.

So I’ve been trying to get that back.  First off, I eat heathier.  Grilled cheese and pop-tarts four days a week don’t make for a good diet.  I’m getting better about actually eating breakfast, which I can usually skip without thinking about.  Then lunch tends to be something quick and easy, due to time and whatnot.  But dinner.  I can take a bit more time with dinner, if I want to.  If I plan to.  Or I can cook on the weekends and have leftovers.  Yes, even without a microwave, you can have leftovers.  I’m just inventive about reheating.  And really – no microwave has made me healthier and more frugal.  I don’t make 8 cups of coffee at a time, cause I can rarely drink that much in 2 hours, before the maker turns off automatically.  And I NEVER want a coffee maker without that option!  So I used to make 8-10 cups then end up dumping the used grinds and leftover coffee out.  Well, now I make 4-5 cups, which is really only 2 mugs.  That I can drink within 2 hours.  If I want more, I can always make more.  Coffee filters are much cheaper than the grinds I threw out.  But it also seems to control how much coffee I drink in a day.  By the time I finish that second cup, I don’t always feel like making another pot.  Hence, less caffeine in my system, which is never a bad thing.

Okay – back on topic.  I tend to ramble, so I’m trying to stick with a theme for each entry.  Doesn’t always work but….   COOKING!  I talked to my mom last night and she gave me the family recipe for oatcakes.  Its not a secret, so I can share it.  There are tons of different recipes out there.  My dad likes the ones his mom makes, which are a little sweeter.  I think they are referred to as the Nova Scotia type.  But I like the kind my mom makes.  So she gave me the recipe.  Yes.  Oatcakes can taste like cardboard.  But they are full of oats, what excatly do you expect?!  The way you counter this is by putting Lyle’s Golden Syrup on them.  There is nothing more delicious than this stuff.  My dad will put it on anything it seems like.  I think its wonderful on the crispy oatcakes.  YUM!  Well, I have a tin (incidently, the way they’ve packaged the syrup hasn’t changed in 125 years!), and I’m starting to crave those oatcakes!  So Mom gave me the recipe over the phone last night and Dad was asking if I was going to send him any.  This is the man who gets scones and oatcakes and burgers on the grill and steaks and downstate pizza and all those wonderful things I miss out on with being west.  Loser boy!  Somehow we got onto the discussion of my dad’s newest favorite snack food, popcorn.  Mom gets those indiviual sized bags instead of the big ones, and he cooks and eats them while watching football.  Lacking in the microwave, I don’t have that option.  I do buy the skillet popcorn things put out by Jiffy.  They are more often used when camping, held over the fire.  But they also work on a stove top.  The only problem is I can’t eat a whole bag on my own and there’s no way to keep leftover popcorn.  It just doesn’t work.  So Dad suggested I get an air popper.  Then I can control how much I make.  Interesting idea!  Kelly and I are going out today to shop and run errands, so I’m going to do some pricing.  We’ll see how much they cost and go from there.

But seriously – who has heard of a college student with no microwave, but an air popper, a fish steamer, a food processor, a griddle, a waffle iron and is hoping for a pasta maker for Christmas?  There is something seriously wrong with me!