I'm still here!

Sorry I haven't made any posts in the past week or so. I have one week left of school and I'm trying to study for finals and get things settled before I leave town for the summer.

The recipes should probably start up again in about a week and a half, around the 10th of may. I'll be home for the summer, so I might throw in a few normal recipes that aren't made using just a microwave or grill, but I haven't really decided yet. I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still around and this blog isn't dead yet.

Sorry for not posting more updates, but I appreciate that you all keep coming back.

Thanks,

Thomas

Grilled Brisket

The other day I was out shopping with some friends and I knew I was going to be heading home after we were done so I thought it would be a great opportunity to just go all out and spend the rest of the afternoon making a great meal. I thought for awhile about what I wanted and I finally decided I wanted a huge piece of meat, so that is just what I got!

I have never even made brisket before much less tried one on a George Foreman grill. I wasn't too sure it would even cook since it was so thick, but I bought it and decided to try it out anyways. Once I got home I got online and looked at a few recipes to get an idea about what people used to season the meat with. In the process I quickly realized that most people slow cook a brisket over a long period of time, which had me a little worried. I decided to just go on and try it anyways.

It actually turned out pretty amazing. This was probably the best piece of meat I've cooked on the grill so far.

Ingredients
- beef brisket (~32 oz)
- 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp garlic
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp cayenne
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 3/4 cup brown sugar

Optional Ingredients
- any seasoning you want to use really

This dish will make about four – five servings, depending on how big the portion is. I also have recipes for the sweet potatoes and the rice that can be found on the site in previous posts.

Step 1: Cut your brisket into manageable sizes. I cut mine into about six different pieces so that they would grill up quicker.

Chopped up brisket

Step 2: Throw your brisket into a bowl and throw in all the seasoning with it. Rub the seasoning on the meat and try to evenly coat all pieces of meat. Don't be afraid to get a little messy! Wash your hands when done.

Seasoned pieces of brisket

Step 3: Turn on your grill and wait about five minutes until it heats up. Throw a few pieces of meat onto the grill. I was only able to fit about two pieces at a time because of my grill size. My brisket was about an inch thick and it took about 25 minutes to cook completely through. I flipped it over every five minutes or so, which probably isn't necessary in a George Foreman grill, but the bottom side of the grill always seems to cook faster than the top, so I flip it anyways.

Step 4: Take the brisket off of the grill and allow to cool for about five minutes before cutting it. This will keep the juices inside. Now serve with whatever sides you'd like and enjoy your meal!

Grilled brisket - don't cut them like this, see the juices? You want that to stay inside the meat!

Note: As I was cooking the brisket I was cutting them in half so that I could check if it was done, but this allowed all of the juices to come out of the meat. I didn't think much of this at the time because as soon as I put the meat in a tupperware container, all the juices were coming out and tasted amazing when you pour it back over the meat. But when I went to heat up the left overs later, the meat was pretty dry. So try to avoid cutting the cooked brisket until about five minutes after it's done cooking.

Sorry, I know a lot of you wanted easier recipes to follow, but I just really wanted brisket. I have a lot of good stuff coming up. I've been trying to find interesting casserole dishes to try out and I also have a lot of ideas for yummy side dishes. I've also started trying to find recipes that don't require any cooking at all. So hopefully in the next few weeks I'll have some simpler stuff thrown in the mix.

Spring Break!

Hello to all, unfortunately I just found out that the wireless internet at my home in Houston has gone out. We tried to buy a new router and that didn't fix the problem, so the next step is to try a new modem, hopefully all goes well.

I just wanted to let everyone know there probably won't be many updates this week, if any. I apologize, I just don't think I'll be able to commit the time this week.

Don't worry though, check the site out again towards the end of the week and the beginning of next week and you'll surely see some new recipes!

Sweet Potato Casserole with Marshmallows

Sweet potatoes are pretty awesome, they are basically the candy of vegetables in my opinion. Aside from their great taste, sweet potatoes are known as a superfood, which basically means that they are very healthy.

I think I love this dish so much because this is another thing my mom makes only on special occasions, like Christmas and Easter. It really isn't all that difficult to make either, which is good news for all of us! Typically, this would be made in an oven, which would add a crispy texture to the dish, but unfortunately that isn't an option for us.

Ingredients:
- Sweet Potatoes ( ~15oz can)
- Marshmallows (1 cup)
- Brown Sugar (3/4 cup)
- Butter (2 tbsp)

Optional Ingredients:
- Pecans (chopped, 1/2 cup)

Ingredients

Step 1: Open up the can of yams and drain all of the syrup from the can. Dump the yams into a microwavable dish. try to break apart some of the yams, but try not to mash them up into a paste (I made this mistake and that is why my final product looks the way it does)

Step 2: Throw your butter and brown sugar into the container and mix with the yams.

Step 3: Throw the marshmallows on top of mixture and spread out evenly. If it looks like too much or not enough, adjust accordingly. The marshmallows should just cover up the sweet potato mixture.

I mixed my marshmallows in with everything else

Optional Step: If you are using pecans, throw them in before you throw the marshmallows in.

Step 4: Place dish in the microwave for about 3-4 minutes. Once the marshmallows are melted, it's done.

Step 5: If you let it sit for awhile, the marshmallows might harden a little and form a kind of crust on the top, but I didn't even bother with it. I just stirred it all up together, it still tastes the same, just not as presentable.

Fresh out of the microwave, still bubbly

Enjoy!

Grilled Sausage and Onion Sandwich

Well, it seems as though people are enjoying the simpler recipes so far, so I'm going to try and post more of these from now on. This one really is about as easy as it gets. It involves cutting a few things up and then throwing them on the grill, and that's about it.

Ingredients:
- two links of sausage
- one whole onion
- mayo
- two slices of bread
- 2 tbsp of butter (optional)

Ingredients

Step 1: Cut your sausage links in half and then split them down the middle. You should have about eight even sized pieces of sausage now.

Step 2: First, peel the onion (how to peel an onion) and cut it in half. Now start cutting each half of the onion in thin slices and break it apart as your going.

Chopped onion and sausage

Step 3: If you want to, throw one tbsp of butter on your George Foreman grill and then throw half of the onions on as well. Now throw the sausage on top of the onions and close the lid. After about five minutes open the lid and flip the sausage. After about five more minutes you can take the onion and sausage off of the grill

Step 4: repeat step three for the remaining onions and sausage

Grilled Sausage and Onions

Step 5: Put the mayo on your two slices of bread. take about a quarter of your onions and throw them on one slice of the bread. Take two pieces of the sausage and put them on top of the onions. Place the other piece of bread on top of the sausage and enjoy!

Finished

Hope this one is simple enough for everyone. If you don't have a GF grill and rather use a pan, just throw the two tbsp of butter into a pan and throw all of the onions in as well. Set the stove top to medium-high heat. Cook for about a minute, making sure to stir the onions. Now throw the sausage in as well and brown on both sides. When the sausage is a nice dark brown color and the onions are caramelized you can take it all off of the heat.

Hope this one was simple enough!

Make sure to check out my other sausage recipes(spaghetti, jambalaya) as well as my other sandwich recipes (ham egg and cheese)

Double Recipe Friday!

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been trying to pass my physics 2 class. I had my last test this morning and now I'm free for a week as our school lets out for Spring Break, so expect lots of updates in the upcoming week.

I'll be posting two relatively simple recipes tomorrow that are packed full of flavor. They're both foods that my mom would cook for me when I was younger and she didn't feel like making a big huge meal for the family. So be looking out for that tomorrow afternoon!

Sound off! Let me know what you think

I have a few things on my mind and I'm really just hoping I'll get a little bit of feedback so I can make this site more catered to the viewers rather than me just throwing up a recipe for whatever I feel like eating that day. Please take a minute and drop a comment so I can try and get this site headed in the right direction. I want to post stuff you all care about!

So I'm starting to realize some of the stuff I'm making probably doesn't appeal to everyone. I think the most popular recipe so far has actually been the spaghetti and sausage which kind of surprised me. I'm not sure if that means you all enjoy spaghetti, sausage, or what. I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with the fact that it only has three ingredients and doesn't really involve much preparation or cooking knowledge.

So the first question is what kind of dishes would you like to see recipes for? Do you want to see something simpler than the past few (the jambalaya and the soup)? Do you want things that are more complex? Do you want things that are cheaper (ramen type dishes)? Do you want healthier recipes? Would you prefer if I took existing recipes I find online and convert them to a recipe you could use in the dorm?

Lastly, has anyone actually tried any of the dishes I've posted so far?

Please take a second and leave a comment so I can try to improve the site.

Thanks again to all those who keep coming back, I hope you're enjoying the recipes.

Supercook - The Recipe Search Engine

http://www.supercook.com

This is a pretty awesome website that allows you to simply type in ingredients you have on hand and it will show you all kinds of recipes you can make with them.

Sorry, I had a long day so I don't really have a whole lot of time to type up an article. I just thought I would share this useful website with everyone. So far I've been using my own creations for my recipes, but I'm thinking in the near future I might start adding in some recipes from sites like this and adapting them to be made in a dorm room setting using just the microwave and the George Foreman grill on occasion.

Potato, Ham, and Spinach Soup

If you ask any of my friends whether or not I have an adventurous personality, they would most likely say no, but that ended as of this weekend. This is the second time in as many days that I'm trying out a brand new recipe. This one is even crazier than the Jambalaya recipe from yesterday. At least with that I had previous experience making Jambalaya, I had just never made it in a microwave before. But I can honestly say I've never made any kind of potato soup, much less heard of one with these specific ingredients. This was definitely a risk, and while it might not be for everyone, it actually turned out pretty stinking awesome!

I think if I make this again I would probably use diced potatoes instead of sliced potatoes. The sliced potatoes were kind of thick and didn't break down very well. I'm thinking diced potatoes would have broken down a little better. Maybe I didn't cook it long enough? Not sure. I really can't complain too much though, I originally planned to use the potatoes and spinach as a side dish, but I started rethinking it before I made it. It turned out fine as it is though, please feel free to play with the recipe and let us know how it goes.

Ingredients:
- 2 cups of Fat Free Milk [$0.60]
- Cream of Chicken Soup (11oz can) [$0.82]
- Whole Leaf Spinach (13.5oz can) [$0.54]
- Sliced Potatoes (15oz can) [$0.58]
- Three large slices of Deli Ham [$1.00]
- 2 tsp Onion Powder
- 1 tsp Garlic Powder
- 1 tsp Black Pepper
- 1 tsp Salt
- Large tupperware dish (8-14 cup/ 2x 6-8 cup)

Optional/Substitute Ingredients
- 2 cups of any kind of milk
- Cream of Mushroom
- Diced potatoes instead of sliced
- You can cut your own potatoes as well if you'd like
- Any kind of turkey or ham would probably go well with this, doesn't have to be deli slices

Ingredients

This recipe will make around 4 servings depending how much you eat. Total cost comes out to about $0.71 per serving and you really can't beat that. This is about 1/4th of the price of similar soups (I'm looking at you Chunky soup!)

Step 1: Get out a plate and shred the ham with a fork and a knife. I basically did this by folding the ham a bunch of times and then sticking it in the middle with the fork. Take your knife and stick it between each set of prongs on the fork and cut it horizontally. Now cut vertically on either side of the fork. Your ham should be in pretty small sized chunks now, which is what we're shooting for. Throw the sliced ham into your tupperware dish

Chopped up ham

Step 2: Open and drain both the spinach and potatoes. Throw both into your tupperware dish. When I made it a little while ago, I stopped here, but I'm thinking it would have been a good idea to try and chop the potatoes into smaller pieces. If you got the diced potatoes, don't worry about it though.

Potato, spinach, and ham in the dish

Step 3: Open your cream of chicken soup and pour it in the dish.

Step 4: Add your two cups of milk to the dish.

Step 5: Now add all of your seasonings and stir to spread out everything evenly.

Step 6: Put the dish in the microwave for 10 minutes. Take it out and stir every 2 or 3 minutes.

Step 7: Take out and let the dish cool down for about 5-10 minutes. Now pour into a bowl and enjoy!

This picture doesn't do it justice

Like I said earlier, I think this dish is pretty flexible. You can try cooking it longer if you want, maybe that will result in the potatoes being more mushy, making the soup thicker. I think it turned out fine as it is though, but it's all up to you in the end. Since this one turned out pretty well I think in the future I'll experiment with potato soups using other ingredients like cheese, bacon, chives, sour cream, crab, crawfish, ground beef, etc (not all at once of course). I'm thinking I've really got something with this one.

Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya

I'll admit, this was an adventure for me because I had not tried this recipe until today, so I really had no idea how it was going to turn out in the end. Taste and quality wise, I was aiming for somewhere between the boxed jambalaya meals and the home cooked dutch oven variety. I knew it wouldn't be quite as good as the latter, but I was pretty sure it would be better than the former. I did mess up a little bit along the way and I wanted to point that out to everyone so that you all don't make the same mistakes, but feel like I met my goal in the end.

"Great, he can't even get this right, why should I try it?" Well, mine came out just fine, it was just a little over seasoned and a little over cooked. Both of those mistakes could have been corrected had I taken my time to do everything correctly. Which is something I wanted to point out as well. If you are trying to cook this super quick, you might want to quit while you're ahead and go buy the boxed variety and throw it in the microwave, because this probably took me about an hour to prepare and cook. The upside, however, is that I could make about 10 servings of this in one batch if I wanted to (though this recipe is only for 4). So please, take your time, follow the instructions if you want to get the most from this recipe

One last note. I was able to make such a large batch because I went out and purchased a 14 cup tupperware dish. It cost around $6.00 and I feel it was WELL worth it. I can now make huge batches of everything I cook, meaning I don't need to cook as often. It also gives me a lot more options because now I don't have to worry about anything spilling over the side when I stick it in the microwave. So while this isn't necessary, and the recipe below only filled about half of the container, I wouldn't recommend trying the recipe if you don't have at least a 10 cup tupperware dish or something similar in size.

Ingredients:
- One link of hot pork sausage cut up into 1/2 inch chunks (5.5oz) [$1.52]
- One chicken breast sliced up into 1/2 inch chunks. (5.5oz) [$1.25]
- Three cups of white rice [$0.93]
- One can of reduced sodium chicken broth (14oz can) [$1.22]
- 1 tsp of pepper
- 2 tsp of garlic
- 2 tsp of onion powder
- 1 tsp of tony chacheres (or season all)
- 1/2 tsp of cayenne pepper
- 2 tbsp of worcestershire sauce
- 1/2 tbsp of your favorite hot sauce
- 14 cup tupperware dish

Optional/Substitute Ingredients
- One link of any sausage, andouile, duck, etc
- Shrimp in place of chicken
- brown rice in place of white rice
- vegetable or beef broth instead of chicken

Ingredients
(Ignore the chili powder, I didn't use it)

This recipe will make about 4 servings or so. Total price excluding seasoning and tupperware dish comes out to only $1.23 per serving! If you throw in a vegetable side dish of some kind you could probably stretch it out to 5-6 servings.

Step 1: Start out by pouring your three cups of rice into the tupperware dish and run it under some water for a little while to get some of the starch out. Make sure to empty all of the water out of the dish when you're done. Obviously the rice will still be damp, that is fine, we just don't want a ton of water because it will mess up the next step.

*Note*
Now, It's a rule when cooking jambalaya that you want 2 cups of liquid for every cup of rice that you put into the pot (or tupperware in this case). So we need six total cups of liquid to add to our rice. I keep saying liquid because we are going to use chicken broth as well as water. This just gives it a better taste. Normally we would cook the chicken and sausage in the same pot that the rice and water go into, but this isn't the case for us so we are making up for it with the chicken broth.

Step 2: Pour the whole can of chicken broth into your dish. This comes out to be around 2.5 cups of liquid I believe. Then add 3.5 cups of water.

Step 3: Now is the most important part of the recipe!! This is where I messed up today, so please follow these steps. Begin seasoning with your tony chacheres and worcestershire sauce. Next pour in your garlic powder and onion powder. NOW, take a spoon and taste the liquid. The uncooked rice won't hurt you (this is another reason why you washed the rice earlier). Does the liquid taste like something you would want to eat? If so, stop seasoning here!!! Remember that you want the liquid to be a little salty because the rice will absorb some of it during cooking. If you think it needs some more pepper (which I definitely require in my jambalaya) then start slowly pouring the cayenne, black pepper, and hot sauce into the liquid. Make sure to put a little bit of each at a time! You can always add more but you can't take any out

My rice after seasoning

As you can see from this picture, I didn't follow my own directions. I put all the seasoning in at once without trying it as I was going. This resulted in crazy-spicy jambalaya that was tasty, but a little much even for me. I also didn't pour the liquid into the rice first, which I should have done as well.

Step 4: Cut your chicken and sausage into 1/2 inch chunks and throw them on your George Foreman grill for about 10-12 minutes. Make sure to check them every few minutes to make sure they aren't burning.

Cut up Chicken and Sausage

Step 5: Throw the chicken and sausage into your rice/water mixture and put it into the microwave for about 20 minutes. After about 10 minutes I would take it out briefly to stir it up. The seasoning tends to stay at the top otherwise. I know you wouldn't normally do this when cooking Jambalaya, but this isn't a normal way to cook it, so don't worry about it.

Step 6: After 20 minutes, let cool for a second and then take a bite of the rice. If it is still hard (uncooked), stick it in for another minute or two. The perfect consistency is for the rice to come out soft and slightly wet. Once the rice starts cooling off it will absorb a little more of the liquid. So if cook it for 25 minutes until the jambalaya is very dry straight out of the microwave, it will end up even drier in about five minutes, and you don't want that!

After coming out of the microwave

Step 7: Pull out a plate, serve, and enjoy!

Like I said, I made a few mistakes along the way and that is the main reason why this post is so long. I love this recipe and I want everyone to enjoy it, so I'm trying to describe in as much detail as possible so yours will turn out even better than mine does.

Looking forward to next week . . .

Well, sorry for not posting any updates this morning. I hope everyone remembers that I am in college, and that tests are unfortunately a regular occurrence. I had a Differential Equations test this morning and I pretty much spent all of yesterday and this morning trying to learn all about Laplace transforms! How exciting.

Anyways, I'm glad the weekend is here so I can catch up on some much needed relaxation. But, I'm also excited because Friday is grocery shopping day! Some people have been requesting that I post prices for the ingredients I use in my recipes, so I remembered to keep my receipt after getting back from the store so that I could put it up on here.

I think my plan for now is to post what I purchase from the store every Friday so that you can have an idea of what I might be cooking in the upcoming week. This way maybe some of you can go shopping on the weekend and have the ingredients ready for when I post the recipes up during the week. Or at least you'll have you're shopping list ready after you see how amazing the recipe turns out later on in the week.

So, lets see if you can guess what I'm cooking this week. Feel free to comment if you have any ideas. If you guess right I'll make sure to edit this and let you know!

- Cream of chicken soup (11oz can) - $0.82
- Yams (15oz can) - $0.87
- Whole leaf spinach (13.5oz can) - $0.54
- Long grain rice (32oz) - $1.24
- Low sodium chicken broth (14oz can) - $1.22
- Sliced potatoes (15oz can) - $0.58
- Loaf of double fiber wheat bread (20oz) - $3.13
- Hot pork sausage (16oz) - $4.57
- Mini marshmellows (16oz) - $1.16
- One white onion - $0.87
- Brown sugar (16oz box) - $0.86
- 4x chicken breasts - $5.00 ( I actually already had this, but I wanted to include it so you would know it would be in at least one of the recipes next week. Not included in total price below)

I also bought some measuring tools and another, larger tupperware dish.
- 8pc measuring utensils - $0.97
- 14 cup Rubbermaid tupperware - $5.74

Total price with tax came out to around $23.50 . This will probably make about 6-8 meals depending on how hearty of an eater you are. That comes out to only $3-4 per meal. You might be able to get that same price if you eat fast food, but I guarantee it won't be anywhere near as good as what I'm making.

Well, that's everything! I plan on making two main dishes as well as two side dishes. So there should be at least four new posts next week. Hope everyone will be looking forward to them!

In case you were wondering, these are my recipes

A lot of people have been questioning whether or not I'm actually coming up with my own recipes or if I'm getting them from other sources. I just wanted to let everyone know that I am creating these recipes as I go along. I'm basically winging it from day to day actually. I haven't looked off of any cooking blogs or websites to find any of the recipes on my site. I'm sure if you looked out there hard enough you would probably find similar recipes, but unless I'm making fish ice cream tacos or something, I'm probably not going to have anything 100% original.

The whole point of this blog is to show people that they can cook with limited resources. I'm not just talking about money, but a lack of cooking skills or appropriate appliances should not hinder you from having a great tasting meal. I'm trying to get across to everyone that you can adapt almost any recipe to be made in a dorm room setting. On the same note, you can convert almost any recipe I create here into something you can make in a household setting. All you have to do is replace the microwave with an oven and the grill with a stove top and then adjust for heat differences and cooking times. It really is that simple!

Now I thought I'd give people a little bit of background on how I started cooking in the first place, since some people have been asking me that as well. I probably started cooking when I was around 15, which was five years ago. I started out by just hanging out with my mom in the kitchen and watching what she would do. From there I asked if she could teach me how to make jambalaya and gumbo since those are my two favorite dishes. So she showed me step by step how to make it, and after watching her do it two or three times I ended up trying it out myself.

After that I learned the basics of cooking meats, which is the core of most of the meals I eat. I began to realize that cooking really isn't that bad once you know some basic steps, and from there as long as you know the terminology used in recipes you can make just about anything.

It actually got to the point before I left for college that I was the one who was cooking most of the meals in the house. My mom and dad both worked and I got off around noon my senior year, so I would get bored and just cook a meal.

You know how some people can hear music and be able to play it back instantly without seeing any of the music in front of them? Well I've gotten to the point where I can recreate most thing's I've eaten in the past with my own spin on it, without using recipes as a guide. Granted, this does end up going horribly wrong some times. I've made things before that I had to force myself to eat because I didn't want to throw it away, but that kind of stuff happens when you are experimenting.

Summary: No formal background in cooking, everything on my website is my own creation, or inspired by my mom's cooking. It got to the point where I knew what mixes well and what doesn't mix well and I just started making my own meals.