Parent's Weekend!

The Parentals visited me last weekend! Beyond taking my mother to her first college football game (where the Gophers lost, par usual...) and exploring the Mall of America (where I got some new swag) we ate A TON of food. By the time my parents left, I was filled TO THE RIM! Here are just a few of the places we went!
The Imperial Room 
Where: 417 1st Ave. N in the one and only Downtown Minneapolis.

What: An after-work type of bar. Would be a great place to go during happy hour after work...if I had a job and I was actually over 21. They had a 1/2 off app and drinks deal during happy hour on Thursdays & Fridays, and a gaggle of work people were there to munch. It seemed like a great place to relax after work, or to go after you travel 6 hours to visit your amazing daughter at college.
FOOD: Of the many things that were eaten at this meal, there were a few that were reasons to go back. The first, one of our appetizers-Breaded Mushrooms. Besides the fact that the breaded mushrooms alone were delicious and perfectly breaded, the home-made horseradish sauce was GREAT! The Mom ate it by itself once the breaded mushrooms were gone. For my main meal, I had a veggie filled flat bread pizza. It was cheesy and every bite was full of vegetables. Lastly, I had apple crisp with vanilla ice cream. My dad saw the large plate and told me to just eat the ice cream and take the rest home, because he didn't think I could finish it. I took that as a personal challenge and ate the entire dessert. YUM. Showed him!

Bryant Lake Bowl
Where: 810 West Lake Street. Uptown Minneapolis(My favorite part of Minneapolis!)
What: The Parentals saw this place on the food network's tv show, Diners, Drive-Ins, & Dives and HAD to   check it out. It is a bowling alley, theater, and restaurant. The Parentals went there while I was in class on Friday, and loved it show much that we went again after the gopher game. It almost defines what a "hole-in-the-wall" type restaurant is. It has tiny tables and a great, small-time feel. The menu is some-what small, but the deliciousness is BIG! The meat is grass-fed and the vegetables are such are all local. It was definitely a "hipster hangout" and I LIKED IT.
FOOD: The Dad, my Roomie, and I all had vegetarian chilli. It was the most perfect after game meal. It was full of beans and was perfectly spicy. It was served with a heaping pile of cheese on top and was so delicious  that I would take a bus just to get the chilli to go and leave. I had my chilli with a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich. I want it right now. It was such a fantastic meal. YUM!

Boo! Cake

Happy Halloween! Goombah and I made a cake to celebrate the fabulous season. Originally , the plan was to make a dark-chocolate chip and pumpkin spice cake with cream cheese frosting....which I will make someday because that sounds delicious. BUT we  had no ride to the grocery store, and didn't feel like taking a trip to Downtown Minneapolis to Target to get cooking supplies. We settled for CVS and came up with an on-the-spot recipe to celebrate the spooky holiday.

BOO! Cake. 

So easy, a child could do it.

....or two college students.

WHAT WE FOUND AT CVS!

(aka ingredients)

1 box chocolate cake mix.

1 bag pumpkin-spice Hershey's Kisses

3 Eggs (Or whatever it says on the box)

1 cup applesauce

(because we were too cheap to purchase vegetable oil and I had some in my cabinet.

PLUS its healthier than vegetable oil. Its a Win-Win situation)

Vanilla Frosting 

Candy Corn 

TO MAKE IT:

Preheat oven to what it says on the box (350 degrees probably)

1. Make the box cake mix. Follow the directions on the box. Substitute a cup of applesauce for vegetable oil. Put the made-up cake mix into a greased 9x11 cake pan.

2. If you want to be FANCY, like Goombah and I, you can double-boiler melt the kisses. (I think that is what it is called, its pictured over there-->) But you could probably just break the kisses into pieces and mix it in the cake mix. FUN FACT: In case you didn't already figure it out, you are going to have to unwrap all the kisses. Unless you really like the taste of the wrapping...no judgement.

3. If you fancy double-boiled the chocolate, marble it into the cake mix. As in plop it on top of the mix, and then swirl it around with a knife. Its pretty simple, I think.

4. BAKE IT. According to the box. It should be around 35 minutes I believe.

<---it should look awesome like this after you bake it. SO PRETTY!

6. Frost it. Decorate with candy corn.

7. EAT IT UP! Share the holiday spirit with your friends.

8. Have the happiest of  Halloweens :)

Six Months!

Last week Thursday I celebrated my half-way point in my year of veggie-hood. So far, I am still undecided on whether or not my veggie ways will conclude at the end of the year or not. Part of me really likes being a vegetarian, because I feel like it forces me to make healthier choices, like eating more veggies and fruit. The other part of me, really hates the restrictiveness of a vegetarian diet. I LOVE trying new things and too many times I have been disappointed by repeating another meal at a restaurant or have had to make myself a veggie sandwich at the dining center in my res. hall. I really do not crave meat anymore, but I find myself craving meals that have had meat in them. For example, I miss chicken noodle soup. It is completely possible for me to make myself a vegetarian knock-off of chicken noodle soup, and I am sure if I looked hard enough, I could probably find one as well. But why should eating healthy be this hard?
ANYWAYS! to celebrate my 6 months of veggies, I made a scrumptious veggie-casserole, a knock-off of one my mom had made for me growing up at home!

VEGETARIAN CASSEROLE 

Serves 8. (or four with leftovers for the weekend!)

Ingredients:

1/2 box of whole wheat rotini noodles

1/2 bag frozen peas

1 can of your fav. pasta sauce

 (or just condensed tomato soup)

1/4 cup chopped celery

1/4 cup chopped onions 

(which I didn't have but would have liked)

1/4 cup chopped green pepper

[as far as the chopped veggies go, I really just eye-balled it]

3/4 small bag of Parmesan or Mozzarella Shredded Cheese

(I used a mixture of the two)

2 slices of bread, crumbed.

(I used the butts[ends] of the bread, because they make lousy toast.)

the sneaky vegetarian ingredient:

1 bag Morning Star "ground beef"

HOW TO MAKE YOUR STOMACH SMILE:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit

1. Cook the noodles. I hope you know how. Drain them, put them in a large mixing bowl.

2. Saute celery, peppers, and onions (what my mom refers to as the holy trio) in a large frying pan.

3. Add the "ground beef" to the sauteing veggies. Mix until the "beef" is no longer frozen. This is mainly just to mix the flavors of the sauteing veggies with the "beef".

4. Add the sauteed mixture into the mixing bowl with the noodles. 

5. Add the can of sauce to the mixing bowl, fold into the delightful mixture until everything is covered in sauce.

6. Add most of the 3/4 bag of cheese to the mixture, but not all! Leave some for the crusty top!

7. Grease a casserole dish (or in my case, a 9"-11" cake pan.)

8. Pour the casserole mixture into the pan. Spread Evenly.

9. Mix the bread crumbs with the leftover cheese, sprinkle on top of the casserole. 

10. Put tinfoil on top of the pan, making sure the casserole doesn't touch the tin foil. This will make sure your crusty topping doesn't get burnt while your casserole insides are baking.

10. Cook for approx. 35 minutes. Take the tin foil off and cook for another 10 minutes.

11. Try your best to let the casserole cool a bit, or get a burnt tongue. 

12. EAT IT ALL UP! It also makes yummy leftovers.

I enjoyed this meal with my lovely roomie, Goombah, and Jay. Goombah and Jay brought instant mash-potatoes and pudding. We had quite a lovely home-made(ish) meal and enjoyed an episode of Glee. It was a spectacular conclusion to my first 6 months of veggieness. Six more to go until the year is up. My continuance of these veggie ways after this year is still in question! 

So Busy! AH!

I realized I haven't blogged in a few days, or maybe even in the last month. And I realized it was about time for a veggie-update. I haven't done any amazing awesome baking/cooking lately. A few weeks ago I repeated the banana bread recipe but with chocolate cake mix in place of vanilla. It was delish! The frozen bananas worked out fine, the only thing that was a little disturbing was how dark the peel of the banana was. It was a very dark brown and I was a bit nervous the bananas would be gross as well. Thankfully the bananas were kept perfectly over-ripe in the freezer.
Also, I went on an advegture to the Mill City Farmers Market  this past Saturday with Goombah and one of our fab. friends, G.R. It was a GREAT DAY. First off, on our walk to the market, we merged with the Big Gay Race. The race was part of the Minnesotans United for All Familes and the VOTE NO campaign for Minnesota gov. ban on same-sex marriages. We joined in the fun and cheered on the runners, giving high-five's to those who passed by (side note: No one actually physically high-fived me because they kept missing my hand. True story. So sad). When we made out way out of the 6,000 people crowd, we headed to the farmers market. Goombah and friend got breakfast, which I tasted, except for G.R.'s because it was a meaty breakfast sandwhich. I got some absolutely divine sunflower seed multi-grain bread, a bag of honeycrisp apples, and a few green peppers. Honestly one of the best day's I have had in a long, long while. It was scrumptious, I am devouring the bread, and apples. And will be using the peppers in my 6-months-of-veggieness feast this Thursday. Don't worry, I will make a solid effort to blog about my meal, because I plan on it being a veggielicious event.
ON a vegetarian related note, I am really digging being a vegetarian, and I am thinking about sticking with it beyond this year. ALSO, my goals for October include being optimistic about life and not eating cookies. (I may or may not have had at least 30 cookies last week. I wish that was an over-exaggeration, but it's not. I have a problem. It will be solved this month. NO COOKIES FOR ME.) Hopefully I accomplish these goals. I have faith in myself! WOOT!
ALSO! My main reason for not blogging has been that for one of my classes I am doing a blog about the news, so blogging has become homework, so finding the time to do this blog has been a struggle. I will find time readers, I will find time! If you are interested in looking at my other blog, look HERE. I am not 100% sure you can see it if you aren't a UMN student. But, I hope you can! :) SHINE ON!

BoyTalk & Banana Muffs

The first week of full classes has come to a close and  I have started my weekend off with a successful girls night in. It all began with a bushel of over-ripe Bananas & the world's easiest banana chocolate chip muffin recipe...

The Goods:

4 overripe bananas

(if you have over-ripe bananas, 

and no time to bake you can

freeze them and bake later!)

2 eggs

1 cup chocolate chips

1 box yellow cake mix

Oven @ 350 degrees.

IT'S THIS EASY:

1. Mix everything together. Mushing the bananas as you mix 

2. Grease muffin tin or use paper cupcake linings.

(We put butter on a paper towel and spread it around because we are college students and that's how we make it work.)

3. Bake for 15-18 minutes.

4. EAT EM'. NUMNUMNUM!

(Caution: You should probably wait until they are cooled a bit, as to not burn your tongue.)

THINGS WORTH MENTIONING:

I made these delicious muffins with Goombah and her roommate, J. We too a stroll to the nearby CVS to get all the supplies needed. Here's where our silliness becomes overwhelming. While at the front desk of the res. hall checking out the muffin tin, my friends begin casually engaging in a flirtatious conversation with the front desk attendant. We make our way back to my apartment, and decided to begin the muff making process. To our own avail, we realized we had no large mixing bowl. Back to the front desk it was and as we wondered away from the front desk I called out, "Hopefully we won't be back." To which he replied, "Unless its with a muffin." (Side Note: We never brought him a muffin, Ops.)

We then started on our muffin making advegture. When it was time to add the chocolate chips, J ceremoniously lifted the entire bag of chocolate chips and dumped it into the bowl. Goombah and I immediately took action, grabbing the non-battered chips and setting them aside. J just laughed and said, "It is suppose to be a girls night! We need our chocolate!" (Another Side Note: We had Ben&Jerry's ice cream during the night as well, I enjoyed the Fro-Yo version of Half-Baked. My favorite.) Once we completed our muffin creation we ate and talked about boys. A typical, hilariously delicious girls night!

BAAA-nana Chips

Saw a recipe for Banana Chips on Pinterest....

My Attempt:

Ingredients:

2 Bananas.

Lemon Juice.

TO DO:

Slice the Banana.

Dip In lemon Juice.

Bake @ 200 degrees for 2 hours, then flip.

 Bake for 2 more hours.

It seems easy, LIES.

Here's what happened:

It all seemed easy, too easy. I should have known that wouldn't be the case. First of all, dipping each banana slice in lemon juice was tedious and took at least a 1/2 hour. Next, flipping the slices took forever. I couldn't keep track of which slices I had flipped, and which still needed to be turned over. At first flip, I knew I had cut the chips too small, they were potato chip thin. I was so disappointed. When the entire four hours had concluded, I spent another hour cleaning the leftovers of banana slices off of the cookie sheet. And the chips aren't event that good. They are still slightly soggy, and not very chip like. They taste like little pieces of banana fruit leather to me. Its not a bad taste or texture. I will, of course, still devour them. Its just not what I was hoping for when I began making the chips. Next time I will just buy banana chips!

It Has Begun

The near restless nights, no time to run, junk food, dining hall buffets, and the crazy life of a res. hall CA have all begun. I am running off coffee and free food. That's right, free, one word college students cannot wait to hear. But none-the-less I am still exhausted. Last night was my first night on Duty. Only one phone call, announcing to meet the other CA on duty in the lobby, woke me up from my slumber but, unfortunately, it was enough to make me toss and turn all night long. This  morning the normally somewhat peaceful sound of my alarm clock made me rush for the duty phone. I thought for sure another incident had occurred. To my avail, it had not, and my morning has thus begun. Today we feed the first-year-students lunch in the Great Hall. That means another day of half-asleep smiles and enthusiasm. I can preserver on, I will power through. But in the back of my mind I will be awaiting the sweet reunion between my bed and I. For now, my drama-filled writing and I are OUT.