How to: Do Dishes like a College Student

1. Put dirty dishes into a pile, preferably in your bedroom or living room.
2. After 1-2 days, move said dirty dishes to the bathroom.
3. Check facebook. Check your email. Check the weather.
4. Write your essay. Take a nap. Go to class. Do your problem set.
5. Come back and notice that you still have dishes to do.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until you realize that you are completely out of clean bowls and spoons.
7.  Do your laundry. Fold your laundry.
8. Start to soak the dishes. In the meantime, revert to plastic utensils and paper plates.
9. 24 hours later, the dishes are sufficiently soaked. Proceed to step 10 when ready.
10. Check facebook. Check your email. Check the weather.
11. Get ready to wash dishes.
12. Realize you have no dish soap.
13. Check facebook. Check your email. Check the weather.
14. Do your laundry. Fold your laundry. (Because it's probably been at least 2 weeks since you last did your laundry.)
15. Put on sweatpants and shoes. Go to the student store and shell out $5 for crappy dish soap.
16. Return to your room. Check facebook. Check your email. Check the weather.
17. Eat cereal using your last plastic fork and last paper plate.
18. Wait at least one day to proceed to step 19.
19. Get ready to wash dishes.
20. Wash one dish.
21. Check facebook. Check your email. Watch a YouTube video.
22. Repeat steps 20 and 21 until you have enough dishes to last 24 hours.
23. Wonder why dishes take so long.

What's your least favorite chore?

Let me know what you think and leave a comment or email me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com. Like what you read? Share it on Facebook, Twitter or GoogleBuzz using the buttons below!

Earth-Shattering Toblerone Cookies

I saw this recipe in CGCCMiyM Cookies and knew I had to make it, as soon as possible. Unfortunately, we ran out of chocolate chips.. so I delayed, hoping for a care package from parents well-stocked with chocolate chips. But then we ran out of chocolate.. and cocoa powder... and things got desperate.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so D and I went to the student store in search of something acceptable to tide us over. (The care package did arrive eventually, with chocolate chips, mint chips, butterscotch chips, cappuccino chips, white chocolate chips, peanut butter chips and cocoa powder. Phew!) What we found was more than acceptable--Toblerone!

We got home, and after gobbling up a whole bar of Toblerone all by myself (D gave up non-homemade desserts for lent, poor guy), I set about making these cookies with the remaining two bars.

I didn't have any corn syrup, as the recipe called for, but Toblerone bars have honey in them, so I replaced the corn syrup with honey.

Freeze half of the dough!!! After you split it into chunks of dough, freeze the chunks on an extra baking tray and then throw the frozen chunks into a ziptop bag in the freezer for later. Just label them with the baking time/temperature, the date, and the recipe name. I promise, any cookies you make will get eaten within 24 hours. Your waistline will thank you for using the freezer method of self-control.

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Earth Shattering Toblerone Cookies
makes 16 big, delicious, crunchy, crispy cookies, plus 1 cookie dough ball for sampling
adapted from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-your-Mouth Cookies by Alice Medrich


Equipment
baking tray(s)
aluminum foil
kitchen scale (sorry, didn't take volume measurements on this one!)
two bowls
butter melting equipment
oven

Ingredients
6oz all-purpose flour
0.5t baking soda
1.25 sticks unsalted butter
1.5oz quick oats
3.5oz white sugar
1.75oz brown sugar
2oz. honey
2T milk
0.5t salt
2 regular size Toblerone bars

Directions
1. Mix the flour and baking soda together in a small bowl, fluffing it lightly with a fork or whisk.
2. Melt the butter completely in a medium bowl, and then add the oats, sugars, honey, milk and salt.
3. Add the dry to the wet and mix until everything is just incorporated.
4. While the dough is cooling, chop your Toblerone bars into small chunks. Mix these into the dough.
5. Break off a chunk of cookie dough to tide you over while the dough rests overnight in the refrigerator. (No raw eggs! Whoohoo!)
6. The following day, line baking trays with aluminum foil and preheat your oven to 325°F. Break the cookie dough into 1.75oz pieces (about the size of a golf ball), placing four cookies on each tray. Flatten the dough slightly before you bake.
7. Bake these for 20-25 minutes at 325°F, until they are dark golden brown. Let them cool completely before eating.
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When I have access to an ice cream maker, I intend to make these into chocolate chunk cookie dough ice cream.

Do you own a kitchen scale? What's your favorite use for it? Let me know in a comment or by emailing me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com!

How To: Get Honey out of the Jar

A few years back, my dad saw chestnut honey on sale and got a little bit sale-happy. I think he bought about 5 jars. If he actually used honey, that would have been great, but he doesn't use honey. In fact, my dad doesn't really like sweet things. I think he just liked the idea of chestnut honey.

Instead, we ended up with 5 unused jars of honey, which my dad told me not to touch while my mom secretly begged me to use as much as possible. I used a lot of honey. (I'm not sure my dad ever noticed.)

Honey is a pain to get out of the jar, and even worse to get out of the measuring spoon. It also sticks to everything, including the seams on the lid. This is particularly unhelpful when you're trying to be inconspicuous about your honey usage!

Next time a recipe calls for honey, try this instead:

1. To open the jar, run the lid under hot tap water for a few minutes. To prevent it from sticking shut next time, wash the lid with hot soapy water and wipe the threads on the jar down with a damp, hot paper towel before sealing the jar.

2. To get the honey out of the jar, microwave it! Honey is incredibly viscous at room temperature, but as it heats up, it becomes more and more liquid. If you stick the jar in the microwave for about a minute, you'll be able to easily pour it out of the jar. Be careful, though! Hot sugar syrups burn! If you're not a microwave person, just putting the honey in a hot water bath will also help but it's a lot less convenient.

3. To get honey out of a measuring spoon, skip the measuring spoon and use your food scale. Honey weighs about 21g (.75oz) per tablespoon, or 340g (12oz) per cup. Don't have a scale? Hot honey will also come out of a measuring spoon more easily, so microwave it first. You can also use the Alton Brown method, and just eyeball it. D suggests cutting your losses, using a size larger measuring spoon and just licking it clean when you're done.

What are your tricks for getting honey out of the jar? What about peanut butter? Let me know by leaving a comment or emailing me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com!


Want to make something with honey?

I messed up.

So you remember how I gave up meat for lent? Well, I've been doing pretty well, sticking to my on-Sundays-only policy.

Except this week I got to the dining hall after a long, hard practice. I'd already noshed on carrots and hummus in my room (because I didn't think I could make it the 30 yards to the dining hall without nourishment), but I was still starving.

All they had was eggplant and zucchini. Ok, it was ALL they had, but the options were:
salad with a weird raspberry dressing
pasta with really terrible marinara sauce
eggplant+tomato towers (I really don't like eggplant at all)
zucchini (I HATE zucchini)
zucchini (yes, that's right, they had two zucchini dishes)
chicken
beef stir fry
rice

I just didn't have the energy to be creative, so I decided to grab some rice and pick the veggies out of the beef stir fry. The veggies looked delightfully oily, crisp, fresh, nutritious and delicious. The beef just looked oily.

But then I just didn't have the energy to pick around the minuscule pieces of beef.. so I decided I'd just pick around them at the table.

But then I started picking them out and realized just how monstrous a task that was.. so I decided to just eat them. They weren't very good, or very satisfying.. I just didn't have the energy to avoid them.

The whole thing was fairly representative of my experience so far. I haven't missed meat much at all, but eating has become just enough more difficult that it can be frustrating. It's especially difficult in a dining hall, where not eating meat eliminates a large number of options. It's trying to have to pass up delicious vegetables because they've been mixed with meat, or to not eat a salad because they've added bacon or chicken.

Do you have any dietary restrictions? How do you deal with them when others are cooking for you?
Let me know by leavin a comment or emailing me at piquantprose [at] gmail [dot] com. 


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Chocolate Coffee Banana Bread

Winter fruit selection is often depressing at best, so imagine my dismay when our dining hall ran out of oranges and decided to make do with mushy bananas. I'm okay with yellow bananas, but mushy is just beyond me.

Except, of course, in banana bread. So I did all of the other eaters a favor, and grabbed as many mushy bananas as I could without seeming too ridiculous. (Honestly, I think the staff are used to me doing ridiculous things at this point, like asking for a veggie omelet without the eggs.)

I made both regular and chocolate coffee banana bread in one morning.

Then, I began the quest for a suitable banana bread recipe. I had my mom's recipe tucked away in my email, but with the amount of butter it called for, it was much closer to cake. I needed something that wouldn't use up D's single dessert quota for the day.

After opening about 30 tabs worth of lowfat banana bread recipes in Safari, almost all of which called for margarine or applesauce, I finally found one. Ok, the original calls for applesauce, but I just used milk. 

Now, this is an incredible banana bread recipe, perfect just on its own. But when you run out of chocolate chips, and chocolate, the only solution is to take perfectly good banana bread, and add cocoa powder... and then eat said chocolate banana bread for breakfast the next day. And what is better than chocolate? Chocolate and coffee.. so I did it.

Once reinforcements arrived in the form of a care package, I realized I had to make this again, but with chocolate chips and cappuccino chips. Yes, I still ate it for breakfast.

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Chocolate Coffee Banana Bread

makes 1 large loaf

Equipment

loaf pan

2 mixing bowls + mixing instrument(s)

kitchen scale (optional)

measuring cups

butter melting device

oven