Day after Thanksgiving

I know it's been over a week since I've last posted anything, but this is the time of semester when I have time for nothing. I have 3 big projects and I'm trying to decided if I should go to an audition that I'll have to ready myself for, plus some projects coming up. But I'm not going to rant about that.

As for recipes, it's sandwich time, baby! We're going to make a turkey salad sandwich. I wouldn't actually call it salad, but it's just too easy to make. Here's what you need:
Bread (duh!)
Left over turkey
Left over stuffing
Any left over vegetables like green beans or sweet potatoes.
(Optional) Cranberry Sauce or Gravy. (Recommended: not both)

First thing you gotta do is chop up that turkey and vegetables into little bit size pieces.
Mix them into your stuffing.
Heat it up! Either in the microwave or on a skillet. If you do it on a skillet, be sure to grease your pan with either cooking spray, olive oil, or maybe butter.
Once your left overs are good and warm, load them onto the bread of your choice.
If you decided you wanted gravy, heat that up, too, and spread it like mayo.
If you decided you wanted cranberry sauce, use that as your mayo.
Place the over piece of bread on top, and there you go!

Sandwich.

A Taste to Acquire: Onions

For those of you who enjoy onions, feel free to read this post for entertainment.

As for the rest of you, we need to talk.

I know what you're thinking. Onions are gross and you avoid them at all costs. Well don't. You know why? Because deep down, underneath (and in between) each layer there is delicious flavor that doesn't make you cry.

Are you still cynical about them? Well probably, because I haven't explained anything yet. Let me come down to your level for a second, you onion-prejudice commoner. To bite into a raw onion, is to bite into a bitter ball of bitch that bites back. I understand. But here's what you may be missing: Onions will treat you right if you give them tender love and warmth. Actually, they don't even care about the love part at all. The point it, they are indeed no good raw; but if you cook them, they are actually quite good.

For instance, I bet if I offered you an onion ring, you wouldn't object. Well, some of you still would out of total stubbornness, which is wastes both your time and mine, so just listen to me. The onion ring has a wonderful breaded outer layer that we all so dearly love, and the onion, the heart of this appetizer, the reason this wonder fried piece of heaven exists, doesn't taste all too bad when it becomes semi-translucent and can be slurped right into your mouth.

These little guys are a great flavor, you just need to cook the bite out of it. For instance, you are tired of plain ol' eggs every morning, but they are cheap, so it's what you buy. Before you scrabble them up, saute some onions up, add a dash of garlic powder and then throw those eggs in. They bring your boring egg breakfast up a few notches. Or say you have had ramen every night for the past week and it's all you have to eat, boil up those onions before your throw the noodles in. Tuna all you have for sandwiches? Cut up onions into little pieces and saute them so you can add another texture to your fishy goodness.

The thing is, a lot of cheap foods are bland and/or easy to get tired of, but since onions are cheap as well, they are a great flavor to contribute to many meals. Also, if you are a garlic lover like me, onions go hand in hand with garlic.

Any questions? Because you an onions can be friends now.

Beans, Cheap but Stupid (But not so stupid that you shouldn't make them)

You know, I've never REALLY made beans till yesterday. Of course I have taken them out of a can and have thrown them in a pot, but that's not the cheapest way to eat them. If you look in your local grocery store, you could usually find them in an isle where you find rice, (they do go hand in hand after all,) and they are dried up and in a bag. The good news is, they get twice as big as you see them right then and there. The bad is that they take FOREVER to make. I have come to find that the best way to make them is to throw them in a crock-pot with some water in the morning, put on low and don't even think of the little buggers for hours. Because they will not cook fast and will piss you off if you want them to. The point is, it's cheap, so grab your beans and make your rice and survive like the survivor you are!

Now, some beans are bland and boring and it's hard to eat if you grew up like me, use to flavor and in need of something to pet you on the palette. Yesterday, while I was preparing my white beans for a night time feast, I first chopped up some onions into tiny pieces and threw in some of my frozen corn. For another little zap, I put in half a cup of white wine. Now I know some of you munchkins aren't 21 yet and might even be law abiding citizens that would NEVER pay a friend to get you the booze you are too young to have in your possession, but you still want that beautiful flavor of wine. Guess what! You can still get that flavor, AND you can get it LEGALLY. If you go to the isle in the grocery store where you find oils and vinegar, you can find both red and white wine vinegar. It's alcohol free, so the store can sell it to you with out the added effort and pressure of getting that fake I.D. you have no need for.

Great, another problem? You don't own a crock-pot? Man, you are making things very difficult right now. But FINE, whatever. If you don't have a crock-pot, you can use a regular pot and simmer on low heat (2 if you have numbers on your stove) all day, but if you use the stove, make sure you or someone else will be home all day to make sure the house doesn't catch fire. You never know when that earthquake is going to suddenly hit your general area because the tectonic plate your dorm/apartment is sitting on suddenly broke in half and that flammable thing sitting in the cabinet above the stove flies open (in the earthquake) and falls right onto the burner, thus catching itself, and the rest of your place, on fire. Most roommates don't like it when you catch your place on fire. In fact, in many cases, some will decide that they no longer want to live with you for that reason.

There, that's a little tip on how to make the cheapest of cheap. I'll come up with other things that are in the "cheapest of cheap" category so you're not stuck with the same old things. Once we're in the Fall of 2012, I should be making videos, so whatever is on this blog, it will end up in video form in less than a year.

Just to reiterate the bean making process, and make it more clear:
1. Get bag of beans.
2. Pour as many beans as you want to prepare into crock-pot (or regular pot because someone will be home all day).
3. Put enough water in to submerge all beans.
4. Give them a quick stir then turn the crock-pot on low or the stove top to simmer (2 for numbers).
5. Walk away and do things all day like a champ.
6. Come back eight or so hours later.
7. Using a spoon or fork, fish out a bean, give it a good blow to cool it down.
8. Eat said bean. If the bean is still to hard, let them simmer longer, maybe an hour or two. If the bean is too mushy, eat it anyway. You're broke as is, and you learned a lesson not to let your beans cook so long.
9. When beans are ready, rinse them with hot water.
10. Serve and eat beans.

Yay! You did it!
Now for flavor:
Chop onions for, preferably matching colors. So white beans get white and/or yellow onions, red and black beans get red onions, blah blah blah. It's not only to make the food look pretty, but also this tends to taste better. Add onions for step 2 and frozen, canned, or flesh corn if you'd like. If you have your wine or wine vinegar, pour it in before you add water for step 3. The color of wine should also match the food. Do everything else the same and you'll have some delicious beans to devour.

If there is something that's still not clear, leave your question in the comments.
Also, leave any suggestions for what you want me to cook or talk about in future blogs.
Talk to you guys, soon!

My research thus far

Okay, so I've been doing some research on the whole online cooking thing and here's what I think:
I got this. None of the videos for college cooking I've found are that good. Either that or they just stop after the first video and they are done. There is one guy who consistently makes videos that are okay, but his cooking ability appears to be flawed. And all these people are in college, so their time ends up getting busy around certain times in the semester, so they have to quit and they just never get back into it. My plan is to make a bunch of videos at once as well as some consistently through the year so that if I get too busy or sick or anything like that, I can still post videos.
There is one thing holding me back before I can get started when I plan to, and that's a good camera. Hopefully I'll get one for Christmas so I can get a head start on making videos next summer and show them next fall.

What I'm trying to figure out is what sort of things I show people how to cook. It has come to my attention that some people are absolutely clueless when it comes to cooking, which is okay, because if they were good at it, I'd have to reason to make these videos, right? If anything, I hope as few people as possible know anything about the subject. Well, I want people to know how to work a pot and/or a pan. Boiling water wouldn't be a bad skill to have either. Okay, so only on certain occasions will I dumb down my directions to the mentally-challenged cooking level.

My dad says I should have a health bar for the videos that's an artery that's clear if it's a healthy meal and clogged if it's not. It's a funny idea. My dad is cooler than yours.

New to blogging, so what's next?

Okay, I don't know where to start, so I'm just going to hop right in.

As of this moment, I'm a junior in college, and plan on graduating in May. I'm packing in the hours and graduating early. Now, when I do graduate, I'm going to start an online cooking show aimed at college students and over people of the "broke" sorts. Because there's nothing worse than being hungry and still gaining the freshman 15 because you're only source of food is ramen.

Also, I want to do some sort of sketch comedy and other types of videos. In the long run, I may have more than one channel, but that works for me.

I, myself, am an actress. So I know a thing or two about being poor and still eating relatively well. A little more about me: I am in an Improv troop called Centaur of Attention, I love acting for the stage, and I have done my first short film recently called "Man of the House." I'm still waiting for the editing to be finished, but when it is, I can let you know when that is ready to be viewed and where.

Now, I'm going to go figure out the rest of this blogging thing and pretend to be productive and what not!