I’m guilty—I have, on ravenous occasions, busted out a package of Easy Mac, thrust it in the microwave, and unceremoniously chowed down on its contents less than five minutes later. Did I feel good about it? No, especially given my current reputation for cooking actual food rather than food that looks fluorescent.

I am not above admitting that Easy Mac is sometimes necessary. After all, if you truly have only ten minutes with which to make and eat dinner, it’s better to eat Easy Mac than nothing at all. But if you have even five more spare minutes, you can make something tastier, healthier, and all-around better.

That’s right—I’m talking about homemade mac and cheese.

It doesn’t get any easier than this, folks:

INGREDIENTS
• cheese of your choice (I like a mix of cheddar and parmesan)
• milk
• flour
• pasta (any kind words, but elbow macaroni is nice for nostalgia’s sake) Read More »

Yikes, that doesn’t look appetizing.

Let’s be honest: when I get home at the end of a long day of work and classes and studying, the last thing I want to do is whip up a fancy meal for myself. Sometimes, I just need something fast and simple. But after a few months of take-out and pizza and dining-hall food, I realized that I was sacrificing my waistline for the sake of convenience.

What’s a calorie-counting busy girl to do?

Embrace the frozen entrée. I know, I know. Frozen entrees make me think of my Mom and Weight Watchers and scary-looking meat products in soupy liquids. No thanks.

However, there are some delicious frozen meals out there if you know where to look. The best part? Every last calorie and carb and gram of fat and milligram of sodium is right on the box, so you know exactly what you’re getting. To top it all off, they provide us with something this entire country is severely lacking—portion control. You shouldn’t need a hamburger the size of your head just to feel satisfied—frozen meals are a great way to teach yourself what is considered normal (the measurement for a normal serving of protein is the size of your fist…not your head).

Since I’ve become somewhat of a connoisseur of the frozen meal, I thought I’d round up a few of my favorites, for your thawing pleasure: Read More »

Hit up any Chinese or Indian buffet and you’ll notice that a fixture of the line is fried rice — the kind that you can pile on your plate time after time and still enjoy with each new helping. It’s both delicious and addictive.

So wouldn’t it be great if you could make that rice in your own kitchen and avoid shelling out $8 for an all-you-can-eat meal of regret?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Here’s the good news: you can, and it’s easy. In fact, if you ever have stray vegetables or leftovers lying around (like I do almost… oh, let’s see, EVERY DAY), it’s even easier. Fried rice is incredibly forgiving—you can toss whatever you want in there, and it will still taste great.

So here’s a basic recipe, but feel free to play around with it! Read More »

Usually sports bore the crap out of me, but for some reason I love watching the Olympics. Maybe it’s because I used to swim on a team (a long, loooonnngg time ago) and kind of relive that heart-stopping moment of hearing the starting buzzer every time I see it on TV. Maybe it’s watching girls who are more in shape than I will ever be in my entire life flip themselves around on a balance beam and land on their feet. Maybe it’s all those hot, sweaty guys. Who really knows. For whatever reason, I heart the Olympics big time.

Since nothing makes me hungrier than watching other people exert themselves, I’ve devised the perfect Olympics Dinner. It’s Team USA themed, scores a 10 in the taste factor, and is relatively easy to make. Join me in celebrating athleticism with decidedly non-heathly food, won’t you?

Go Team USA! Dinner:

All American Hamburgers:

2 stalks of celery
2-3 pads of butter
Ground meat (enough to serve 4)
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 ounce package McCormick gravy mix (or some other kind) Read More »

I don’t admit this to just anybody, but my favorite junk food is Mary Kitchen corned beef hash.

Yes, I know it is disgusting. Yes, I know it has 50% of your daily value of saturated fat in it per serving. Yes, I know it looks like dog food. But I still love it, even if I feel pretty nasty after eating it.

That is why I was so excited this week when I discovered a recipe that is even better-tasting than Mary Kitchen hash—not to mention worlds healthier. As if that wasn’t awesome enough, it has four ingredients only, making it the easiest thing ever to prepare. All you need is:

• cabbage
• potato
• ground beef
• onion

Salt and pepper work well for flavoring it, and I like to serve mine with ketchup. But those aren’t technically ingredients. Anyway, here is the recipe. Cook it for a good long time—probably 5-10 minutes longer than the recipe recommends, because you want all the ingredients to be nice and browned at the end.

You can thank me later.

[Image courtesy of ApartmentTherapy.com.]

My dad makes the best homemade pizza on Earth. He is not really an everyday-supper kind of guy as far as his cooking goes, but a few of the things he can whip up are absolutely out of this world. When you taste this pizza, there is simply no comparison to any pizza you have ever had in a restaurant, ever. It’s just impossible to look back.

I have never quite been able to match the final product, but I do have the recipe, and I am more than willing to share it with you. I believe it’s one of those recipes that gives good results every time but takes a lifetime to perfect… so check back with me in 30 years or so to see how I’m doing.

In the meantime, get the following things together:

FOR THE DOUGH
• 1 package (about 1 ½ teaspoons) rapid-rise yeast
• 1 cup warm water (but not so hot that it hurts your fingers)
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 ½ cups flour
• 1 ½ tsp dry basil
• 1 ½ tsp dry oregano Read More »

It’s true. Men who can cook are hot no matter what. (Editor’s Note: It probably has something to do with that whole “wearing an apron but nothing else” fantasy…mmmm.) But when they’re actually sexy and willing to slave over a stove to cook me up a steak dinner (some sort of chocolate dessert doesn’t hurt either), they’ve automatically won my heart. Sometimes I just sit on my couch watching the Food Network and drooling. No, not because of the food. Because of the men.

Gourmet food and delicious men; what else could we ask for?

Do you need some new eye candy…that actually knows how to make candy? Check out these top 5 sexy celebrity chefs. So hot they boil water (sorry, I had to go there):

1) Bobby Flay- I actually think Bobby Flay is kind of an assh*le. I also think I might like assh*les just a little bit, because I have a serious thing for him. I love his extreme sense of self-confidence on Throwdown, where he smugly believes he can beat food masters around the country at their culinary specialties. I secretly root for him every time. And on Iron Chef America? Come on, not even a competition. The man is magic and he knows it; Bobby’s confidence causes him to ooze sexiness. Also, who doesn’t love a man behind a grill? I’ll take him medium rare. Rarrr.

2) Curtis Stone- Sometimes when I’m wandering through the grocery store, I fantasize that Curtis Stone will, all of the sudden, appear and beg to come home with me. He is the Take Home Chef on TLC after all. The Australian-born hottie seeks out women in grocery stores and then goes home with them and helps them cook dinner. Hi, dream come true. I’d force him to eat dinner with me and then put the house on lock-down so he had no way out: Curtis Stone, Live In Chef. Read More »

Just because I don’t drink doesn’t mean I am averse to putting alcoholic substances in the foods I eat. Surely one of the best French dishes on Earth is coq au vin, made with tender chicken and savory mushrooms and the most wonderful red wine sauce ever…But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. If you’re thinking that coq au vin sounds like the perfect thing to make for a romantic dinner, you’re right. If you want to make it the authentic French way, though, you might be marinating chicken and letting spices simmer and flavors develop for literally hours—if not days—on end. Trust me, you can get results that are very nearly as good just by using your slow cooker.

If you don’t have a slow cooker, I seriously recommend leaving the room this instant and going directly to a place where you can buy one. They’re inexpensive and they will save you loads of time on busy days (or any kind of days, really). Unbelievably amazing casseroles, soups, stews, and meat so tender that it falls off the bone all become everyday realities with the help of your friend the slow cooker. I have even heard about slow cookers making fantastic cobblers and cookies.

Moving on from the sales pitch, let’s get back to the coq au vin. To make enough for you and your special beau, you need: Read More »