Kitchen Sink Crustless Quichezza

(pronounced keesh-za)

My food was starting to go, I had one more day to make it through until grocery shopping again, and I was out of meat and out of salad. This was also after successfully making Zucchini Noodles for the first time, and I had the inside part of the squashes left over. It was only after the squash and spinach was in the pan and I was cracking the eggs that I realized this was my first "Hey, I can actually cook!" moment. It's not so much a recipe though as a meal idea - lots of eggs, lots of veggies, some extra protein, and cheese. The end goal was something slightly quiche-y with veggies and shrimp scatter throughout, and slightly pizza-like with the cheese on top.

Ingredients:

• Remnants of 2 yellow squash, cut
• Spinach
• Shrimp, pre cooked
• Any other veggie or meat you want or need to use (it's called the Kitchen Sink for a reason)
• 4 eggs
• butter
• salt
• pepper
• cheese (optional)

Heat the butter in a frying pan on low-medium heat. Cook the veggies. Add the meat and cook it.

Crack the eggs in a bowl and mix them. Add salt and pepper. Pour the eggs into the pan. Cover and cook on low heat.

When mostly cooked, sprinkle cheese on top of the eggs. Allow to finish cooking.

Serve immediately or let cool and refrigerate for lunch.

The center ended up essentially being veggies covered in cheese with the eggs more toward the outside and shrimp everywhere. It wasn't quiche-y at all, or pizza-like, because I didn't spread out my veggies when I poured the eggs into the pan. I do like how the shrimp are all at different places in the eggs though. Next time I'd probably add some bacon or ham and maybe some onion. Maybe I'd make it more pizza like by putting tomato sauce on top, too.

The part I liked best? It fit in my lunch container, microwaved well at work, and kept me full for a loooong time.

Paleo Lessons: Week 2

This week was quirky and made me very glad to be using the 80/20 Principle. Just as I was getting ready to take my chicken out of the oven and flip it, the fire alarm in my building went off. What followed was four and a half hours of waiting to be allowed back in to the building. I gave in around 8:45 and ran to a nearby convenience store for a protein bar. When, around 11:30 pm, we were told it would be another 45 minutes to 2 hours before we could go back, my friend/past-future roomie and I went to take advantage of the accommodations provided for those displaced for the evening. In the end we got back in to our building, but I lost the chicken (which was my previous dinner, lunch, and next dinner).

With that, lesson number one this week is be flexible. Whether it's a fire in your building or a meal that didn't turn out the way you wanted, shrug, eat what's edible (aka, not half cooked chicken that sat out for 11 hours), and improvise until your next food shopping adventure.

A great alternative to cereal is a bowl of nuts, berries and other fruit, and coconut milk. I'm not sure how much coconut milk I'd drink on a regular basis, but I got it specifically for a recipe this week and "waste not, want not"! You could also sub in Greek yogurt for the coconut milk, or almond milk, or if you kept dairy like me, regular milk. It makes a good post-workout snack or part of a breakfast.

Frozen shrimp. Defrost it ahead of time so it retains its flavor and doesn't taste watery from being rinsed in the sink. Also, if you have plans to cook it, make sure it's not already cooked. They do make pretty good quick snacks though.

Zucchini Noodles!

All the recipes for zucchini noodles that I'd found said basically 2 things - use a julienne peeler and cooking is optional. None of them said anything about how to actually make zucchini noodles, and I don't have a julienne peeler.

I do have a regular peeler, though, and it did the job quite nicely.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium/large green or yellow squash
• little bit of butter or your choice of oil

Wash the squash well. Using a peeler, peel strips of squash. The best method I've found is to keep the ends of the squash on, hold one end, and peel from the top down. Rotate the squash and repeat until the seeds are visible. Now you have raw squash noodles!

To cook: heat the butter in the frying pan over low-medium heat. Drop in the noodles and cook until soft (3-5 minutes). Salt and pepper the noodles when partway cooked. Add toppings or mixins such as cooked shrimp or chicken, or toss it in a sauce. 

Serve immediately. I layered mine with cheese, but that's obviously up to you.

The leftover part of the squash is good for sautéing and use in other recipes, like a Kitchen Sink Crustless Quichezza.

Paleo Meatless Monday

I tried this last week, which was a very bad idea. It was my first day of eating Paleo and ultimately led to me being grouchy and hungry all day. This week, I have a little bit of a better sense of what I can eat that is Paleo while still doing my best to have a Meatless Monday.

Monday, I was PescaPaleian. 

I figure it's currently a good compromise. I've been participating in Meatless Mondays since February in support of my vegetarian friends and in protest against the campus dining hall (it's not exactly easy to get a good amount of veggies outside of the salad bar).

Breakfast, 3 eggs and an orange. Lunch, big salad with fruit and an egg (forgot to hardboil, so I scrambled it and cut it up to put on top), plus carrots, almonds, and some dry fruit.

Dinner: lemon shrimp with zucchini "noodles" and spinach. The original plan was to cook the noodles in the pan with the shrimp, but two very important things interfered. For one thing, the shrimp was already cooked and it was recommended to not cook them further. For another thing, the noodles turned out not so much noodles as a mass of zucchini tendrils. I cooked them with the spinach, threw in the shrimp, and dumped the entire thing in a bowl. Immediately water began accumulating at the bottom (and this is after I squeezed out the zucchini before cooking). What saved this meal was probably a little bit of lemon juice, some salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and liberal quantities of cheese (see my disclaimer). I think if I did it again, I'd have just thrown in some eggs (essentially zucchini pancakes) and served it with Greek yogurt.

My new challenge: figure out a good way to make zucchini noodles without a julienne peeler.

Check out the results - Zucchini Noodles!

Easy Peasy Fruity Salad

Last week I realized I needed to get better at making salads, considering the ones I made weren't that yummy and didn't keep me full at all.

Here's what I came up with this week:

Pardon the quality of the picture, and the fact that it's over half eaten. You can see all the ingredients though, which I like. I also found that the variety of flavors kept me from becoming bored with it after a few days. The only thing that would make this better would be a bigger bowl so I could pack more of it!

Ingredients:

• romaine lettuce
• spinach
• strawberries
• blueberries
• mango
• pineapple
• 1 egg

Start with you base and build up. Make your romaine bite sized and throw the spinach on top of it. Top with the cut fruit and berries (cut up the strawberries). If your egg is hardboiled, peel it, cut it up, and add that. If you ran out of time like me, scramble an egg and cut it into pieces. Easy to transport, and probably a hit with kids for the flavors and colors. Bonus: getting a variety of fruit allows you to mix it up a little each day and keep it interesting.

Still haven't mastered a good salad dressing yet unfortunately, but it's been a little too hectic this week to try very hard. I'd love to be able to make a good Caesar salad dressing sometime soon, we'll have to see what happens!

Super Easy Paleo Pancakes

I had these this morning for breakfast (all of them) with some berry compote. Normally when I'm at work, I start getting hungry around 10:30, 11, and I try not to eat lunch until noon. Today I got to 12:15, looked at the clock, and realized I still wasn't that hungry yet. Neat!

These are the quickest, easiest, and possibly most flavorful pancakes I've had, possibly ever (including pre-Paleo). There was a race this past weekend that Super A did and I volunteered at, and I made these the night before so we could grab something quick at 4 am. I believe his reaction was raised eyebrows, wide eyes, and a grin - "These are the best pancakes I've ever had. Seriously." He was so disappointed after the race to find we had eaten them all.

Ingredients:

• 2 bananas
• 3 eggs
• cinnamon (optional)
• butter (for the pan)

Mash the bananas in a bowl. If you're like me and don't have a food processor, break them in half and squish them with your hands, then stir with a fork. Add the eggs and mix. Add the cinnamon for flavor and mix more. The "batter" should look pretty uniform in color, although you might see banana chunks here and there. Not a problem.

Put a pan or a griddle on the stove with low-medium heat. Melt the butter and pour some batter. The smaller you make the pancakes, the easier they'll be to handle and the better they'll turn out. When the bottom starts browning (the banana is caramelized), carefully flip using a spatula. When the other side is cooked (brown or not, doesn't matter), your pancake is done.

In total, this makes about 6-8 pancakes, depending on the size. Didn't time myself, but it's very easy to make them the night before while doing other things.

I also suspect that they might behave better in the pan if you mash the banana using a food processor, but I have yet to test this theory.

Enjoy!

Things To Know Before Arriving on Campus

Here's my "top 10" list of things you as a college student going out into the world should know before you arrive on campus.

1. Grocery Stores - Sometimes dining hall food just doesn't cut it, or you want to make a romantic dinner for your significant other, know where you can get the supplies. Better yet, know a few in the area.
2. Hospitals - Seriously. Whether it's for something as serious as your roommate's concussion (which he/she should receive treatment for!!) or alcohol posioning (also seek treatment immediately for this one!), or something relatively minor like a broken bone, you will want to know where the nearest one is. Note: Ambulance rides are not free. 
3. Public Transportation in the area
4. Places of Worship - if only so you can take your parents there when they visit you.
5. Free Parking - Sometimes parking is free on certain streets, but other times you might have to pay. Find the free streets and figure out the times you can park there without a permit and won't have to pay.
6. Gym - Either the on campus one or one off campus with a cheap membership. Exercise will help you stay focused.
7. Movie Theater - Pretty self explanatory. You don't want to be wandering around trying to find it using your phone's GPS 10 minutes before the movie's supposed to start. Be prepared.
8. Park/City - If your school is in a city, you should know at least one place nearby that you can escape to when you just need some green growing things around you to make you feel good. If your school is surrounded by green, you should know the nearest city/town/shopping center for "duh" reasons.
9. Kmart/Walmart/Target - These places can possibly double as a generic grocery store, but they're also great for decorating your room, getting inexpensive clothes, art supplies, movies, etc...
10. Public Library - During finals week/midterms week, the library on campus will get very crowded. Knowing where the public library is can give you access to more study space plus their collection of books, movies, and CDs. 

This is my list, feel free to add your own "places to know" in the comments.