Baked Ziti, Once Again, Mom's Recipe

Baked Ziti is another one of my mom's favorites that I've learned. It's surprisingly easy, and even I've successfully made it and served it to all my friends.

Ingrediets
Penne, Cottage Cheese, Ricotta Cheese, Parmesan, Shredded Mozerella, Diced tomatoes OR marinana sauce, Onions, Chicken Broth, Milk OR Heavy creme

1. Bring water to a boil and cook pasta. Make sure to put salt in the water before boiling!

2. Chop onions and carmelize them. Also in the meantime, mix 1 cup cottage, 1 cup ricotta, 1/2 cup parmesan and 1/2 cup mozarella in a bowl.

3. When pasta is done, butter them. Add chicken broth and diced tomatoes on a low heat.

4. Add the cheese mix, onions, and milk.

5. Mix all together in the sauce pan and transfer to a baking sheet and add a layer of mozarella.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Surviving the Dining Hall

This is an article I wrote about how students try to entertain themselves while eating at BU dining halls. It tells you how to enjoy some Warren Towers food.

Hundreds of droids darted out of the “Lambda Class Shuttle” toward a mob of Jedi. At the center of the chaos were Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader in the galaxy far far away. This battle scene occurred not only in Star Wars: the Empire Strikes Back, but also on the dessert plate at Boston University’s Warren Towers dining hall. Two students, Carolyn Cosgrove Payne and Tim Nicklas, discovered an innovative way to enjoy the same day-old salads, the same burnt burgers and the same stale brownies. Thanks to what Nicklas entitled “dessertstry,” Cosgrove Payne and Nicklas invented artworks with dessert items offered at the dining hall. The creations include a gourmet brownie sundae topped with strawberries and whipped cream, an erupting chocolate and banana volcano and the “Oil Tank Spill.”

A discussion in Oceanography last semester inspired Nicklas to create the “Oil Tank Spill.” As the class learned about the Exxon ship’s accident, he imagined recreating the incident with bananas with chocolate syrup oozing out.

“I consider myself an artist. I love the rich depth of colors. It is like a palette of dessert items,” Nicklas said.

Every day students walk into the dining hall to find “day old brownies with a lack of temperature variance and occasional staleness,” Cosgrove Payne said. She suggested the perfect remedy for the hardened brownies: “Douse the brownies in chocolate syrup and heat them up in the microwave for exactly 25 seconds. Then simply add vanilla ice cream, whipped cream and strawberries.”

Nicklas’s close friends recognize and honor him as the creator of “TGIF-style dessert” at the Warren Towers. Once he built a Batmobile with ice cream cones as the exterior, bananas as the interior, brownies as decorations and peanut butter as the adhesive material. He said, “I have always wanted to eat a Batmobile, but you can’t exactly eat metal.”

Cosgrove Payne and Nicklas proved the possibility of devouring high-quality desserts at a college dining hall. Cosgrove Payne said, “It’s a dessert monstrosity and a food orgasm.”

The next item in the “dessertstry?” Nicklas gave a hint. “I cannot tell you, but big things will happen! When you draw something, no one can see it until it is done. The ‘dessertstry’ is the same way.”

Because You Don't Want to Mess with Texas

This week I'm traveling up and down my beloved state Texas to promote Boston University. So far I'm having a wonderful time, spending some time at home with my family and working with Bobby and Zoe who both are assistant directors on the Board of Admissions. As a student speaker, I feel pretty privileged to be here.

As I'm traveling around Texas but missing Boston quite a bit, it is pretty inevitable that I always notice some differences between the two states. Texas is one of more notoriously republican state while Massachusetts is quite liberal. Texas produces southern gentlemen (supposedly) while Massachusetts apparently has "massholes." Texans yield and open doors for you while "Massholes" just slam the door in your face. So I decided to write about some survival tips in the state of Texas. After all, everyone says, don't mess with Texas.

1. Learn how to use the word "Ya'll." I understand, it sounds unnatural at first, but it will come flawlessly after a couple times. Texans don't believe in wasting a word by saying you all or you guys. It's simple, ya'll.

2. Please be considerate and open doors for other people. It usually earns to brownie points, but really, in TX, people will give you the dirtiest looks ever if you slam the door in others' faces. This goes to not just the guys, but also the girls as well.

3. Accept and welcome southern hospitality. If someone's being nice to you - say, let you go first, open the door, give up the seat, it's not weird. Just thank them and smile. Not hard at all. If southern hospitality is offered, it is expected that you accept it politely.

4. Cowboys = Life. Football = Life.

5. Trucks are perfectly okay. Why drive mini coopers when F350's are available?

I think that's about it. Very very basic tips. If you keep all these in mind, you will have no problem blending in with a bunch of Texans.

Peace, Love, TX ;)

Wanna Be Like Martha?

Since classes started again, I haven't really had time to go experience new restaurants in the Greater Boston area every Friday, which is extremely unfortunate. I did enjoy discovering new places to have soul food, pizza or hamburger. However, my little (in ADPi) Caitlin and I have made commitment for a similar activity: trying out new recipes.

Last Thursday, we had our second round of new recipe dinner. Caitlin found a Martha Stewart recipe - chicken with mustard and bread crumbs. It only took about 40 minutes to cook, including the prep time. Also this didn't require too many ingredients at all. Definitely perfect for college students on a budget.

So here's the recipe:

You'll need chicken breasts, salt, pepper, olive oil, bread crumbs, dijon mustard, chicken broth, heavy creme, butter

Step 1.
Brush olive oil on chicken breasts and season them with salt and pepper
Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees

Step 2.
Cook chicken breasts in a frying pan - about 3 minutes on each side
While waiting, melt 2 tablespoons of butter
Mix the melted butter, dijon mustard and a little bit of salt and pepper

Step 3.
Transfer the chicken to a baking sheet, coat the chicken with the mustard mix and add bread crumbs
**If you don't have bread crumbs, you can crush up croutons and use them instead

Step 4.
Bake chicken in the oven for 15-20 minutes
In the mean time, mix chicken broth and heavy creme (1:1 ratio), bring to a boil and simmer. This will be a really good sauce for the chicken.

Step 5.
When the chicken's done, take it out of the oven, serve with sauce!

Prettyyyyyy simple. Caitlin and I definitely loved this and we made enough to serve three other people. Lovely!

Mom's Recipe: Jambalaya Pasta

Lately, my bum-life philosophy has been revolving around food. Anything that has to do with fulfilling hunger, baking, cooking or savory, I am definitely all over it. I suppose that's an inevitable result of having a little too much free time on hand. Nevertheless, I am not complaining. I've become quite domestic, and I am proud to say it.

Yesterday (Monday 7/6), I have finally perfected mom-style-jambalaya-pasta.

Woo.

Just ask Jack, it was darn good.

Jambalaya is one of the most famous southern food; in fact, New Orleans, Louisiana is quite well-known for its cajun jambalaya. In Texas (my lovely home state), it is still popular though not on the same level as the infamous tex-mex. I learned how to cook jambalaya from my mom who originally learned from Emeril on Food Network.

It sounds rather complicated, but I enjoy taking 40 minutes to an hour out of my bum life to cook it because the end result is just too good. You can easily change the recipe depending on your craving. For example, instead of using sausages, I use chicken and shrimp. Instead of making the sauce TOO spicy, I make it moderately spicy mostly because I can't eat any spicy food. Instead of using penne, I use bow tie or rotini only because I prefer those types of pasta.

So here is the recipe:
Ingredients: bow tie or rotini pasta, chicken, shrimp, onion, jambalaya spice, salt, pepper, milk, diced tomatoes, parsley, parmesan cheese.
Directions:
1. Add pasta to boiling water and cook
2. Cut up chicken into 1-inch cubes (or smaller)
3. Chop up onions
4. Add chicken and onion into a hot frying pan. Add salt, pepper and spice. Cook chicken.
5. Move chicken to a bowl
6. Add shrimp to the same frying pan. Add salt, pepper and spice. Cook.
7. Add diced tomatoes and milk to pasta in a sauce pan. Add spice. Keep on low heat.
8. Add cooked chicken/shrimp/onion to the sauce pan.
9. Stir/Mix/etc.
10. Add parmesan and parsley
DONE.

YJ

This (Last) Week's Destination: CANESTARO

Last week, Jack and I continued our "restaurant adventure" and went to a small place called Canestaro near Fenway. Though we had planned on trying this place sometime during the summer, we had not expect to go this early in the season. Quite coincidentally, our friend's birthday dinner that was supposed to be held at Sunset Cantina got re-located to Canestaro because Sunset does not take reservations. So why not, we took the chance and made this week's destination this small, hidden Italian restaurant.

Located on Petersborough Street - a very small street, rather residential, behind Fenway, Canestaro's menu features various types of Italian food. Jack and I ended up sharing a three-by-three appetizer and a large supreme pizza. I am thoroughly impressed with what Canestaro has to offer. Pizza was quite satisfying, and the appetizer entree was perfectly portioned.

I would definitely recommend this restaurant for any type of casual dining - first dates, family night out or just for fun.

YJ

Tweet Tweet

http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2009/0906/a_pb_0615.jpg

The most recent issue of TIME features Twitter on its cover. Twitter, a social networking website rapidly gaining popularity. About a month ago, I gave in and got a Twitter account. About two weeks ago, I gave in even more and downloaded a Twitter app for my BlackBerry.

This fast spread of Twitter proves technology is indeed taking over our lives. Having started with Myspace (at least for people my age), it moved on to Facebook, and now it's Twitter. As my co-worker pointed out today, since when did we use the term "mutual friend" to describe the friends two people have in common? Not quite until Facebook completely hypnotized us. Before the world of Facebook, our terms mainly included "we both know Jane," "we are all good friends" "oh, we know the same people!" Ever since Facebook came up with a handy dandy feature of Mutual Friends, we now say, "we have 56 mutual friends! how did we not know each other before?"

Keeping that in mind, reading this TIME article on Twitter made me finally realize how much change we have witnessed in our lifestyles due to all these social networking websites. Constantly updating our status updates and Tweets, when used wisely, these features actually help us keep up-to-date on everyone's businesses. So if you were to check Facebook or Twitter frequently and receive your friends' news that way, is that considered stalking? Not quite. You are just simply using those website to your advantage, so next time you run into that person, you'll know exactly what to say. Congratulations! Or, I'm sorry... Or, How was the restaurant you went to the other day?

YJ