I am a frugal, from scratch kind of cook, so it has been an education for me to think in terms of cooking for the college student. Obviously, a dorm- or apartment-dwelling student doesn't have the time, space, or incentive to cook the way I do.
So, frugality needs to be second to convenience. After all, if it's not convenient to cook something, you can always pop in a frozen dinner or go out for fast food. Not that good--or good for you, but easy and cheap.
I have been perusing Amazon's grocery offerings of late. I found a few things that would be worth buying. These all get free shipping if you spend over $25.00. Maybe it's worth it to have your ingredients delivered to your door.
Item 1 is polenta.
I make my own polenta, natch, for about 1/10 this price. But the price on Amazon for the pre-prepared is about the same as at my local grocery. You can slice polenta and use it as a base for various toppings. You can layer it with cheese and tomato sauce for a kind of lasagne. Only downside: you have to buy a dozen, so make sure you like polenta.
Item 2 is tofu.
This too is about the same price as in the stores in my area. I'm sure it's cheaper in an Asian grocery. You can stir this into soup. In fact, if you stir it into the ubiquitous ramen and throw in some frozen spinach, you've got a pretty healthy meal.
As a last example, my favorite tomato sauce.
I got a year's supply at my fave store Big Lots a while ago--for $1.00 a can. Still, this is great stuff on pasta, pizza dough, and so on. Unlike most canned stuff, it doesn't taste like metal.
Do you think it's worth it to pay more for food that is delivered?
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Other College Expenses: Now Laundry?
Work goes on apace as we work on our project College Cooking Crash Course, which will save you time and also money in your daily eating activity.
As we all know--or as you are about to know--there are loads of other costs as well. I read something the other day on the incidental costs of college. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I read it, so I can't provide a link. Suffice it to say that some ridiculous enormous sum was floated. I mean ENORMOUS. I can't resist what is perhaps an OT view of one expense: laundry.
My daughter--AKA Lucy Marmalade--is proud to say that she didn't do her laundry in the dorm a single time last year. Don't recoil in horror! It just so happened that she visited us sufficiently (dirty laundry in duffel bag) to avoid the laundry room. Perhaps this is a family tradition. Her late Nana Virginia recounted sending (yes, MAILING) dirty laundry from Carleton College in Minnesota to her mother, Faith, in Chicago. Nana Faith sent it back, ironed and folded.
No one does that anymore, right? In fact, a commonly proffered "good gift for graduates" idea is laundry bag, bundle of quarters, and detergent. This may also be archaic (kind of like the typewriter for graduates of yore): I think most college machines take student plastic cards now.
Still, some parents must worry about how their scholars are keeping up with laundry. Yesterday, I received in the mail an offer for the University Laundry Service. Smiling (CLEAN) students are pictured: Saving Students up to 120 hours a year, says the brochure.
The brochure lists a 10 step-process that must be akin to what Nana Faith did, including pulling socks straight, pairing socks, immediately removing clothes from dryer and meticulously folding, folding socks, and, finally, shrink wrapping in plastic. Well, Nana Faith didn't do that. This partial list includes all the things I don't do, having slacker laundry habits. Of course, I don't spend 120 hours a year on laundry.
So, what is the cost for this service? 10 pounds a week is $324/semester or $598/year. The MOST POPULAR 20 pounds a week is $374/semester or $698/year. And the grand 30 pounds a week plan is $424/semester or $798/year. PLUS TAX.
Note that a year is a school year, maybe 8 months? With the MOST POPULAR PLAN, including tax, you are spending almost $100 per month on laundry.
The little slogan is "STEP BY STEP of our MOTHER'S TOUCH." Of course my frugal kids burst out laughing at that one: this is way more luxurious than their mother's touch. PLUS, they noted, why MOTHER'S?
As we all know--or as you are about to know--there are loads of other costs as well. I read something the other day on the incidental costs of college. Unfortunately, I can't remember where I read it, so I can't provide a link. Suffice it to say that some ridiculous enormous sum was floated. I mean ENORMOUS. I can't resist what is perhaps an OT view of one expense: laundry.
My daughter--AKA Lucy Marmalade--is proud to say that she didn't do her laundry in the dorm a single time last year. Don't recoil in horror! It just so happened that she visited us sufficiently (dirty laundry in duffel bag) to avoid the laundry room. Perhaps this is a family tradition. Her late Nana Virginia recounted sending (yes, MAILING) dirty laundry from Carleton College in Minnesota to her mother, Faith, in Chicago. Nana Faith sent it back, ironed and folded.
No one does that anymore, right? In fact, a commonly proffered "good gift for graduates" idea is laundry bag, bundle of quarters, and detergent. This may also be archaic (kind of like the typewriter for graduates of yore): I think most college machines take student plastic cards now.
Still, some parents must worry about how their scholars are keeping up with laundry. Yesterday, I received in the mail an offer for the University Laundry Service. Smiling (CLEAN) students are pictured: Saving Students up to 120 hours a year, says the brochure.
The brochure lists a 10 step-process that must be akin to what Nana Faith did, including pulling socks straight, pairing socks, immediately removing clothes from dryer and meticulously folding, folding socks, and, finally, shrink wrapping in plastic. Well, Nana Faith didn't do that. This partial list includes all the things I don't do, having slacker laundry habits. Of course, I don't spend 120 hours a year on laundry.
So, what is the cost for this service? 10 pounds a week is $324/semester or $598/year. The MOST POPULAR 20 pounds a week is $374/semester or $698/year. And the grand 30 pounds a week plan is $424/semester or $798/year. PLUS TAX.
Note that a year is a school year, maybe 8 months? With the MOST POPULAR PLAN, including tax, you are spending almost $100 per month on laundry.
The little slogan is "STEP BY STEP of our MOTHER'S TOUCH." Of course my frugal kids burst out laughing at that one: this is way more luxurious than their mother's touch. PLUS, they noted, why MOTHER'S?
Friday, August 6, 2010
Thoughts on the Rice Cooker
by Frugal Son
The beauty of the rice cooker is its elegant simplicity; but even so, for the “uninitiated” the first steps on the road to becoming a rice cooker king or queen are, of course, understanding how it works and learning how to use it. After you’ve bought your first rice cooker, or better yet fished out the unused one from your parents’ kitchen, take a look at it. Quite simple, right? Your rice cooker consists of two basic parts: the receptacle—which has the cord, cook / warm switch, heating element etc.—and the pot—which is where you’ll be doing all the cooking. Once you’ve plugged in the rice cooker and flipped the switch to “cook,” the electric element will begin heating the cooking pot and whatever ingredients are inside. One of the greatest features of rice cookers is their “auto-off” or “auto-warm” feature that will keep you from burning your food and, more importantly, setting fire to your room! Once the temperature of the cooking pot begins to heat up much hotter than the boiling point of water (212 degrees F or 100 degrees C), a thermostat trips the switch to “off” or “warm,” which will stop or reduce the amount of electricity flowing to the heating element. There is also a spring-loaded sensor in the base of the rice cooker receptacle, which will trip the off / warm switch if the cooking pot is removed. For this reason, rice cookers are very forgiving to the debutant cooker and perfect for those who are particularly prone to distraction or forgetfulness.
Now that you understand what’s going on electronically, it’s time to get down to the more edible aspects. A rice cooker is, as the name implies, primarily intended for cooking rice. Simply add one unit rice (cups, pounds, bowlfuls, whatever you want), two units water, and a bit of salt. Then put on the top, plug in the machine, flip the switch to cook, and come back in about 30 minutes for perfectly cooked, steaming rice. It really is that simple! All of the recipes in this book will follow this same basic technique. Rice cooker cooking is inherently simple because of the limitations of the machine: only one button to press! For some of our recipes you may need to check back to flip the switch to cook again but other than that, no special skills required.
This is the one we use
The beauty of the rice cooker is its elegant simplicity; but even so, for the “uninitiated” the first steps on the road to becoming a rice cooker king or queen are, of course, understanding how it works and learning how to use it. After you’ve bought your first rice cooker, or better yet fished out the unused one from your parents’ kitchen, take a look at it. Quite simple, right? Your rice cooker consists of two basic parts: the receptacle—which has the cord, cook / warm switch, heating element etc.—and the pot—which is where you’ll be doing all the cooking. Once you’ve plugged in the rice cooker and flipped the switch to “cook,” the electric element will begin heating the cooking pot and whatever ingredients are inside. One of the greatest features of rice cookers is their “auto-off” or “auto-warm” feature that will keep you from burning your food and, more importantly, setting fire to your room! Once the temperature of the cooking pot begins to heat up much hotter than the boiling point of water (212 degrees F or 100 degrees C), a thermostat trips the switch to “off” or “warm,” which will stop or reduce the amount of electricity flowing to the heating element. There is also a spring-loaded sensor in the base of the rice cooker receptacle, which will trip the off / warm switch if the cooking pot is removed. For this reason, rice cookers are very forgiving to the debutant cooker and perfect for those who are particularly prone to distraction or forgetfulness.
Now that you understand what’s going on electronically, it’s time to get down to the more edible aspects. A rice cooker is, as the name implies, primarily intended for cooking rice. Simply add one unit rice (cups, pounds, bowlfuls, whatever you want), two units water, and a bit of salt. Then put on the top, plug in the machine, flip the switch to cook, and come back in about 30 minutes for perfectly cooked, steaming rice. It really is that simple! All of the recipes in this book will follow this same basic technique. Rice cooker cooking is inherently simple because of the limitations of the machine: only one button to press! For some of our recipes you may need to check back to flip the switch to cook again but other than that, no special skills required.
This is the one we use
Thursday, August 5, 2010
A Secret of the College Cook: Frozen Chopped Onions
Hmmmmm...some dissonance between the first part and the second part of the title there! Seriously, though, my onion breakthrough is second only to my rice cooker breakthrough.
To recap: out of love for my daughter, and a general frugal bent, I have been trying to figure out how college students can cook easily, cheaply, and well--without a stove.
Nearly every recipe--including those in rice cooker cookbooks--begins "Chop an onion" or include "large onion, chopped" in the ingredient list. How could we cook without onions?
Let us look at the labor behind "chop an onion":
--you have to buy an onion
--this required a trip to the store
--either you have to go to the store NOW or you have an onion, hopefully not too old
--you have to chop it
--so you need a knife and a cutting board
--then you have to wash off the cutting board and knife
--then you have to suffer with the smell of onion on your hands and in your cooking area
--and the knife
And now, you have your "onion, chopped."
Let us look at the College Cooking Crash Course philosophy of the "onion, chopped."
--you went to the store a while back and bought FROZEN CHOPPED ONIONS
--you measure out a cup
And now you have your "onion, chopped."
If you are a daredevil cook, you don't even need the measuring cup, thereby eliminating one step.
Oh, how trivial this may seem! But to the College Cook, having that "onion, chopped" is the result of many small, time-consuming, annoying tasks.
One of the fun parts of testing recipes for you, College Cooks, has been my discovery and use of frozen chopped onions. I have not chopped a single onion for, well, weeks. With the time I've saved, I've read a novel: Dead Souls, by Gogol. It is, in my opinion, a masterpiece.
To recap: out of love for my daughter, and a general frugal bent, I have been trying to figure out how college students can cook easily, cheaply, and well--without a stove.
Nearly every recipe--including those in rice cooker cookbooks--begins "Chop an onion" or include "large onion, chopped" in the ingredient list. How could we cook without onions?
Let us look at the labor behind "chop an onion":
--you have to buy an onion
--this required a trip to the store
--either you have to go to the store NOW or you have an onion, hopefully not too old
--you have to chop it
--so you need a knife and a cutting board
--then you have to wash off the cutting board and knife
--then you have to suffer with the smell of onion on your hands and in your cooking area
--and the knife
And now, you have your "onion, chopped."
Let us look at the College Cooking Crash Course philosophy of the "onion, chopped."
--you went to the store a while back and bought FROZEN CHOPPED ONIONS
--you measure out a cup
And now you have your "onion, chopped."
If you are a daredevil cook, you don't even need the measuring cup, thereby eliminating one step.
Oh, how trivial this may seem! But to the College Cook, having that "onion, chopped" is the result of many small, time-consuming, annoying tasks.
One of the fun parts of testing recipes for you, College Cooks, has been my discovery and use of frozen chopped onions. I have not chopped a single onion for, well, weeks. With the time I've saved, I've read a novel: Dead Souls, by Gogol. It is, in my opinion, a masterpiece.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Review: Ultimate Rice Cooker Cookbook
I talked about this briefly over on frugalscholar, but I checked this out of the library again and would like to talk about it some more.
I haven't yet seen the much-awaited rice cooker book by Roger Ebert.
So far, of the ones I've seen and worked with a bit, I have to say that Ultimate is the best.
I judge a cookbook by how much it makes me want to jump up and start cooking. My first trip through this didn't have that effect: the first two chapters are kind of tedious, perhaps because so detailed. But 17 pages on rice cookers, followed by more than 40 pages on how to cook every kind of rice you've ever and never heard of,,,well, not inspiring to me.
This time, I looked at chapter 3, which to me makes the book worth its relatively low price: Simple Everyday Rices and LITTLE MEALS. This is the chapter that is of most use to the College Cook and to the harried home cook. Here are some of the ideas: Greek Lemon and Dill Rice with Feta, Mexican Rice and Beans, Chinese Sausage and Rice, Indonesian Rice Bowl.
Some of these are a little multi-step for the College Cook, but all can be simplified. All could be augmented as well. For instance, the Greek rice could become a complete dinner with the addition of some frozen or fresh spinach. And it would be fine without the dill.
This book has the Search Inside feature, so you can test drive the Greek rice and whatever else strikes your fancy.
I haven't yet seen the much-awaited rice cooker book by Roger Ebert.
So far, of the ones I've seen and worked with a bit, I have to say that Ultimate is the best.
I judge a cookbook by how much it makes me want to jump up and start cooking. My first trip through this didn't have that effect: the first two chapters are kind of tedious, perhaps because so detailed. But 17 pages on rice cookers, followed by more than 40 pages on how to cook every kind of rice you've ever and never heard of,,,well, not inspiring to me.
This time, I looked at chapter 3, which to me makes the book worth its relatively low price: Simple Everyday Rices and LITTLE MEALS. This is the chapter that is of most use to the College Cook and to the harried home cook. Here are some of the ideas: Greek Lemon and Dill Rice with Feta, Mexican Rice and Beans, Chinese Sausage and Rice, Indonesian Rice Bowl.
Some of these are a little multi-step for the College Cook, but all can be simplified. All could be augmented as well. For instance, the Greek rice could become a complete dinner with the addition of some frozen or fresh spinach. And it would be fine without the dill.
This book has the Search Inside feature, so you can test drive the Greek rice and whatever else strikes your fancy.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
A Tale of Two Meal Plans
By Frugal Son
In many ways, I am fan of college dining halls. They offer a convenient, healthy,
and, increasingly, tasty option for students living on or around campus. As dining
halls approach the quality of restaurants, however, prices have followed suit;
all that soft serve ice cream and the lovely fruit arrangements aren’t free! At
some universities, I would hazard a guess and say most, freshman living on
campus are required to purchase a meal plan, and since these can cost upwards
of $1,000 per semester, it definitely pays to do a bit of research. Case in point: At LSU, where I go to college, several meal plans were offered, each with a different amount of meals and “Tiger Bucks” (a cash equivalent that could only be used on campus).
My meal plan was paid for by a scholarship, but even so I wanted to do a little
research on the prices of meal plans. I thought that it should stand to reason
that the bigger the meal plan, the cheaper each individual meal should be;
economy of scale, right? WRONG! The largest meal plan was actually about 50
cents per meal more expensive than one of the middle ones. After noticing this
inconsistency, I decided to delve a little deeper into the devious world of meal
plan pricing. My shocking find was that it was actually CHEAPER to purchase
individual meals and use a “customer loyalty” card—every 11th meal was free—
than even the cheapest of the meal plans.
Flash forward a few years and, finally, the incongruity has been fixed: now
individual meals range from about $5.50 / meal (with the largest meal plan) to
nearly $8 / meal (with the cheapest). Order has been restored to the universe;
however, this goes to show that it can pay to take the time to do some simple
math. Another question you can ask yourself is whether the price of a meal plan
is justified AT ALL. Two meals a day for a school week at $8 / meal comes to
$80…that’s a lot of groceries! The average meal listed in this cookbook requires
only $2.50 of groceries…for two people!
Of course, the convenience, ease, and quality of dining halls—not to mention
that, in my experience, it was a social center—is not to be underestimated, but
by reducing your dependence on them you can save a lot of money and learn a
skill that will serve you well for the rest of your life AND make you a sought after
commodity for your cooking “genius.”
In many ways, I am fan of college dining halls. They offer a convenient, healthy,
and, increasingly, tasty option for students living on or around campus. As dining
halls approach the quality of restaurants, however, prices have followed suit;
all that soft serve ice cream and the lovely fruit arrangements aren’t free! At
some universities, I would hazard a guess and say most, freshman living on
campus are required to purchase a meal plan, and since these can cost upwards
of $1,000 per semester, it definitely pays to do a bit of research. Case in point: At LSU, where I go to college, several meal plans were offered, each with a different amount of meals and “Tiger Bucks” (a cash equivalent that could only be used on campus).
My meal plan was paid for by a scholarship, but even so I wanted to do a little
research on the prices of meal plans. I thought that it should stand to reason
that the bigger the meal plan, the cheaper each individual meal should be;
economy of scale, right? WRONG! The largest meal plan was actually about 50
cents per meal more expensive than one of the middle ones. After noticing this
inconsistency, I decided to delve a little deeper into the devious world of meal
plan pricing. My shocking find was that it was actually CHEAPER to purchase
individual meals and use a “customer loyalty” card—every 11th meal was free—
than even the cheapest of the meal plans.
Flash forward a few years and, finally, the incongruity has been fixed: now
individual meals range from about $5.50 / meal (with the largest meal plan) to
nearly $8 / meal (with the cheapest). Order has been restored to the universe;
however, this goes to show that it can pay to take the time to do some simple
math. Another question you can ask yourself is whether the price of a meal plan
is justified AT ALL. Two meals a day for a school week at $8 / meal comes to
$80…that’s a lot of groceries! The average meal listed in this cookbook requires
only $2.50 of groceries…for two people!
Of course, the convenience, ease, and quality of dining halls—not to mention
that, in my experience, it was a social center—is not to be underestimated, but
by reducing your dependence on them you can save a lot of money and learn a
skill that will serve you well for the rest of your life AND make you a sought after
commodity for your cooking “genius.”
Thursday, July 29, 2010
What is College Cooking Anyway?
College Cooking seems to be a somewhat amorphous term. So let me explain what OTHER PEOPLE mean by College Cooking and then what I mean by it.
If you search the term on Amazon, some cookbooks come up. Here are the first 3:
I randomly selected this recipe: Chicken Tetrazzini, which you can find via the Search Inside feature. This calls for poaching some chicken breasts--in a pot, on a stove. Cooking a pound of spaghetti, in another pot on the stove. Draining both. Cutting up the chicken. Adding some canned soup and mushrooms and other stuff. Then baking in a casserole.
Verdict: several pots, colander, draining, chopping, baking. Big mess.
Here's another:
Another random stroll yields Spinach Quiche-adilla. This involves chopping and sauteeing an onion, adding spinach, adding tomatoes, removing much of the concoction and saving for another use and then scrambling eggs in the remainder. And so on.
Verdict: 1 pot, messy chopping, leftovers, etc.
Our last sample is
This book has similar recipes, but also includes a glossary of college slang, including the "15 minute rule," which means that if your teacher doesn't show up, you can leave after 15 minutes. NOTE: This is apocryphal. There are variations, for instance: you only wait 10 minutes for an Instructor, but 20 minutes for a PhD. Anyway, I'll skip the recipe analysis because you get the idea.
The college-themed cookbooks on the market generally are BEGINNER cookbooks. In that, they are no different from other beginner cookbooks: they provide lengthy pantry and equipment lists, definitions of cooking terms, and other tips. What makes them COLLEGE, besides the title, is the tone.
Still, most of these books assume you have a KITCHEN. WITH A STOVE. Hence the title of a cookbook recommended in a comment:
This is a cute book, by a mother-son duo. It has some helpful "Mom Tips." The recipe for Onion Soup, predictably, calls for chopping and sauteeing onions, adding canned broth and other stuff, and topping with toasted bread and grated cheese.
Verdict again: chop, at least one pot, toaster, etc.
The operative word in all these is STOVE. And KITCHEN. Not all college students have stoves. My daughter, for instance, will be living in a suite with a kitchen area, which has NO STOVE. If she wants a stove, she has to venture down the hall or to another floor, where there is a communal stove. I asked if she would leave to get to the stove: she said "Not unless I have to."
So our ebook will take seriously the situation of the dorm-dweller, for whom a stove is a distant or a non-existent dream.
Why not buy a stove-substitute? Because such appliances are dangerous and often prohibited. Here is the blurb from one college:
No open flame instruments are permitted; this includes charcoal or gas grills, George Foreman-type grilling appliances, candles, toaster ovens and hotplates.
Also, it's hard enough for a so-called adult (like me) to get dinner on the table: shopping, prep, and clean-up are all a major pain. The recipes above are not hard, but they will leave you with multiple things to wash and hands that smell like onions. Oh, and your little kitchen area will smell like onions. And no, you can't use a candle (see above) as an air-freshener.
SO, our ebook will be a no-stove book, with little shopping, little prep, clean-up, or onion-chopping. NO KIDDING.
If you search the term on Amazon, some cookbooks come up. Here are the first 3:
I randomly selected this recipe: Chicken Tetrazzini, which you can find via the Search Inside feature. This calls for poaching some chicken breasts--in a pot, on a stove. Cooking a pound of spaghetti, in another pot on the stove. Draining both. Cutting up the chicken. Adding some canned soup and mushrooms and other stuff. Then baking in a casserole.
Verdict: several pots, colander, draining, chopping, baking. Big mess.
Here's another:
Another random stroll yields Spinach Quiche-adilla. This involves chopping and sauteeing an onion, adding spinach, adding tomatoes, removing much of the concoction and saving for another use and then scrambling eggs in the remainder. And so on.
Verdict: 1 pot, messy chopping, leftovers, etc.
Our last sample is
This book has similar recipes, but also includes a glossary of college slang, including the "15 minute rule," which means that if your teacher doesn't show up, you can leave after 15 minutes. NOTE: This is apocryphal. There are variations, for instance: you only wait 10 minutes for an Instructor, but 20 minutes for a PhD. Anyway, I'll skip the recipe analysis because you get the idea.
The college-themed cookbooks on the market generally are BEGINNER cookbooks. In that, they are no different from other beginner cookbooks: they provide lengthy pantry and equipment lists, definitions of cooking terms, and other tips. What makes them COLLEGE, besides the title, is the tone.
Still, most of these books assume you have a KITCHEN. WITH A STOVE. Hence the title of a cookbook recommended in a comment:
This is a cute book, by a mother-son duo. It has some helpful "Mom Tips." The recipe for Onion Soup, predictably, calls for chopping and sauteeing onions, adding canned broth and other stuff, and topping with toasted bread and grated cheese.
Verdict again: chop, at least one pot, toaster, etc.
The operative word in all these is STOVE. And KITCHEN. Not all college students have stoves. My daughter, for instance, will be living in a suite with a kitchen area, which has NO STOVE. If she wants a stove, she has to venture down the hall or to another floor, where there is a communal stove. I asked if she would leave to get to the stove: she said "Not unless I have to."
So our ebook will take seriously the situation of the dorm-dweller, for whom a stove is a distant or a non-existent dream.
Why not buy a stove-substitute? Because such appliances are dangerous and often prohibited. Here is the blurb from one college:
No open flame instruments are permitted; this includes charcoal or gas grills, George Foreman-type grilling appliances, candles, toaster ovens and hotplates.
Also, it's hard enough for a so-called adult (like me) to get dinner on the table: shopping, prep, and clean-up are all a major pain. The recipes above are not hard, but they will leave you with multiple things to wash and hands that smell like onions. Oh, and your little kitchen area will smell like onions. And no, you can't use a candle (see above) as an air-freshener.
SO, our ebook will be a no-stove book, with little shopping, little prep, clean-up, or onion-chopping. NO KIDDING.
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