Back to School... College Edition

Since most college students are heading back to school I thought I would share some easy recipes that you can make in courtesy of your own dorm room! When I was a college freshman I didn't have a car so my grocery options were pretty limited, basically whatever the school "convenience store" sold. All the recipes I included are items that you should be able to buy right on campus!

I thought I would start with two dorm room staples, Ramen Noodles & Mac and Cheese.

1) Mac & Cheese 

Yes, this is actually homemade instead of from the box, but trust me it's super easy & so much better with actual cheddar cheese and not the artificial cheese from the box.
Picture & Recipe Courtesy of: babble.com

2) Ramen Noodle Upgraded

Upgrade your average ramen noodles with a yummy sauce, which is simply peanut butter, soy sauce and sriracha! Want some other easy meal upgrade ideas? check out Buzzfeeds "14 Easy meal Upgrades For Impossibly Lazy Cooks"
Picture & Recipe Courtesy of: MarthaStewart.com

Of course, I also had to include some microwave dessert recipes as well. I wish I had found these when I was in college! Most weeknights in college I ate dinner around 6-6:30 and then around 8 I would get hungry and want something sweet so these would have been perfect!! Also, great to know about to get you through those all-nighters :) All three recipes shown below are from The Caking Girl, so make sure to check out her blog for these recipes and some more mug cake recipes ideas as well.

3) Chocolate Brownie Mug Cake Recipe

Super rich chocolate brownie cake. I didn't mix enough so got random bites of flour and sugar, which wasn't great, but overall definitely a great way to satisfy your sweet tooth. If you have a smaller mug like mine I recommend cutting the recipe in half since it was too much for my mug. I also combined the ingredients for the self-rising flour in a mason jar and kept the flour in my cupboard for whenever I wanted to make another mug cake.


4) Confetti/Rainbow Sprinkles Mug Cake

I haven't tried this recipe yet, but looked so pretty I just had to share.
Picture courtesy of: The Caking Girl


5) S'More Mug Cake

I was on a s'mores kick and had tons of extra mini marshmallows and graham crackers so I made this S'mores mug cake. I had the same issues i listed above so I'll try again making 1/2 the recipe.

Good Eats Review: Earl's Beer & Cheese

As I have mentioned previously you will be hearing a lot about TimeOut NY's 50 best cheap eats in NYC list. A little while ago my friend Audrey and I discussed compiling different New York City best of "cheap eats" lists  into one document and combing through them to create a master list of the restaurants we really want to try, sort of like a cheap eats bucket list. I compiled the TimeOut NY's list with Eater's cheap eats nyc map, The Infatuation's cheap eats recommendations,  a great website I highly recommend checking out and started by a fellow Ithaca grad :), GrubHub's 101 Best (New) Cheap Eats, Ranked and Refinery 29's article "When it Comes to Cheap Eats, NYC is King" into one google doc that I shared with Audrey.

We decided that Earl's Beer & Cheese, located on the upper east side would be the first place we would check off our bucket list. The restaurant is tiny and very easy to miss because of the subtle signage. Even though the space is small it's very cozy and definitely a nice suitable option for dinner with friends.  Earl's Beer & Cheese is extremely casual and laid back. You order your drinks and food at the bar, find a place to sit and the food is brought out to you. Audrey and I both got a Sixpoint brewery beer, we each got an order of Mac & Cheese and shared an Earl's taco, everything was absolute perfection! The Mac & Cheese was made with rigatoni, creamy goat cheese and rosemary. The goat cheese coated the rigatoni perfectly and created a mac & cheese that was rich, but not overly cheesy. I was most excited to try the Earl's Taco, which was a scallion pancake shell, with pulled pork, cheese, cabbage and garnished with cilantro and a slice of lime. I thought this was such a clever idea. scallion pancakes and pulled pork are two of my all time favorite foods so to me combining them together was genius.

Overall, we had a lovely evening and I would definitely recommend Earl's Bar & Cheese to anyone looking for craft beer and bar menu with unique twists on everyone's favorite comfort foods such as: Grilled Cheese, Mac & Cheese and even tomato soup. We were so full we didn't have room for dessert, but I would definitely want to go back to try there bread pudding. On our way out Audrey pointed out another cocktail lounge right next door, which she said she thinks is owned  by the same people, so that's definitely something else I would like to go back and check out.

I was so enamored by the scallion pancake pulled pork taco that I wanted to figure out a way to recreate it in my own kitchen. Luckily, it was very easy to pull off because Trader Joe's has all the necessary ingredients: scallion pancakes, pulled pork, Mexican cheese, slice of lime, cilantro and I altered mine and added guacamole. Once you have all the ingredients the taco is super easy to make. I heated the pulled pork in the microwave and sautéed the frozen scallion pancake in a pan with a little bit of vegetable oil for 4 minutes (2 minutes on each side). Once the scallion pancake was cooked I added the rest of the ingredients, pulled pork, cheese, cilantro, lime slice and guacamole on top. An easy, but super impressive appetizer or main course. This would also be a fun appetizer to serve when entertaining.