By HILLARY LANDSMAN
This is the first year I am cooking for myself. Surprisingly, I have been waiting for the chance to prove myself as a chef for a while now. As a matter of fact, when I was little, I told my mom that I wanted to be a “jeff” (chef) when I grew up (my speech impairments are now better). While my extremely specific dream job still might be to own a world-traveling-vegan-cupcake-food-truck, my interests have diverted to more of the physiological effects of food on humans (a.k.a. nutrition). After reading and watching a plethora of food blogs, I came to the sudden conclusion that 1) I wanted to start a food blog, and 2) I’d be an awesome collegiate foodie.
The first few days of cooking went pretty well; driving off to the beautiful Wegmans, choosing my own ingredients, pretending I knew what I was doing … and of course calling my mom every five minutes to make sure I didn’t burn down my apartment. By the end of the first week I realized that I didn’t have my family’s spice cabinet at my disposal, and I couldn’t possibly buy enough ingredients to have an interesting meal every night. Erasing my previous conclusions, I realized that 1) I probably shouldn’t start a food blog and 2) I am a terrible foodie, but I am pretty great at pretending!
Before you stop and think, “Why the heck am I reading a food blog written by a bad cook,” let me explain why I think you should stick with me.
In this blog, I will take one ingredient and tell you about its benefits, along with some fun facts and a recipe. Here we go:
As my friends, roommates and anyone who’s been in my room can tell you, I have developed a recent obsession with bananas. The origins of said obsession are most likely a strange combination of one of my best friend’s love for the fruit, and watching an embarrassingly large amount of videos by raw food bloggers. I currently have six bunches of bananas in my room, so I have done some research on them to share with you:
Although famous for their source of potassium, bananas are also great fruits for Vitamin B6, fiber, vitamin C and manganese. Bananas are often looked down upon for their high amounts of starch and calories relative to other fruits, but this resistant starch, according to a study done at Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, actually increases post-meal fat-burning. Additionally, bananas have cardiovascular and digestive benefits.
My favorite thing about vegan cooking and baking is that none of the ingredients can harm you if you do something wrong! Also, as you’ll realize by looking at these recipes, I usually just throw things in and hope it turns out for the best, so here they go:
Cinnamon Baked Bananas
In a failed effort to make banana chips, I bring you sweet, crispy and delicious banana slices.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Banana Ice Cream/yogurt
This one actually turned out as expected!
Ingredients:
Directions:
This can also be eaten unfrozen for more of a yogurt-like consistency.
Two-Ingredient Banana Cookies
Ingredients:
Directions:
That’s all for now, and I hope you enjoyed my first post! Cooking in college can be tedious and boring, and grabbing CTB is a lot easier, but by changing up the way you prepare your foods, you can save a lot of money and still have variety in your diet! Cooking, aside from being an awesome way to procraste, actually makes you feel better! Psychologists tend to believe that this is because of the repetitive and non-stressful structured environments. So next time you think, “What the heck are chiral molecules and when will this have any relevance in my life,” go bake some cupcakes, dream of owning a traveling food truck and then get back to work.
Here are some fun, unproven “facts” about bananas that you probably don’t need to know, but that might come in handy one day: