Cooking and Baking Squee

I've been on hiatus while midterms happened. My last one was last Friday, and I've been on break ever since. I'm staying at my dad's house, where I had books from B&N delivered, and finished two books in three days. A couple days ago I decided to cook dinner for the house because I got a craving for a friend's chili recipe, and she kindly gave it to me.

I started that morning with reading the recipe, making a list of ingredients for the chili and for chocolate chip cookies, and searching the kitchen for necessary items. We had everything for baking except chocolate chips, and about half of the things I needed for the chili.

I even managed to go shopping and be back at the house by 12:30 in the afternoon, which made me feel extremely accomplished. This was my first time planning a fairly complex meal and shopping for it without input from parents or other more experienced adults.

Cookies, which I've made many times before, came next. Everyone who had one went back for more and sang praises, which made me really happy. I use the Tollhouse recipe with a few modifications: add slightly less vanilla extract than the recipe calls for (I just discovered that the fake stuff tastes just fine), don't add nuts, and use a bag of Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips, plus ~1/4 bag of some other kind of chocolate chips, in this case Hershey's dark chocolate. When I first started making these, I would add some extra choc. chips I had just for the hell of it, and discovered that I like having two different kinds of chocolate chips in the mix for varied flavor.

Later on, I started the (mild) chili, and actually managed to time it so that it was done more or less when people were ready to eat. I split the recipe my friend gave me between two pots so that I ended up with one pot of vegetarian chili and one pot of meat chili sans corn to account for various dietary needs. (I, for example, try to keep kosher-by-ingredient, especially when I'm cooking, and like to add cheese to my chili, so I needed the vegetarian one. Other people in this house *coughdadcough* won't eat a vegetarian meal, so I also needed a meat pot.) My step-mother told my aunt while they were at work that I was making chili, so my aunt showed up for dinner, too. Luckily, the chili made enough for a group--though by the time dinner was over, all of the meat chili was gone, and there was barely any veggie chili left, either.

I am well satisfied with how both pots of chili turned out, especially since it seemed like everyone loved it who tried it, including those of us who are picky about chili (myself included).

The best part? This was the most complex recipe I've ever cooked (I've had more difficult/more involved baking recipes, but that's a different skill set), and I did almost all of it by myself. The exception being, I had to ask how to peel the onion because I'd never done it before. I did the prep work, including chopping and cutting, I kept an eye on both pots and managed not to screw up the order I did things in even though the two pots had slightly different instructions and were cooking at slightly different rates, and I did the final taste-testing.

It's amazing how different the starting products looked than how the final product looked. I'm so excited! Further proof that I need to start cooking for myself more often...

Snacks

In the last however many months I've identified a few snacks for when my mouth gets dry, and I'm hungry. It takes some searching, but there are a few things I love and a few things that work (not necessarily overlapping).

First up, Sugar-Free Lifesavers. I'm a fan of the Wintergreen flavor, and as a plus, it's the sugar-free my rheumatologist told me to find to prevent more dental decay. The down side? They have a strong odor, such that anyone within a few feet of me can smell the mint.

Second, gummy snacks. Lately I've been buying Annie's Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks, which are high-quality, very juicy, and not overly sweet or anything else. Of course, before looking them up just now, I didn't actually know what they cost; I buy them with my university meal plan from one of their to-go kiosks. I'm hoping I'll be able to a) find them and b) afford them when I graduate.

Third, ice cream or similar things. I love cakes and brownies, and all those yummy snacks. But they don't help my dry mouth at all and in fact tend to use up most of the moisture in my mouth within a few bites unless they're really moist. Instead, after meals I go for ice cream of some kind, provided the cafeteria has a flavor I like. A scoop or two of ice cream does very well for rounding out whatever dry food I might have eaten for dinner. As long as it's not super-creamy, like cookies and cream, anyways.

The major downside to all of these things is that I suspect it would cost a lot of money if I paid for these things in cash on a regular basis. During school breaks, I tend to be SOL on most of the things I eat regularly; I compensate with a LOT of water. 

Does anyone else out there have dry mouth? What do you do for it?

At my mother's house

[General TW for talk of uncomfortable family stuff, violation of personal space, and some discussion of medical symptoms]

Hello all! It's been a while, hasn't it? I've been busy, for a while. I had finals last week into Monday, because of an extension. I don't have grades yet, but the semester is done, at least. I drove home on Sunday after successfully closing my building.

It's an even bigger adjustment coming home this winter than usual. My alcoholic/abusive step-father finally left, after my mom kicked him out. That, of course, messed up family finances, and the end result is that my uncle is now my mother's roommate, which means I don't have a room anymore. My mother offered her bed, and I'm leaving most of my belongings in her room, but I'm sleeping on the couch because I am not comfortable sharing a bed, particularly with my mother, and to top it off she snores. The first night I tried sleeping in her room, I woke up at 4am to snoring and couldn't fall back to sleep until I moved to the couch.

Since I'm sleeping on the couch, and the couch is in the living room where everyone hangs out, I have to wait for my mom and uncle to go to bed, and then kick my brother out of the living room. I have no idea why he's been here every night until after everyone goes to bed. He just stays and uses his phone and iPod. It's weird to me that people spend as much time playing games and chatting on their phones as I do on my computer, which I *think* has more functions on it? But a side-effect of all this is that I don't feel ... secure... in the house. The outside door isn't locked until my brother leaves for his apartment, which is usually after I fall asleep (usually after midnight, which I'm not terribly happy about). I'm also used to two locked doors between me and my electronics and the outside world.

And now for something completely different (food related)

My mother is making a beef meal for our family holiday get-together, and wants me to come up with a side-dish I can eat with it. I can't remember what she said she was making, other than that it was beef instead of ham, which I don't like and can't eat.

Does anyone have suggestions for a parve (non-dairy, non-meat) side dish? Preferably something relatively uncomplicated to make; I'll probably be making it and I have fairly minimal* cooking experience.

The only thing I'm coming up with is salad, which, cool, I love salad, but need to start figuring these kinds of things out anyways before I graduate, so I would love suggestions.

*I can make basics like pasta, red sauce, eggs, soups, stews, salads etc. but don't know a lot of cooking techniques.

ETA: In relation to the post just before this, an added request if possible: Suggestions for non-dairy/parve side dishes that aren't dry would be even more helpful.

Thanks to anyone who responds!