Cooking?

[meridionale]

Do any of you enjoy cooking? I've started to get into it as I feel like I should as a woman raised in the south. I made a banana nut cake with sweet cream cheese icing from a recipe my grandmother passed on to me yesterday. Dang that thing was great! I was suprised at how well it turned out, but I am a pretty good baker. I want to learn how to grill and cook meat correctly.

[rising_star]

I'm terrified about having to cook for myself next year. *sigh* You'd think I would've learned how to cook at some point in life but no.

[pistolwink]

I'm looking at eight years of making a pot of bean soup every Sunday and reheating the leftovers each evening of the rest of the week.

Yay.

[Guest guest]

Oh, I can't cook. I lived with my dad mostly until I was 16 and then I lived with my grandparents and they always went out to eat and I ate at the fast food restaurant i worked at.

There are about 2 things I can cook and about 2 things my husband can cook so we'll be having a lot of spaghetti and grilled chicken. he can cook hamburgers and breakfast food, but that's kind of nasty.

But at the same time I'm looking forward to not being on a meal plan anymore! I loooooove vegetables and of course I can dump frozen veggies into a pot and boil them. The veggies at my dining hall are always soaked in butter. I hate butter! I'll see peas or carrots from the distance and be like "yes, finally some good looking vegetables!" but i get closer and they are drenched in butter! sometimes they have good green beans. I keep frozen vegetables at my future-husband's house and when i visit him, I'll have a huge plate of peas, green beans, corn, and carrots and potatoes--that's it--for dinner. Well, I'm going to be on a frozen vegetable kick for a few months I'm sure. That's a good thing-veggies are healthy (when they aren't soaked in butter).

Hopefully I'll learn to cook some other things soon too. I just hope I have enough time to cook! I don't know how hard my grad program's going to be yet.

[meridionale]

Oh, I can't cook. I lived with my dad mostly until I was 16 and then I lived with my grandparents and they always went out to eat and I ate at the fast food restaurant i worked at.

There are about 2 things I can cook and about 2 things my husband can cook so we'll be having a lot of spaghetti and grilled chicken. he can cook hamburgers and breakfast food, but that's kind of nasty.

But at the same time I'm looking forward to not being on a meal plan anymore! I loooooove vegetables and of course I can dump frozen veggies into a pot and boil them. The veggies at my dining hall are always soaked in butter. I hate butter! I'll see peas or carrots from the distance and be like "yes, finally some good looking vegetables!" but i get closer and they are drenched in butter! sometimes they have good green beans. I keep frozen vegetables at my future-husband's house and when i visit him, I'll have a huge plate of peas, green beans, corn, and carrots and potatoes--that's it--for dinner. Well, I'm going to be on a frozen vegetable kick for a few months I'm sure. That's a good thing-veggies are healthy (when they aren't soaked in butter).

Hopefully I'll learn to cook some other things soon too. I just hope I have enough time to cook! I don't know how hard my grad program's going to be yet.

You must have such a great body! I work out 5 days a week, but I love sweats, so I don't know how much good working out does.

[Guest guest]

You must have such a great body! I work out 5 days a week, but I love sweats, so I don't know how much good working out does.

Actually, quite the opposite. I eat decently healthy (unless chips are around! Can't resist those suckers so I don't buy them. I can resist chocolate, cake, and cookies, but not chips!), but I'm pretty overweight...actually, right on the border between "overweight" and "obese". Bad genes i guess. everyone in my family struggles with it. but I think that it will help to escape this meal plan.

Also this year I've gotten much better about going to the gym regularly (before I just had to work so much that I couldn't motivate myself to go very often). I go to the gym 3-5 times per week now and I've lost 12 pounds! Hopefully I can keep that up in grad school.

It's really frustrating because my future-husband is also very heavy, but he eats so much and he never exercises or eats veggies! I know I'm much healthier and will live much longer. Kind of sad. :roll:

[Debating]

I look forward to being able to cook my own meals... I'm really good at cooking, I don't quite know when or how I picked it up.

meridionale... good for you for working out that much. I did strength training and running 5 times a week last summer but as soon as the semester started other things took priority (like work, study, school, work, study, work, 4 hrs of sleep). I hope I'll have a lot more time for myself in grad school than now (how sad is that). :cry:

[meridionale]

Gah tell me about it!! When I was an undergrad at the beginning of my senior year, I had to wake up at 5:15am to go work out. I had panhellenic meetings, sorority meetings, senate meetings, exec meetings, class, office hours for greek life, order of omega work, and philanthropy work. If I didn't get up that early, I couldn't fit in a work out. And if I didn't work out, I would feel guilty about eating. I hate being a woman (well...sometimes ).

[Guest LuvUSC]

Yum Banana Nut Cake...please share the recipe. Imma Southern girl too. Banana pudding, homemade spaghetti, biscuits, turkey and homemade dressing (no boiled eggs), meatloaf, roast with bell peppers and mushrooms...I can do little something something...I might be spoiling my roommates...lol

[PETRAL6]

wow overscheduled. I thought I was. Isn't all that other stuff a workout?

[Bianca]

the thing I fear the most about moving to the US is food. where I come from there are always fresh vegetables out of someone's garden on my table and I don't even know how frozen vegetables taste like. and I basically live on fruits and vegetables (and sometimes chicken, again, from my grandmother's backyard). plus I can't cook, my girlfriend has been doing all the cooking for many years now, so I've no idea what I'll eat. fast food is not an option, mcdonalds and everthing like it makes me sick. how expensive is organic food compared to the regular stuff?

everyone from my country that has spent a year or more in the US has gained weight, significantly, even with working out regularly. so I'm terrified...

[PETRAL6]

yeah, organically grown vegetables are pretty expensive. In general eating healthy tends to be more expensive sadly.

[Debating]

Trader Joe's (mostly organic grocery store) usually has lower prices than Whole Foods (another organic store, madly expensive). These are the only two I know that are more popular, but there are always local farms if you're in a rural area. I gained about 20-25 lb when I came to the U.S. and never really lost them, but I was underweight so in my case that worked out well. I only know a couple of people who didn't gain weight (and I know a lot of foreigners), and it seems to only depend on their metabolism, regardless or workout regimes (sorry :?).

[Guest Quantas]

I'm pretty worried about my kids. They are allergic to milk, fish and eggs and I wonder if there will be enough healthy stuff for them to eat in the US. Where I come from we have lots of beans and lentils of all varieties not to mention the abundance of fruit and other veggies all year round. . It seems that it is pretty expensive adopting a vegan lifestyle in the US. Any pointers from vegans?

[PETRAL6]

Actually, my best friend is a vegagn. I myself, addicted to dairy and like meat sometimes. She is a college student and eats ALOT and seems to get by alright. However, she is on a meal plan at the school and so she gets a lot of sald and tofu based foods from the school. Over the summer, it got either pretty expensive or unhealthy. She either had a balanced diet and it kind of broke the bank or she ate pasta and had to take a lot of vitamins (also semi-pricy and not as good as getting it from food). If you live in a bigger city, there are more vegan options and you may be able to find a decently inexpensive vegan or vegetarian food store. If you live outside of a big city, you may have more difficulties. Except, if you live in a rural area, maybe pretty cheap farm markets. If you all are vegan, it makes it a little easier, because you can cook for more than one person. Cooking for one person gets to be a pain in the ass.

[DespSeekPhd]

You do not have to gain weight if you move to the US. We eat tons of fresh veggies - they may not be out of a garden, but produce in the grocery store is almost as good. We eat red meat perhaps 4-6 times a month. People who gain weight when they come to the US or start living on their own usually do so because they're eating too much junk food. Man, I don't even BUY junk food. My son's friends' parents complain all the time about how they can't get their kids to stop eating so much junk food. Um, don't buy it? I've seen them at the grocery store - half the cart is chips, pop, cookies - they're always shocked at my cart. Fruit, veggies, a little chicken, fish, pasta, milk and juice. Done.

My favorite cooking magazine is Cooking Light. I highly recommend it. I've never been overweight in my life (high metabolism - lucky me!), but all the meals are really healthy and really good. I'm Italian, so I grew up cooking, and now I just collect new recipes. Wish my husband cooked sometimes to give me a break, though...

[chebi]

I just finished a MA and I gained like 10 lbs. from not having time to exercise and eat well. If you can eat well and exercise in grad school then you are awesome, but there are some days where you will get home from teaching and studying and writing papers and so forth that you will just want to crash on your bed, watch the daily show, and eat microwaved quesadillas. I've probably had time to really cook from scratch 5 meals in the past 2 years. The rest has been ramen, tv dinners, turkey sandwiches, and salads, but mostly ramen and tv dinners.