But you didn't come here for me to tell you something you already knew, right?
As a teenager, I'll admit, I'm picky. When I was younger, I used to love the carrots, broccoli, and corn that my mom would rotate on the dinner table throughout the week. I was always more a meat and potatoes girl than a salad and fruit kind of girl, but lately it's been getting downright ridiculous to find a meal that I like unreservedly. As in, I can stab my fork in, or scoop up a spoonful and just take a bite without picking things out and placing on the side of the dish to be discarded afterwards. It being winter here, the predominate thing in my house is Cup of Soup, Progresso, Campbells, Ramen Noodles, ect. You get the point. And while I learned some separate tricks to each one of those, a girl can only eat quesadillas and beef Ramen noodles so many times in a week.
As for home cooking, I use already establish recipes that I've watched my mom make throughout my life, and quite a few boxed items. Homemade Angel Hair pasta and Alfredo sauce is just not the same as a box of Pasta Roni's Angel Hair and Herbs. And if something sounds good, but I don't know how to make it, Google, Pintrest, and assorted blogs are my #1 friends.
Bread. It's my Number One weakness, without a doubt. Breadsticks, rolls, croissants, baguettes, french bread, pretzels, biscuits, crescents, sliced bread, toast, you name it, I'll eat 20 of them in 5 minutes.
Dinner Rolls, from HowDoesShe?
School food: Are you kidding me? I mean, are they Trying to poison me? Now, my first elementary school so spoiled me. It was a converted high school, so it had the literal floor to ceiling lockers, not the 5 ft. wannabes in my current high school. They also had a fully equipped kitchen, so lunch every day was a experience. Every Thursday they would do soup and sandwiches. Three weeks out of the month, they did tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, with your choice of milk, fruit, and either pudding or a jello cup. But that one golden week, they would do chicken noodle soup with grilled Ham and Cheese sandwiches, and a cake/pastry of some sort. Ah, heaven on a spoon is too bland a description.
Nowadays, I'm left with filler meat, water gravy (seriously, it's 3 parts water to .25 part mix), "wheat" rolls-I can assure you, that's not wheat. I don't know what it is, but it's not wheat.
Don't even get me started on our pizza. Just because it's now a vegetable doesn't mean you get to skimp on the sauce so that it tastes like I'm eating a brick of cardboard with some circle plastic pieces on top.
The salad? I'm pretty sure that those leaves come from the pile that Sid tracked poo onto in Ice Age. At least the bread sticks that come with it aren't terrible.
The nachos? What I see walking past me on a plate looks what comes out of the wrong end of a Mexican.
1% milk is exactly that: 1% milk, 99% water. I don't even want to know what "chocolate" they use in their chocolate milk.
Shall I continue? Bruised, unripe "fresh" fruit, nasty smelling canned fruit-it seriously smells like something died in there when the poor sweet lunch lady brings out the can to refill the troughs.
The good things? Much smaller list.
The utensils. Those plastic knives are sharp. Surprising, really, but I'm not complaining.
Breakfast: Used to be much better, but still better then lunch. I only like Wednesdays and Fridays. Wednesdays is a breakfast pizza, and Fridays are these really good cinnamon pastry squares-but if they don't have icing on them, you're eating sweetened cardboard that turns your mouth into the Sahara Desert if you didn't grab that 1% milk. They do have these waffle irons that you can make big Belgian waffles with. They're pretty excellent with butter and peanut butter on them, but I also like them soaked in butter and dipping pieces into their syrup.
The servers: My lunch ladies are incredibly sweet and nice, and I always make sure to thank them whenever I grab a plate from the line. As I'm one of three out of 2,300 students to do so, I like to think that I make a small bright spot in their day.
Have I made you hungry yet?
I'll post a few link to some of my favorite recipes, and trust me, they'll be worth your time to try out.
Baked Potato Soup, by LiveALittleWilder:
http://www.livealittlewilderblog.com/2011/09/loaded-potato-soup-recipe.html
Snickerdoodle Muffins, by Eat Me, Delicious:
http://www.eatmedelicious.com/2007/12/snickerdoodle-muffins.html
Monster Cookies, by The Idea Room:
[Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for your addiction to these. And yes, you will eat 12 cookies in five minutes, I promise. :) ]
http://www.theidearoom.net/2012/09/monster-cookie-recipe.html
Double Disclaimer: I don't own any of these images, and I attempted to give credit where credit was due. Feel free to tell me if I missed anything, and I'll rectify it as quickly as possible.
