Summer: A Start to Apartment Life

First off, I apologize for not posting for a whole quarter! Spring quarter was extremely busy and I didn't find time to update this blog. I'll do a quick recap of Spring break/last quarter's food adventures sometime soon!

Anyways, I'm staying in the city of angels this summer, and am living in an apartment. One of the things I'm most excited about is having a kitchen and being able to cook for myself! Hopefully that means I'll be able to experiment much more than I am able to in the dorms :)

Yesterday was my first day here. I spent the morning shopping at Trader Joe's. The result:

A cornucopia of food!

Little did I anticipate how heavy this was going to be; I just about broke my back carrying all this back from the store to my apartment!

There are so many simple things that I needed to buy to start off, like salt and pepper, olive oil, and rice...the staples that are oh-so-essential for anything I'll be making! I tried to buy things conducive to quick cooking, because I know that weekdays will be very busy with my internship and classes. Hence the canned foods and pre-cut veggies.

A closer look:

veggies, canned beans, salt/pepper/cumin, canned fish (convenient!)

fruit and grains

I'm not fully stocked yet, but this is a start!

My first meal: lunch

I cooked up some rice pasta and threw it together with olive oil & salt, sliced grape tomatoes, chopped carrots, celery, and onion (bought as a pre-cut stock starter from TJ's....it was so quick and easy!), and chopped turkey breast atop of a bed of mixed greens. This should have been really quick to make, but it took some time figuring out where everything was in the kitchen! 

dinner

I didn't get back from the gym till around 5:15, and by the time I was done showering I was starving! I had planned to make rice or something, but I forgot that it takes about 40 minutes to cook rice. I couldn't wait, so scrapped that idea!

 enter: TJ's steamed lentils:

In the dorms I threw these on top of my salads to make them more substantial. I never ate them hot though, so I decided to try. These are pre-cooked so all I had to do was warm them up by putting the entire package in a pot of boiling water for 5 minutes. I figure that these would serve as my carbs, protein, and fiber for the day!

Of course, I couldn't eat just plain lentils for dinner, (oh, that would be the epitome of a starving college student!!) so I steamed up some baby bok choy and the same carrots, celery, and tomatoes I had for lunch, and mixed it in with the hot lentils

The final dinner turned out pretty good!

Not a bad start for my first day of cooking for myself!