The Simplest Dinner

    Hello everyone this blog will be much lighter than previous ones. This previous year at college I lived on campus in a dorm. Alongside the dorm package was a meal plan, and with the meal plan, was eating like garbage. 

    Panda Express, Habit Burger, Halal Shack, Oggis. Processed foods, oil, hardly any vegetables. A few months in I was essentially a bloated mess eating all of this food on campus. I was afraid of cooking for myself for a simple reason, I am spending my own money. With the meal plan I ate comfortably, and didn't want to not spend any money. I was already paying tuition for this year, and if I didn't use the meal plan, I was losing money in my eyes. However, my body told me otherwise, this feels horrible. 

    The simple solution was to cook for myself, and choose where to eat better on campus. Instead of an extra serving of orange chicken at Panda I would get broccoli instead. Cut the drink and fries from the Habit Burger order. Load up on spinach and lettuce at halal shack. But the repetitive meals bored me, eating the same old food over and over again blands the taste buds, at least for me, so I decided to start cooking more meals for myself. As such, I am going to share a simple stir-fry/fajita meal that I made plenty of times.

    Sausage, bell peppers, onions, and rice

    A champion's dinner, it was a simple meal that could be prepared in 30 minutes. To quickly highlight it:

1. Wash the rice and set it on the rice cooker to cook while everything is cooking.

2. Chop the onions and bell peppers into strips, set these on the pan first to cook and potentially caramelize if you so wish.

3. Chop the sausages and add it to the vegetable mix after they have been cooked to your personal preference. 

    That is it. 

    A super simple meal, I ate it more times than I could imagine! My favorite variant however had more spice to it than the simple ingredients that I listed. 

    Sausage Variance

    My personal preference for shopping for my ingredients when I was on campus was Trader Joe's(for obvious reason). But every time I bought ingredients I would always switch up what I bought. For sausages I started with Sweet Apple Chicken Sausage, but the mix with the bell peppers and onions made it too sweet for me. Eventually I landed upon the Jalapeno sausages, and that was the best choice for me, however, who knows what can come your way! Beyond that, I decided to also move on to using sauces as well. On a trip with a friend I came across a sauce store, a store dedicated to selling only sauces, be it hot sauce, simmer sauces, marinating sauces. I bought a chipotle based one which ended up being amazing, so the world of sausage, bell pepper, and onion is much larger than you think! And for the really hardcore participants, an egg cooked over easy one top of the rice is the best move you could make.

    To wrap up, I just want to let people know that cooking is much easier than you can believe, and it can be a big help for the wallet as well! A great help for me was actually watching Youtube videos for inspiration, and a personal favorite of mine is this! A classic for many people, but his videos really did help me understand what cooks well together, and most of all, what tastes best together. I encourage you to check out Gordon's channel after this and see if you can't find your next big meal.