The Most Useless Grilled Cheese Ever

Eating in a dining hall for two semesters means I haven't cooked for a year. Today was the first day I actually cooked something for myself and I have two words for you: baby steps. Grilled cheese seemed like an easy and filling way to get back in the cooking game. Before I begin, I should mention that my recipe is terrible for your health and will result in coronary problems for most people.

Ingredients and supplies:

• Two slices of bread, your preference
• A small amount of butter
• Two types of cheese (I used sharp cheddar and mozzarella)
• A preheated frying pan and butter knife

Yeasty cuddling.

Step 1: Butter your muff-- I mean bread slices with a thin layer of butter on one side each.

Step 2: Place your bread butter-side up in your dry pan.

Step 3: Sprinkle or place each cheese on a different slice of bread.

Step 4: Once cheese is melted, place the slices together and cut diagonally.

As you can see, my bread went from blah to BAM and the butter soaked into the toasted bread so it wasn't so dry. You can experiment with other cheeses (brie, provolone, Swiss) and breads (rye, whole wheat) as well as possibly using an herb butter spread on your slices. I definitely prefer using a skillet to a toaster or oven though, as I feel I get better control over how toasted my bread is.

For some interesting grilled cheese, check out this article featuring 25 gourmet recipes.

- Alison

Strawberry Pineapple Mango Rum Cupcakes

We made cupcakes yesterday.  They were wonderful.  Our inspiration came from here.  Ours is a somewhat lazier version, and also without coconut.

Ingredients: 

• Box of strawberry cake mix 
• 3 eggs
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/3 cup mango rum (or whatever fruity flavor rum)
• 2/3 cup leftover pineapple juice and water 
• 1 fruitcup of chopped pineapple (you know, those little Dole fruit cups?) 

This recipe makes 24 cupcakes.


Step 1:  Pour the liquid from the pineapple fruit cup into a measuring cup.  You'll need this later.

Step 2:  Take the pineapple from the fruit cup, put it in a big bowl, and mash away.

Step 3:  Take the measuring cup with the pineapple juice and fill it with water, up until the 2/3 cup line.  Pour it into the bowl


Step 4:  Measure 1/3 cup canola oil and pour it in also.


Step 5:  Measure another 1/3 cup, this time of rum (YUM), and pour this in the bowl too.  It might all look like piss, but it's okay :)

We didn't drink any of the rum,  no of course not...

Step 6:  Add the 3 eggs and cake mix to the bowl.  Mix for 2 minutes, or until you can't see chunks of powder.  It'll still be rather chunky from the pineapple though.

Step 7:  Pour the batter into lined cupcake pans, bake for 20 minutes at 325 degrees, and eat!

Awweee aren't they pretty on the inside?

They turned out really good.  Ugly, but good.  I guess that's why people always cover their cupcakes with icing.  But we didn't want ours to be overly sweet, since it had the sweetened pineapple juice and rum already.  Honestly, the rum was kind of hard to taste...

Proud and perhaps slightly buzzed.