My first quarter recipes | Photo Gallery

 

Coming into my 2nd year at Santa Cruz I now live off campus with no dining hall plan. It's time to cook and make food or be eating chipotle every day or some combination of both. I remember before moving in all I knew was how to make steak and like really basic stuff and I thought I was screwed. I envisioned myself using the air fryer every day or getting chipotle every day or grubhubbing a lot but turns out things went a lot differently. 

SO yeah I made a photo gallery last year of dining hall meals, now is my photo gallery of my meals for this 1st quarter again. You can kind of see the progression in my recipes as the quarter goes, and I still am just moderate at cooking, I don't have a signature dish or anything, I can't make anything too elaborate, but I can definitely get away with like most meals and everything. 

9/23 Dinner = Steak + Broccoli 

Wow I remember when I first moved in and everything man everything just felt so different and 陌生, but we went to trader joes this day and we bought steak, frozen foods, seasonings, oils, sponge, brocolli florets where they already cut it in a bag. And a lot of other stuff I forgot what else but yeah my first meal was this steak and I cooked the brocolli in the leftover steak oils and then air fried some of the fries. First time using an air fryer too I remember I thought it would be super complicated but its so simple. Also there's a photo of me cooking an egg for breakfast and it's just this bare egg in a pan it's so sad LMAO 

9/24 Lunch = Kungpao Chicken

This one I just followed the directions on the bag, it was the trader joes kungpao chicken with peanuts and sauce and its really good. Put some ricein with it very simple meal

9/24 Dinner = Pasta

You know I dont even remember making this maybe i did it with my roommate but its ground beef + pasta + sauce, u can see I added too much sauce. Another very simple meal you cant go wrong with pasta the sauce was kinda bad tho it was this like creamy alfredo sauce or something

9/29 Lunch = Steak

I don't know why I took a 5 day break from taking photos I went to eat out a couple of times but I think this was a Sunday after gym where I just seared a trader joes steak. Air fried some fries too the waffle fries were really good, airfrying fries is such a goto you just pour the frozen fries and its so good lmao

10/1 Breakfast = Eggs

This was like the second day of class I woke up early and made eggs for breakfast cuz I was bored. You can see I didn't slowcook it with the heat on low and the egg is pretty cooked and not creamy. It's still good tho but yeah cool to see

10/7 Lunch = Brocolli, Egg, rou si

This is like my childhood favorite dish that my mom makes and its just brocolli egg and pork strips and its so good and so simple when my mom already prepares the strips for me to take back whenever I go home for the weekend. I added some rice and some seasonings and soysauce and it is so good

10/8 = Ravioli & Pasta

This meal was pretty good it was carried by the ravioli from costco, i just boiled it with pasta and on the pan I cooked up some chicken breast, then combined it with tomato sauce & garlic.

10/9 = Dumplings

My mom made some dumplings for me to boil and here it was its the same as boiling anything else. You do have to stir a bit more often tho and its cool seeing them float up. You can see I kinda messed up tho as a lot of them were broken

10/10 Lunch = air fried sausage

This one isn't my proudest I just threw some fries sausage and brocolli in the air fryer and called it a day I think I was in a rush or just lazy.

10/11 Lunch = Tacos ground beef

First time making tacos it was this jar of like those chip dip salsas and then ground beef, cheese, avocado, and heated tortillas. Nothing special but it was pretty good honestly tacos are so good even if u suck at cooking they will taste good

10/11 Dinner = Sausage egg brocolli

Here I used some sausage from costco and they kinda suck I think this was the last time I ate them but I also threw in some egg and brocolli you can see brocolli is a reliable role player you just throw them in and its good.

10/13 Dinner = Steak

You can see I didn't go easy I ate a lot that dinner and it was so good man you just can't go wrong with steak.

10/15 Dinner = Chicken + Ravioli + Pasta

Pretty good I added some seasonings and tomato and onion too

10/17 Dinner = Brocolli egg rou si again

10/17 Dinner = Also made grilled cheese

10/18 Lunch = Meatballs & Zucchini

I bought some zucchini from trader joes and its pretty good sided with ikea meatballs which are good

10/18 Dinner = Tacos + Pictured Quesadilla

10/19 Lunch = Taquitos

Frozen taquitos from safeway that I just threw in the air fryer. Added two brocolli, i was in rush to class that day

10/19 = Orange Chicken + Zuchini

Trader Joes orange chicken and added some corn and zuchini, really good

10/20 Dinner = fried rice

10/22 Dinner = Steak + zucchini + egg

Really good cooking the leftover beef oils in the vegetables and egg

10/24 Lunch = rou si + vegetables on rice

I just combined the rou si with a bunch of vegetables and called it a meal and it was good

10/28 Lunch = These sandwich things with man tou that I improvised

10/28 = TJ Orange chicken & rice + vegetables

10/30 Dinner = Tacos & grilled cheese, really good

10/31 Dinner = dumplings

11/1 Lunch = Seared leftover dumplings really good

i think its called pot stickers actually idk how to say it in english but u just sear the leftover dumpling

11/1 Dinner = Dumplings + pictured Avocado grilled cheese

11/1 Dinner = Another photo of everything, that grilled cheese was so good

11/3 Dinner = fried rice

with tomatoes this time

11/3 Dinner = leftover fried rice + egg

I like it when the egg yolk is runny like that u just have to like low heat it

11/4 Dinner = Butter baste steak

I always see people basting their steak and for me it turned out horrible idk theres prob a lot of factors but like my steak just got burnt and alsothe inside wasnt evenly cooked idk but it was cool trying it out for the first time

11/4 Dinner result

11/5 Lunch = Leftover steak at library

11/6 Lunch = simple egg rou si and brocolli

11/7 Lunch = ravioli with tomatoes and peppers

11/11 Dinner = steak + rice + veggies at the library

11/12 Dinner = He zi directly cooked in the pan (my mom bao'd it :D)

11/13 Lunch = Steak + rice + others

11/15 Dinner = chicken fried rice

Really good I soaked the chicken with like salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika, olive oil, lemon juice, and even like honey I just threw random sht at it lmao and then the fried rice i just put random stuff in there too a lot of frozen veggies and seasonings and day old rice

11/17 Lunch = Chicken stir fry or whatever

11/17 Lunch = additoinal pics

11/19 dinner = Leftover potsticks + more rice stuff

idk why i didnt take photos of them until they were leftovers but yeah i missed a lot of meals this quarter its fine tho

11/20 lunch = steak + the usual

11/25 lunch = TJ orange chicken + friends

11/26 lunch = rou si + friends

12/3 Lunch = ravioli + friends

12/3 Dinner = fried rice with chicken

12/4 lunch = hun dun from mom

12/4 night snack = air fryer s'mores

i had leftover halloween candy that i never passed out and so i bought marshmallows and graham crackers i saw this idea on youtube shorts. I just put these in for like 2 minutes and then it tastes like ur classic smores really good

12/5 dinner = leftovers + grilled cheese

idk what the leftovers were cuz i already ate it before i took the photo bruh lmao

12/6 lunch = tacos

these tacos i bought like the higher quality fresh salsa from safeway and it was just so good its probably my proudest meal even though its so simple

12/6 dinner = pork rou si fried rice

12/7 lunch = leftovers + grilled cheese

you see here i never take photos of dumplings until it becomes leftovers idk why

12/8 dinner = chicken fried rice

12/9 dinner = tacos

i used up the rest of the salsa here

12/9 dinner = extra photos (used up avocado on grilled cheese)

12/11 lunch = back home!! 

And that concludes this long photo gallery! What I can say is that it definitely exceeded my expectations, I was expecting a lot of eating out this quarter but I only did so like once a week or a bit more and they were spontaneous trips too. I also grub hub'd a total of one time. You can see the bulk of my meals are like fried rice, orange chicken, pork rou si, steak, and chicken. And then theres occasional pasta or taco or other stuff. Home cooked food is honestly really good, like just looking at these photos like these are some really good meals that feel nostalgic like when I see those orange chicken or steak meals like i do think "dang that was fire" and yeah next quarter I'm hoping to expand on this I wanna maybe do like restaurant style stir-fry where they use a lot of oil or like soups or like pancakes idk just get better.

I've also been making smoothies a lot, ive found my go-to is just the costco triple berry + banana makes a great base. Othertimes you can do like a chocolate one with chocolate protein powder or acai smoothie or lemon strawberry smoothie, etc.

So that will wrap up my first quarter recipes photo gallery, be on the lookout for my first quarter wrap-up post!

Lyric(s) of the Post: 

Zedd, John Mayer - Automatic Yes