When I first moved out to my apartment this year, I was a little nervous that I might literally die. Now, this wasn’t a safety concern or anything, but I thought I’d die of starvation. I never really learned how to cook meals for myself while living with my parents and I knew I would not be able to live off of snacks for an entire year. I was initially scared to try cooking because I was worried the food would taste bad but after a couple of weeks, I realized that I basically had to teach myself how to cook since not everyone’s food is the same. This is when I began experimenting in the kitchen and found out what some of my favorite foods to cook are.
- Taquitos
Back home my mom always makes taquitos because they’re easy and fast to make. She also makes tomato salsa and lettuce with lemon to eat with the tacos. I had never really done them myself until I moved out and so I began with boiling the tomatoes and while that’s cooking I began to prepare my lettuce. This makes it less time-consuming to do everything. Then right before I finish boiling my tomato I put the frozen taquitos into hot olive oil and begin cooking. In the end, it took me about 20 minutes to make the food. It was pretty full so I enjoyed that.
- Eggs and bagels
Most of the time when I need to make food it’s in the morning, either prior to class or work so I know that I’ll be out for a long time and I need something that will sustain me. Making eggs was probably one of the very first things that I learned and it takes three to five minutes so it was usually my go-to. Then I would just toast my bagel and depending on how hungry I was sometimes I would add something like bacon or avocado.
- Chocolate chip pancakes
I loved pancakes when my mom would make them, so I decided to try it out for myself and see how they turn out. It was not too hard to make and prepare, it was just difficult to make a perfect pancake. I really enjoyed making it, but since it was harder to get the temperature right for it, it would be more of something I cook on weekends.
- Corn on the cob
Making corn is probably one of the easiest things except that it does take time. Many times I boil either one or two corns and it takes about 30-50 minutes for them to cook. During this time I’ll do my homework so that I can be productive, but once it is done I can easily eat it like that, or I can do it like street corn where I add mayonnaise, cotija cheese, and butter. This is very yummy and filling food so I like making it a lot.
These are some of my go-to food choices now that I am no longer living at home. Hopefully, I will begin to learn more advanced recipes as the year goes on so that when I go back home I can have new dishes for my family to try!