46 CommentsThis week on Cooking with Bwog we bring you a special two-week grocery list and meal plan. Use it well. If you have ideas to add variety, please add them to the comment thread.
The Menu
Breakfast
Oatmeal with raisins, brown sugar, milk, fresh fruit
Cereal with milk and bananas
Toast with peanut butter and a glass of milk
Lunch
Salads: lettuce, broccoli, carrots, celery, raisins, nuts, other veggies, articoke hearts
Dressing (if you don’t have it)
Pasta: get two textures so you don’t get bored, red sauce, and parmesan cheese.
Sandwiches: wheat bread, deli meats, lettuce, tomato, cheese, tuna, portobello mushrooms, and roasted bell peppers. Try doing a grilled cheese sandwich: butter the outsides of the bread and put the cheese on the inside. Cook in a skillet with a lid on it on medium heat.
Omelets: see here for ideas
The rest of the menu and a comprehensive grocery list after the jump….
Dinner
Polenta and Broccoli
(microwave 1/4 cup of corn meal with 1 cup water for 2 minutes). Serve with shredded cheese and pasta sauce.
Side of broccoli: cut up and sautee with crushed garlic and butter
Rice, Beans and Veggies
Rice: make it in a large batch at the beginning of the week and refrigerate. To reheat, add a bit of water and microwave for a minute or until warm.
Beans: buy in cans. Goya brand is cheapest. Try black beans, lentils, or garbanzo beans.
Veggies: canned/frozen or just sautee some fresh ones with butter until soft. Or eat a salad.
Snacks
Granola bars, oatmeal, salads, carrot sticks with peanut butter, fruit, a can of soup
Grocery List
Breakfast
Oatmeal – buy the large canister, it will last a long time
raisins (use for salads too)
brown sugar
cereal – one box per week if you alternate with oatmeal, otherwise buy three boxes
peanut butter
milk – buy what will fit in your fridge. It should last two weeks, but be careful!
fruit – apples will last the longest. Grapes, plums, peaches will go bad if you don’t eat them in a week. Bananas will last only a few days. Do a fruit and veggie run next weekend if you can.
Salad
Lettuce – two heads per week. Store them in dry plastic bags so they stay fresh.
Broccoli – one stalk should last if you eat the whole thing (including the stem)
Carrots – cheaper if you buy the big ones, cuter if you buy the little ones
Celery
Dressing – get something you like a lot since it will last a while
Nuts
Other veggies and toppings if you want them (canned corn is yummy!)
Pasta
2 types of pasta – linguine and shells
2 pre-made pasta sauces – vodka, garlic, and garden veggies are the best (use on polenta too)
parmesan cheese – Morton Williams sells it pre-shredded.
Sandwiches
wheat bread or bagels – 1 loaf per week (use for breakfast toast too)
deli meats – they’ll get slimy after a week, so if you need meat, you’ll have to buy more.
tomato – buy two, one per week. Pick a riper one and a less ripe one. Store the tomatoes in plastic bags in the fridge to keep fresh
cheese (use for polenta, too)
tuna – one can makes two sandwiches.
portobello mushroom (2) or some roasted bell peppers (they come in jars)
Omelets
One dozen eggs should work for the whole two weeks
Pick toppings from stuff you’re buying for salads and pasta
Dinner
Corn meal – one bag or box
Garlic
Butter
Rice – one bag
Beans – 3 cans
Veggies – canned or frozen. Or use your salad fixings
Snacks
Granola bars
Carrots
Cans of soup (3 or 4)
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46 Comments
@Anonymous Hey guys,
Thought I’d help out with a couple thoughts about the suggestions made by cooking with Bwog.
putting tomatos in the fridge will actually make them taste worse. If a tomato’s internal temperature drops below 50 degrees a flavor compound called (Z)-3-dexenal is shut off, and then your tomato gets gross and tasteless.
Pre-shredded Parmesan cheese is neither cost-effective or nor nutritional. To keep it from getting stale or clumping, companies will add chemicals to the cheese, gross. Also, they’ll charge you two dollars more to do something that takes less than 10 seconds when you buy a hunk of ungrated parm.
Lastly, canned veggies are not nearly as healthy as frozen or fresh. The canning process practically cooks them in the can to kill bacteria, and thus lowers the nutritional content. If you need to buy easily prepared veggies -buy frozen-it’s generally picked at the height of the season, and the freezing process does less damage to the nutritional content of the veggies. But even then I’d recommend that you just buy fresh-you can inspect the produce for quality, and know exactly what you’re getting and paying for.
@Katie Simon People on bwog are sad- noone would ever post the things they do if they had to sign their name to it. I am not necessarily an exception to this, I’m just saying, people are hateful when they are anonymous (b@b anyone?), but almost everyone I know loves bwog and loves that there are people who go to the effort to do this service to the community. If you don’t like a certain post or story, or bwog on the whole, just don’t read it. I don’t find every article fascinating, so I skip the ones I don’t want to read. Sadly, I know this point of view has been stated before (#44) and my reiterating it will make no difference, but I feel that as a devotee of bwog, I should stick up for it.
That having been said, if you are good at cooking, yeah, bwog probably can’t offer you much, but some of us, myself included, are always looking for quick, easy ideas of something to make and how to make it. Anna, if you stop, I just might starve.
@exie cooking with bwog is helpful and generally contains nice little cooking tips I didn’t know about. as for those who have trouble when they have to “read something they don’t like” I’m quite concerned for them as scrolling down is a really easy task. c’mon people.
@No... No, everybody wishes to work for the Harvard Crimson. Two reasons: Harvard is superior, and I dislike the writing of Miriam Datskovsky.
@DHI Seeing as I comment way too much on Bwog, and I have very strong food opinions, I will start a short feature on here called cooking with DHI, it will be posted on each one of these posts with a simple hint. It is not made to diminish cooking with Bwog, but to provide a different perspective.
Making food taste better:
Ingredients:
Tabasco
You can make many foods that are not very good taste better by adding Tabasco to them. There are better hot sauces for some purposes but Tabasco is a good basic versatile one.
Also just drink a shake of Tabasco from time to time it’s pretty good really.
@or ketchup ketchup, too, makes everything better.
i’m anticipating the hate-shower in response to this, but it really does make EVERYTHING better. even a very high class ny steak. mmm.
@hater cooking with dhi sucks! boo! boo!
@Avid Reader Agreed. Make some posts about Columbia gossip, I don’t like having to read through a bunch of stuff that might entertain some people but doesn’t directly inform me about what is going on in a way that another blog’s comments couldn’t.
@go back go back to from where you came, because you are not wanted in new york due to several things that you do causing us to be unhappy with your presence
@Duh Yeah tell me something I don’t know, you patronizing motherfucker.
@this this is the worst feature I’ve ever heard. bwog, can you please ban this guy from the comments before we have to endure more of this inane babble?
i dicksucked my way into columbia to meet people whose dicks i could suck for jobs, not to listen to culinary advice that belongs in a trailer park
@Literarium Yeah looks like someone is just upset that he doesn’t work for the Spec, which because of its greater name recognition is more beneficial for attaining jobs and is therefore the publication for which everybody wishes to work.
@Avi Zenilman I’m with #31. Stoves are terrifying.
@vodka anna, cooking with bwog is great.
i like the suggestion about specifying the “cooking level” of each post. one would be amazed with how many people don’t know cooking basics (yes, like boiling pasta) but are too embarassed to ask.
@hey To make it better it might be interesting, and make it make more sense in a campus gossip blog, if you looked at what other people were actually making.
@attackedbycommas come again?
@nicerperson anna, you’re cool. don’t be disheartened by the assholes that go to this school
@seriously who the fuck wrote this? how to make it better? how about not specifying what type of BREAD i should buy?
@geeze Moron. Part of the point of this list is to suggest a healthy way to eat during finals week so you don’t go home looking like a beached whale. If you didn’t know, wheat bread is better for you than white, hence Anna’s suggestion. This list is just a guideline anyway — no one said you had to follow it to exactness.
This post may be simple and “boring,” but it’s something that many people need regardless. I am personally putting it to use.
@ROBOT3000 MUST EAT LIKE BWOG. ALL MUST EAT SAME. MUST EAT OATMEAL. MUST RATION CEREAL. NO MORE THAN ONE BOX WEEK. MUST EAT SAME EVERY DAY. NO CHANGE. NAZIS. NAZIS. FOOD NAZI. NAZI. SALAD LUNCH. RAISINS. LOVE RAISINS. RAISINS BREAKFAST. RAISINS LUNCH OATMEAL BREAKFAST DINNER. WHITE POWER. ONLY TWO PASTAS. SHELLS. LINGUINI. NO OTHERS. PASTA CLEANSING. ALL DIFFERENT PASTAS MUST BE ERADICATED. ALL MUST EAT SHELLS. LOVE SHELLS. SHREDDED CHEESE ONLY AVAILABLE AT LOCAL SUPERMARKET. OTHERS HAVE NO YET DISCOVERED SHREDDING PROCESSES. IDIOTS. IDIOTS. YOU EAT LIKE SHIT. ROBOT3000. ROBOT. ROBOT. OATMEAL. ROBOT. RAISINROBOT. LETTUCEROBOT. RAISIN.
@wow what a fuckin weirdo.
and definitely a courage dot com. ick, go home.
@to be helpful, as she said.
i’m not really sure i find it that useful, but at least read what she wrote.
@well if its not supposed to be interesting…then why are you posting it in the first place?
@shira soy milk has kept longer than regular milk in my experience, if you aren’t put off by its being soy milk.
anna, right on.
@actually this post was boring. none of the ideas were especially interesting or time-saving. carrots? if people want recipe ideas, there are already dozens of good websites and blogs.
bwog should be about columbia/nyc news, not random crap that people can find elsewhere.
@purple No, Anna, these posts are great. Speaking as someone who usually has to resort to ordering fastfood or getting junk food at weird hours, it’s hard to nail down a list of the basics and get used to using it to…you know, cook for yourself. So these lists give a bit of perspective. The only constructive thing I’d have to offer is to throw in one or two more specific or quirky fusions to the list, something tasty and quick to make like that (was it Bwog that suggested this?) pizza bagel thing. That was a suggestion I still use.
@JJay When are Bwog or B&W meetings?
I love these posts, people are just being dicks because it’s anonymous posting and they can.
@actually I found the grocery list very useful!
Copy.
Paste.
Print.
Thanks.
@perhaps bwog could distinguish between different levels of cooking with bwog – cooking for n00bs, cooking for experts, etc – in such a way that in one installation, #12 could learn how to boil water (chem class?) while #11 could learn something more complicated.
Would mixing it up make it more rewarding to write / read?
@cooking inept cooking with bwog is never obvious and boring. i for one do not know how to boil pasta. you’re being patronizing by assuming everyone grew up cooking in their household.
@cupcakes you can read the instructions on the box can’t you?
@daily bwog editor anna, it’s about time that was said. thank you.
and you (along with your posts) are awesome.
@i love you anna corke, and i appreciate your time and effort. i really do.
cooking with bwog is the shiiiiz
@Anna Corke Hi, I write Cooking With Bwog. Those of you who think it sucks, could you tell me how to make it better? This feature isn’t supposed to be snarky or interesting, just helpful, so if it isn’t helpful I’d like to know why. And please don’t ask me to be more elaborate or in-depth because I have a job and six hard classes so I don’t really have that much time for bwog posts, and if you hate it, maybe I shouldn’t do it anymore.
I used to be one of the Daily Editors for the bwog but I quit because of all of the negative energy and apparent pointlessness of the work I was doing to help keep it rolling. I continue writing this post because I think it’s fun and I get to learn while writing it, but it does take time. So let me know if I shouldn’t waste my time anymore, or what I can do to make the post better.
I don’t think the shitty commenters realize that the people who write most of these Bwog posts are nice people who work really hard (I’m talking 5-6 hours a day editing posts) and get shot down constantly by people with nothing better to do but write mean things on a website. Whatever happened to being constructive?
And if you think you could do it better than us, give it a try. Email Lydia Depillis and tell her you want in. Go to a Blue and White meeting. Pitch ideas. This is a community blog, so the more the merrier.
@reader i just find a lot of the cooking with bwog posts to be obvious and boring. it’s a little patronizing to instruct people how to boil pasta or to buy salad dressing you like (duh!). even people who aren’t good cooks know how to do most of these things. i liked the making meals out of stolen john jay food idea though!
@Strange Sounds like the way one eats during the rest of the semester (sorta healthy but complicated.) Not sure what this has to do with cutting DOWN on time, unless people are totally incompetent about going to the store.
Bring on the NOT cooking (carrots and hummus type foods + LOTS OF STUDY BREAKS)
@yin yang Rice and beans
peanut butter and jelly
carrots and hummus
bagels and cream cheese
chips and dip
crackers and cheese
apples and honey
bread and circus
bwog and spec
me and procrastination
oh my god.
@cooking with bwog rocks my friggen world.
@DHI Where’s the beef?
@... cooking with bwog sucks
@urban dictionary Courage Dot Com: When someone tries to be badass over the internet, like on a forum, or blog because they aren’t actually face to face with anyone.
Can we flag some comments as courage dot com?
@DHI I don’t think “cooking with bwog sucks” is badass.
Here are some examples of versions of that statement that would at least approach being badass:
“You better start looking up some goose recipes, cooking with bwog, because one way or another your goose will be cooked”
“I’ve brought a fork to stick in you, cooking with bwog, because you’re just about done”
“Yes, cooking with bwog deserves to die, and I hope it burns in hell!”
@you're pretty fuckin weird sir.
@yeah there’s worse things you could say about a person.
Even though I would generally not take its suggestions, Cooking With Bwog is aight with me because it had that tortilla thing.
I want a tortilla machine. I would watch that motherfucker for hours when I was a kid.
@dumb you guys are all dumb. this is the lamest thing i’ve ever seen.
@lazy chef If you get sick of red sauce on pasta, any of the cream of soups from campbells work well as sauces. They can go on either rice or pasta for a satisfying meal… Try cream of broccoli and cheese with chopped broccoli added, or cream of mushroom with mushrooms or artichoke hearts. plus, most of those soups come in reduced sodium or 98% fat free varities if you’re watching your weight. (egg noodles are also a cheap and easy noodle to use with those sauces, and a bag of noodles generally lasts longer than a box of pasta)