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Coffee is nearly a number one necessity for college students. This is probably pretty obvious from the numerous Expresso Royale and Starbucks cafes on campus. But did you ever think of not drinking it, but eating it?

As strange as it sounds, coffee goes very well with spare ribs. And (if you need any more pros), it’s a super easy recipe to boot.
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Note from the Editor: 
This is a recipe from the cookbook we are currently reviewing, Freshman in the Kitchen. The recipes being reviewed is for Toasted Coconut and Lime Biscotti and Angel Hair Pasta with Bacon Cream Sauce with Peas made from scratch. Click the link above to read more about the book and let us know what you think!

Not Your Typical Biscotti

When deciding which recipes to review for the cookbook, Freshman in the Kitchen, the “Toasted Coconut and Lime Biscotti” recipe immediately appealed to me. Spending a summer in Italy among avid biscotti connoisseurs left me impressed with this sidekick to espresso. I was hungry for more, so to speak, and grabbed hold of this recipe review as the perfect way to learn the art of creating uno biscotto. 

At first, I was apprehensive at the thought of working with biscotti dough because I had always assumed it to be totally different from American cookie dough. In reality, biscotti and cookie dough basically look and work the same. The only trouble I had when forming the dough was using the little moisture provided by the eggs and vanilla extract to meld all of the dry ingredients together. Eventually, I learned that working with a spoon was a bad idea so I tossed it into the sink and set about working the dough into two logs with my hands. The results were tremendously better. After that minor dough issue, the baking times were right on and the biscotti themselves turned out with the perfect consistency and texture. I was incredibly impressed with my results!
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Note from the Editor: 
This is a recipe from the cookbook we are currently reviewing, Freshman in the Kitchen. The recipe being reviewed is for Chicken Breasts with Rosemary, White Wine, and Lemon Juice made from scratch. Click the link above to read more about the book and let us know what you think!
If you’re looking for a couple of easy and delicious snacks or appetizers, look no further than these recipes from Freshmen in the Kitchen. Although the title of the cookbook suggests otherwise, a kitchen is not even really necessary with these recipes. For dorm-dwellers like me, this is especially important. Impossible to serve homemade hors d'oeuvres if you live in a dorm, you say? Read on.

First, the smoked salmon dip. This recipe has three ingredients, so it is vital to buy the highest quality ingredients possible. Although the recipe doesn’t specify which kind of salmon to use, I much prefer the flavor and texture of hot smoked salmon to cold (hot smoked is cooked thoroughly and has a smoky flavor, while cold smoked is perhaps more widely used, sometimes referred to as “Lox”…perhaps a comparison to elaborate further on in another blog post). Luckily, Ann Arbor residents have a fabulous smoked fish source right in their own backyard: Durham’s Tracklements and Smokery in Kerrytown. It is located on E. Kingsley, just a little ways down from Zingerman’s. They offer hot and cold smoked salmon. I recommend trying a sample of both if you’re not sure which you prefer, because the dip will only be as delicious as your salmon.
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Note from the Editor: 
This is a recipe from the cookbook we are currently reviewing, Freshman in the Kitchen. There are three recipes being reviewed in this case, all made from scratch. Click the link above to read more about the book and let us know what you think!
I reviewed 3 recipes from the new cookbook, Freshman in the Kitchen. A Potato Leek Soup, Spicy Rainbow Trout, and the Salmon and Goat Cheese Napoleon with Wild Rice Pilaf. Using these 3 recipes as a representative sample of the cookbook in general, this is a decent cook book, especially for college students (maybe not freshmen because of the dorms). It was also great that the recipe gave quantities of ingredients to serve 2, as this is more likely the case during college than standard recipes that are designed to serve 4. I made these recipes over 2 meals, serving the soup as an appetizer before the Salmon and Goat Cheese Napoleon, and the Rainbow Trout for lunch the next day. Overall the cost of the ingredients may make these not the most ideal “college cooking” recipes, as eve frozen salmon fillets cost 7 dollars for 12 oz. I’ll review each recipe separately:

Potato Leek Soup:

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This is a soup that I have made for dinners many times before, albeit with a different recipe. After trying this recipe I would say that it is really not the best Potato Leek Soup recipe around. The first flaw is that the soup is not blended. In my opinion, Potato Leek Soup is the best when creamy and smooth, with occasional chunks of potato speckled throughout. Although you can add heavy cream to get the “creamy” texture, I’ve made many other Potato Leek Soups that did not contain cream, but because the potato was blended, the starch made the soup thick and creamy. The soup was nicely flavored, although I would have preferred a specified quantity of salt, as it requires quite a bit to season “to taste”. In addition...
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Whether it’s for that bowl game party (which will sadly, yet again, be conspicuously absent of a Michigan game to watch) there’s no better time for guacamole than the frozen months of winter.

Notes:
  • Beware khakis and cardigans: fresh avocado stains a pretty shade of green. An apron or serape is truly the suggested outwear for the completion of this recipe.
  • This recipe serves 2-4 ravenous nowl-game viewers or 4-6 more polite holiday celebrants
  • For larger servings and parties, retain the same avocado-to-lime ratio. It has been tested and approved at Cinco de Mayo up to twelve avocadoes.
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First and foremost, let me say two things (especially since this is my first piece for Wolverine CuiZine!): 1. I love food. I love to make food, read about food, and of course eat food; and most recently, write about it. 2. I am a recipe girl- I must and will always have a recipe whenever I take on a new food challenge. As much as I would love to be the next Food Network star because of my brilliance and creativity in the kitchen, it is unfortunately never going to happen. I guess you could say that I am only a copycat of Paula Deen, Giada De Laurentiis and all the other Food Network greats, as well as numerous family friends; while I occasionally make little tweaks to their recipes. That’s okay I suppose, especially when cooking for others who don’t really care if what they’re eating is your original creation or another cook’s recipe, and will take any type of free meal. And that is exactly how my wonderful roommates felt as I threw together Giada’s Italian Baked Chicken and Pastina and my brother-in-law’s mom’s delicious apple salad. Being in the Christmas spirit and sick of eating canned soup and microwave dinners during finals week, I decided I would make this nice dinner for myself and my five finals-crazed roomies.
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Note from the Editor: 
This is a recipe from the cookbook we are currently reviewing, Freshman in the Kitchen. The recipe being reviewed is for Crepes and Fresh Berries with whipped cream made from scratch. Click the link above to read more about the book and let us know what you think!
Coming from an extreme lover for mac and cheese, I have tried many different recipes for this delightful meal.  So, naturally, when deciding to review recipes for Freshman in the Kitchen, making mac and cheese was immediately on the to-do list.  3 different cheeses! Yum! Generally when I’ve made mac and cheese, cheddar cheese or white cheddar cheese have been my favorite choices.  This recipe, however, calls for cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese, and gruyere cheese -  a completely unfamiliar cheese to me!  This recipe also calls for garlic...how intriguing!
 
Mac and cheese is definitely my comfort food.  When I have a bad day, I immediately grab a box of mac and cheese and know that I can at least enjoy those 20 minutes of that day eating something that I love.  Instead of being a rich and creamy sauce, like most mac and cheese recipes I’m used to, the cheese sauce in this recipe was almost like a roux.    A roux is a combination of fats and flour that makes a sauce thicker.  In this case, the 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil that were called for sautéing the onions, needed to be soaked up.  By adding flour, the mixture dried up and became thicker when the milk was added.  This sauce was extremely thick and was not what I was expecting for mac and cheese.
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Frozen and boxed macaroni and cheese are so prevalent. You might think that there is a good reason why the homemade version isn’t more common, but there isn’t one. Homemade macaroni and cheese can be cheap, simple, and, with this recipe at least, very hard to screw up. Homemade macaroni and cheese is also warm and comforting, like a warm blanket on a cold fall morning, only instead of holding you in bed, it holds you to the bowl, greedy for more rich cheese and silky sauce.
 
To make the sauce that goes on the macaroni, you will need cheese (of course) and some kind of milk or cream. If you try to make macaroni and cheese with just these two things, though, the sauce will not be thick enough, and you will wind up with macaroni soup. You you need something to change the texture of the sauce so it thickens. There are two main ways that people do this. The first of the two involves thickening the sauce with a roux, a mixture of butter and flour.  With the second, the sauce is thickened with eggs. This recipe uses the second method.
 
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Since all of this gloomy and now freezing cold weather makes us only wish that we could be laying on a beach in Aruba, or on one of those awesome looking huts standing in the water in Bora Bora, I’d like to offer an escape from Michigan icky-ness with one of the most quintessential tropical flavors: lime. This tart and refreshing flavor has been used and documented for the last 2 millennia and works just as well in any recipe as it does for chasing a shot of tequila.

A cousin to lemons within the citrus family, limes are 1.5 times as acidic as lemons and are abundant in tropical areas. They’re frequently used in cuisine from India, Mexico and other countries near where they are harvested. There are three basic types of lime: Tahitian/Persian, Mexican, and key. Tahitian limes are large, with a pale, finely-grained pulp and a very acidic flavor. Mexican limes are smaller, with bright green skins and a very aromatic taste.  Rounding out the bunch are key limes,  which are closely related to the Mexican varietyand are a pale yellowish-green fruit, very juicy with a strong, sharp flavor (might want to use a different word than flavor because you already used it two sentences prior). They emit an extremely distinctive aroma from its thin green rind, making the zest crucial to a fantastic key lime pie.
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“‘Too much trouble,’ ‘Too expensive,’ or ‘Who will know the difference’ are death knells for good food.”

-Julia Child, Mastering the Art of French cooking.


I am a huge fan of Mario Batali. I love following his recipes because they are delicious and authentic. They are often simple and not particularly difficult, but they are never dumbed-down. In his books, he tells you how to make everything from scratch,. 

Doing this is often not especially demanding, though, because his recipes rarely have more than 10-12 ingredients, He does not attempt to cut out fat, and he is not afraid to throw in an esoteric ingredient once in awhile, but oftentimes the ingredients are be simple and easy to find. He tries to present Italian food to American audiences without cutting corners as best he can. Unlike a lot of Food Network Stars that I can name, he has yet to succumb to the “death knells of good cooking”.

This is Batali’s take on meatloaf, although calling it a meatloaf might be a little like calling the space shuttle an airplane. It’s a meatloaf flavored with pecorino Romano cheese and stuffed with carrots, spinach, prosciutto, and cheese. It really is a beautiful dish to serve.  The meatloaf emerges from the oven with a beautiful brown crust and cheese melting out the sides while it fills your kitchen with incredible aromas.  Then you slice it and there are so many good parts to be had. The loaf itself, which is a little salty from pecorino Romano cheese, has a delicious crunchy exterior. The carrots and spinach are delicious as well, as they absorb the surrounding flavors. The sweetness of the carrots melds with salty and porky prosciutto and the flavor of the baked cheese, and they will be unlike any carrots you have ever had. And the cheese looks, tastes, and smells delicious.

This is a great dish to serve for guests. It is gourmet without being esoteric or tricky, comforting without being bland, and has a beautiful presentation, but you don’t need to fuss over the appearance.
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