I finally got a ride with a friend to the Korean store, and stocked up on Asian groceries! Here is today’s super easy dinner for the busy, cooking skill deficient student: Miso noodle soup

Ingredients: Chinese noodles, miso paste, oyster mushrooms, onions, cilantro, egg

Cooking time: <10 minutes

1. Boil two pots of water

2. Cook noodles in one for 3 minutes

3. Dump all vegetable and egg ingredients into the second pot and cook on medium for 3 minutes. Break up the egg for a egg flower soup taste, or keep it intact for a hard boiled taste. For a yolk that is more on the raw side (how I like it), add the egg with the miso and step 4.

4. Add miso paste to the second pot and stir for 2 minutes

5. Combine noodles & soup

6. Consume with a side of carrot celery apple juice (mmm healthy!)

Verdict: Yummy yummy yummy, healthy, and easy! Definitely adding to my repertoire of easy recipes.

Lessons: don’t add too much miso unless you want to die of stomach cancer from all the sodium.

I’ve decided to start expanding my cooking skills, since currently I simply stir-fry everything. I am in need of easy, quick, versatile meals that are conducive to the life of a busy student. Here is my first experiment, a super easy dish that took almost no effort!

Total time: 15 minutes

Ingredients: Rice, avocado, cilantro, onions, mushrooms, carrots, chicken

1. Steam all ingredients except avocado & cilantro

2. Bring home leftover chicken from a seminar with free food. Or otherwise know how to actually cook meat (which I don’t – hey, my cooking skills are a work in progress)

4. Add chicken, avocado, and cilantro

5. Top with salt & pepper

Verdict: Yummy & healthy! Avocados are how I know that God is good.

Lessons: I now realize that steamed veggies are generally good but bland, and that steamed carrots are gross. Must find a way to flavor my veggies and remember to only use carrots for carrot juice.

A male driver runs a red light and crashes into a female pedestrian. Whose fault is the accident?

The woman’s. What was she doing out of the kitchen?

Jokes start from grains of truth. Not absolute truths, but rather true societal perceptions. However, unless you want me to burn down your house, do not perceive me to belong in the kitchen.

Let me tell you about two separate incidents that happened less than 12 hours apart.

Last night, I was just frying an egg to add to my noodles. I needed to set down the frying pan for just a second, and even though it was still hot I somehow figured that I could set it on the wood table. Wood doesn’t burn, right? Well this was the result:

When I woke up, I made myself a sandwich and started the toaster oven. A minute later smoke is emanating from the oven. That doesn’t look normal. I open the door and my sandwich is on fire! I am freaking out. Despite my culinary incompetence, I have never started a real fire before! Someone always stopped me before I got to that point. I’m looking around for a fire extinguisher. Should I throw water on the fire? I run to find my roommates and see if they know what to do. Meanwhile, the oven door was left open. No one was home, so I ran back to check on the fire, which by now had burned itself out. So it wasn’t a big deal.

This is after I accidentally used my roommate’s kosher knives to cut meat, and set off the smoke alarm from baking cookies on wax paper and still gave the crayon-flavored cookies away.

I think I should just never enter the kitchen again.

Let’s revise the joke to this:

A burglar breaks into the house through the kitchen window and finds Crystal sneaking a midnight snack. Panicking, he grabs a knife and stabs her to death. Whose fault is it?

Crystal’s. What was she doing in the kitchen?

Mood: 7 finished studying biochemistry and about to turn in for the night. / Tired: 5, which is perfect for an early night’s sleep. Looking forward to a full 8 hours. / Spiritual Tired: 5 Feeling better than during the week from hell.