How to Cook Chicken in the Microwave

       I am not a huge fan of meat, but I do like chicken. It is a pretty common item in the dining hall but it is not always appetizing. They only prepare it a few ways and it can get tiring. While touring colleges and even fall semester of this, my freshman year people were constantly saying that I would get tired of dining hall food and I was reluctant to believe them. Now I see what they mean though, I am tired of it. I thought there would be a ton of options and a variety of meals for me to put together but that was not the case. I just usually stick to a few basic things. These are burgers, salad, pasta with gloppy tomato sauce, and formerly pizza. As I mentioned in my Tortilla Pizza post my dining hall has decided not to offer regular cheese or pepperoni pizza and are experimenting with other flavors which don't always sound great. I would rather have a BLT (with mustard, not mayonnaise) than have BLT pizza. They used to have flat breads or various pasta casseroles next to the pizza but now they have snowshoe pizza there which is pizza but in a less convenient shape.  It is an oblong rectangle rather than a circle and the pieces are harder to eat because they end up being weird shapes.
       Since the dining hall isn't satisfying I was searching for recipes and as I was looking for dinner recipes I came across one from Oprah.com that looked doable. It is called Sweet and Spicy Barbecued Korean Chicken. I just used this for inspiration and to figure out how to cook chicken in the microwave but I did not stick to the actual recipe. Here it is http://www.oprah.com/food/Microwave-Cooking-Recipes if you would like to check it out. This recipe calls for boneless chicken thighs, salt, pepper, and Korean barbecue sauce. It is a simple recipe that I just adapted to my liking. The ingredients I used were:

• Boneless, Skinless Chicken Thigh Fillets
• Salt
• Pepper
• Honey Mustard Dressing

       The recipe from the "(Almost) Homemade Dinners You Can Make In The Microwave" article on Oprah.com suggested chicken thighs because they are juicy. I ended up getting fillets and this meant that the pieces of chicken would cook much faster because they were thinner. As the recipe says I seasoned the pieces of chicken with salt and pepper and then put them in a bowl to cook. Then I put them in the microwave for a few minutes. The recipe says to cook them for 12 to 26 minutes and  to turn the pieces over halfway through. This was too long for my pieces because they were fillets. No matter what cut they are just make sure to watch them while they are cooking. Once they are done cooking just check to make sure. Then you can brush a sauce over them such as a barbecue sauce or soy sauce or dip them in anything you like. I chose to use Honey Mustard Dressing. Chicken is a great source of protein but it is not a meal on its own. I had it with broccoli. I made the broccoli in the microwave and will have a post about that up very shortly. You could also have any other vegetable. Another option is having a nice salad as a side for you chicken.
       Cooking chicken in the microwave was much easier than I had anticipated!

Delicious and Easy Microwave Popcorn

      Microwave popcorn is not a new idea and is something most people are familiar with. It is not very healthy though. There are usually many unpronounceable ingredients and chemicals listed on the packages. It is not that great to always be ingesting these. It is possible to have delicious, quick, and easy to make popcorn that does not come with ingredient lists that look like they are in another language. While looking through Not Your Mother's Microwave Cookbook by Beth Hensperger I came across a simple way to make popcorn. She calls it "Brown Bag Popcorn" and it is on page 47 of the aforementioned book. All you need is popping corn, and a brown paper lunch bag, salt and butter are optional. I like this method much better than buying bags of popcorn to pop because it tastes great and you actually know what you are eating. It is a much healthier alternative to what everyone thinks of being  "normal" microwave popcorn. To start put about 2 to 3 tablespoons of butter in a small bowl and heat it in the microwave for 20 to 30 seconds. Then you will need to measure a third of a
cup of popping corn and then pour that into your brown bag. Fold the top of the bag down and make sure it is securely closed. Do not use tape, staples, or paperclips though to close it. Folding the bag  down a few times and then turning the corners in should do the trick. Once it is tightly closed put it in the microwave to cook for 2 to 3 minutes or until the popping has slowed and there are 2 to 4 seconds between each pop. Then add the butter and salt if you wish (Hensperger 47).
      On the following pages in her book Hensperger then gives seven recipes for types of popcorn such as  "Maggie's Parmesan and Garlic Popcorn and Bombay Curried Popcorn".
       There are also many recipes on Pinterest. The one that I chose to make was Oreo or Cookies and Cream Popcorn. I loosely followed this recipe, http://cincyshopper.com/oreo-popcorn/. I started by making the popcorn using the brown bag method. Then I adjusted the measurements for the oreo popcorn so they suited the amount I wanted to make. I took my white chocolate chips and melted them. Then I put a few oreos in a zip lock bag and sealed it. I proceeded to break up the oreo pieces by pressing on them through the bag. The directions said to use a food processor but I don't that it is realistic for college students to have them. The zip lock bag method worked  well
though, all it was for was to crumble the oreos. I put my popped kernels into a bowl and then drizzled the white chocolate over. The next step was adding the oreo pieces and mixing it all up. After that it was time to eat. This worked well but the one thing I would do differently next time would be to separate the unpopped kernels from the popped kernels. They ended up sticking together and it was not fun to have to pick them out after the chocolate was on them. Nevertheless it was a nice sweet treat. Not very healthy but it's okay sometimes. Everything in moderation.

Hover over the picture. I'm pin-able!

Bonus!

My roommate and I were a bit hungry one night, and as it was very close to the end of the semester we had a limited amount of food left in our room. There is a vending machine in our building that I had never used before and never wanted to use before. That night I had decided that I was going to get some Wheat Thins but of course the machine was not working. We decided to make popcorn but were not sure if it would fill us up enough if it was plain. One of the few other edible things in the room was Goldfish. They are not the healthiest thing in the world but they are baked and not fried. They do not have much trans fat or sugar and there is no cholesterol. They come in whole grain as well and these do have fiber. We were not sure if popcorn and Goldfish together would turn out well but we tried it anyway. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And we found out that combining Goldfish with popcorn is not half bad! Since the popcorn did not really have salt on it the Goldfish added some nice flavor and more "crunch". I think of it as being similar to the concept of a trailmix.

A College Kitchen

       The dorm I live in has some positives and some negatives but that is to be expected. I did not think that the kitchen would be such a negative though. I don't even know why it is considered "kitchen/lounge" on the floor plan of the building. Take a look for yourself.

F.Y.I if you're wondering, the door does not stay open on its own

       There is a table with a microwave on it from a microfridge. Where that fridge is I do not know. There is a working refrigerator which is nice. The sink however is usually not functional because it is clogged. There is barely any counter next to the sink and the cabinets do not seem too sturdy in my opinion. I do not know who would put any of their belongings in there though. Also you may have noticed that some things are missing. Things that are staples in rooms called kitchens. Any guesses? Well, it's the stove and oven. How might you ask, is this the kitchen then? To tell you the truth, I do not know. This is what some of our room and board goes to though. There are many residence halls on campus that have ovens and stoves in their kitchens but I do not know why my dorm does not. My R.A. has even told us that she has asked about having an oven and stove but nothing has been done. If other buildings have them I do not understand why the particular one I am in does not. Many oven units with electric stoves are available and there are many in the $400 -$600  range. My dorm has about 70 residents. We each pay around $6000 a semester, that amounts to at least $420,000. Colleges do have a large amount of expenses and bills to pay but I think that they can afford an oven and stove unit for every dorm.
       These pictures above actually do the room justice though. Usually pictures make things look worse but not in this case. The pictures make the room look better than it is in reality. There are stains on the wall above the sink, many are blue so I am guessing it is paint but they are still questionable. Also you may have noticed that there are two paper towel holders above the sink. That seems like a good idea right? They are both always empty. To top it off, there is no trash can. There is a small bin that was intended for recycling but not resides in the kitchen and is instead used for trash, most of the time. Some people like to leave trash on the table though. All in all this is not a room people like to spend any time in and I only go in there on rare occasions. Such as for photographing it and it's contents for this post. Don't even get me started on the fridge. Let's just say people forget about things sometimes. Thank goodness there is a microwave and mini fridge in my room or I would never be making food in my dorm.