Jan 14, 2009
How To Cook Like A College Freshman.
The first thing you need are recipes. Bossy’s son made his selection from two Ina Garten cookbooks. Bossy and her son love Ina Garten because she combines very simple, honest ingredients in a way anyone can follow. Unless that anyone is Ina’s husband Jeffrey, who was Bill Clinton’s Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade, but somehow can’t go to a local farm stand without confusing melons with cow turds.
The next thing you’ll need is butter and garlic and herbs and capers to make the Provençal Butter that will rest atop your eventual beef filets. The room temperature butter and other ingredients are combined in a food processor and then rolled in parchment paper to make a butter log. Chill.
Next you’ll need to cut red and white onions into chunky segments for your Herb Roasted Onions:
And then whisk together olive oil and lemon and herbs to pour over your onion segments:
Then spread out your saturated onions on a baking tray:
Next combine Greek yogurt and sour cream, and then scissor a few tablespoons of chives into the mixture. This will act as the topping for your baked potato! Did Bossy fail to mention that the enormous russet potatoes should be in the oven all this time cooking? Oh, because she also failed to mention this to her son, which accounts for the fact that dinner wasn’t ready until Blood-Sugar-Coma-O’Clock.
Next toss cherry tomatoes, hot peppers, yellow peppers, black beans, garlic, red onion, lime, and olive oil with diced avocado:
Next it is time to prepare the cow:
Drizzle olive oil on your beef filets, and then generously pat both sides with dried herbs such as basil, sage, and thyme. Grill.
Looks great. And it’s better your counters look anemic than your son!
It’s almost like he has a *degree* in cooking…and yet he is only a freshman!
MMMMMMMmmm!
That looks yummy! Bossy’s Son can come cook for me anytime.
Can Bossy’s college freshman come to my house and cook me dinner too…oh and make sure he doesn’t forget the martini-drenched olives too…along with the martini!!!
I know this is a family blog, but if Bossy’s son didn’t already have a girlfriend, he would be getting SO laid at college.
Weren’t the onions great?
When I made them, I added chopped potatoes to them.
Fabulous!!!
I march to hell and back for that baked potato.
That would be… I WOULD march to hell and back for that baked potato. The way I wrote it sounds like I am currently marching to hell and back, which maybe I am in a weird, existential sort of way.
Dear god, I love that kid! He even used tongs for the onions. No messy “strewing them around on the baking sheet with his hands”, nossir. I can see his future, Bossy, and it’s a shiny bright one!
What kind of hot peppers go in the “salsa”? Jalepeno?
Bossy’s son’s girlfriend is one lucky duck! That meal looks goooood.
Jeez, he’s cute, he’s smart and he can cook??! He’s going to make a nice young lady very happy
) I wish I had a young niece….but I think he already has himself a nice young lady.
Your son and your dog make your appliances look like miniatures.
Note to self: Don’t look at pictures of Bossy’s delicious son cooking delicious food while on Nutrisystem.
*Leaves to eat own arm*
Good God, I am starving and that looks delish!
I am loving the salsa. But hello, does Bossy have a garden in January or what? The cost of all those at the grocery could buy enough spaghettios for a month!
Does thinking your son is really cute qualify me as a Cougar?
I got to eat all the drunken olives as a kid, too.
We’ll be over for dinner tonight.
Bossy, your son is lovely and cute and a good cook and all but I STILL want your cabinets. We at eclecticallyyours, seriously, want you to tell us where you got them or how to DIY, already!!
Um Bossy, hon… you know I love you, but when you have 6oz. filets like that, one pad of Provençal Butter is more then enough. (That recipe calls for hanger steak, not quite a flank steak, but kinda… which would benefit from sayyyyy TWO.)
I want all of you right now to go and get your cholesterol checked.
GO CARDINALS!
Does that ever look good!
I would love to know where you found the martini-drenched olives.
P.S. Bossy’s son is right. That is, no matter how good, avocado salad.
Bossy and Bossy’s husband need to make more kids, now, for the good of humanity.
Yum.
And the counters wouldn’t look as anemic if you’d put some live chickens behind the chicken wire (or possibly a rubber chicken that I can send to you because I have it hanging in my kitchen and my rubber chicken’s lips are sealed together with old grease.
Let me know if you want the chicken.)
What fun! I love a man who loves to cook….don’t actually have one, but the dream sounds nice! My 19 year old college student daughter?? Well, she makes a wonderful grilled cheese sandwich!
Thanks for the idea, there are still a few days before winter break is over…making dinner TOGETHER sounds lovely!
Oh my goodness. I wanna eat at Bossy’s house.
Please let your son cook for me? Im starving!
Hilarious….flipin hi-larious!!
My MiL managed to raise a son who is intelligent, morally upright, and successful, but the man cannot and will not cook. Bossy is obviously doing better in schooling her children in the culinary arts. And that is WAY more important than any Psychology 101 class the kid may be taking at college.
Bossy’s son with be the hit of the dorms. College cooking used to be all about happy hour at El Torito, or Black Angus. Or, maybe hamburger helper and Mac and Cheese.
I don’t think Bossy’s counters look anemic, but maybe you could get daughter to paint something bright and fun on the glass container with the wooden spoons in it.
Oi, Bossy—I thought you said that recipe was simple?
Y’know, before I read this blog today I was totally OK with just my tangerine until lunch… but now I need steak and I need it now!
Avocado salad? Salsa? Whatevs … looks SuperYummy.
Bossy’s Dane isn’t a cow! Run Bossy’s Dane, Run!
This is all so Fancy! Parchment paper, plated up beautifully, I’m impressed.
Way back when, I proposed marriage to every guy I met who could cook (and was straight.) Husband is a fabulous cook. Score. I am a lucky woman. He doesn’t plate the food like this, though.
You done be raising a good cook there!
I did laugh at the photo of Bossy’s cow though.
“Provencalmost.” Hee, hee, hee!
Who cares if he’ll make some woman very lucky one day!! I want him to move in my house now!!!!
I feel so bad, all I offered him were pizza and wings on Sunday.
Go Eagles!!!!!!!!!!!
Cooking college style must have changed a lot since I went, because my recipe collection consisted of Kraft Mac and Cheese and Top Ramen.
Never mind the cholesterol. “Next it is time to prepare the cow” followed by the picture of Stella just about gave me a heart attack. That effect must be counteracted by TWO glasses of red wine this evening. Thanks, Bossy!
What does Bossy’s son have against anchovies?
How to cook like a college freshman sure has changed from when I was in college! Our rule of thumb was it had to be cookable in a microwave…you know, ramen noodles, mac and cheese, that sort of thing. Maybe I should go back to college and eat better than I am now??!!
YUM!! I need that recipe!! And some white wine. Next time, don’t hog all the Riesling. or Chardonnay. or whatever you consumed!!
Stella makes a fabulous sous chef and cow guard!
…Girl you are so dang funny! Thanks for that… lol ;o) Btw, that son of yours is gonna make a fine, and I say fine, husband one day! You go Bossy’s Son!
…Do they make man aprons? If so, he needs one…
…Blessings…
)
I would like to say that you need to give some of those beef scraps to your pooch. I can see his ribs. I think he’s hungry. But don’t give him the onions; dog breath is bad enough as it is.
Also, I look forward to the day my sons can make something other than a mess in the kitchen.
Note to self: do NOT drink ANYTHING while looking at pictures of BOSSY’s cow. Pony. Whatever.
And I agree with #39 – why no anchovies?
Yum!
Oddly enough, I’m craving beef and potatoes now.
There’s nothing cuter than young men cooking…and apparently, doing it well!
There is no greater gift a mother can give her son that to share a love of cooking – it’s also a wonderful thing for the woman who MARRIES that son. Speaking from experience. Heh.
Loved the pun about ‘preparing the cow’ with Stella in the foreground… that would be one lean cow!!
BB
PS Commenter #44 – Danes need to be lean. A heavy Dane soon owns hips that don’t work.
I know…is there anything sexier than a man cookin?
except for maybe 3 men and a baby.
Wow… Dinner at my house tonight didn’t look anything like that awesome. The Offspring is already halfway through his first year of kindergarten — is it time for cooking school?
Can I rent him? While my dd cooks occasionally it would be nothing like that.
Had to laugh at your cow- although I always think of Danes as small horses…
Awww…great pics of your son cooking several of Ina’s recipes that I have screwed up! I’m so glad someone else says “OMG, did you put the potatoes in???”
We love Ina – and Jeffrey! Cute, clueless, might-be-gay-whaddya-think Jeffrey!
i do not understand this post.
when i was a college freshman we ate buttered egg noodles and saltines. and nothing else. ever. and it wasn’t even provencal butter. it was sucky cheap safeway brand butter.
When I was a college freshman I ate in the cafeteria. The closest thing I came to cooking was a perfect margarita in my shiny new blender. Times sure are-a-changing.
I was raised on cherries from my grandma’s drinks, and I don’t think I suffered any ill effects. Martini-soaked olives are probably much healthier than booze-drenched maraschinos.
I Can’t Believe It’s Not ProvencalButter!
Don’t you ever “bake” the potatoes in the microwave?
Go OSKAR!
That looks absolutely yummy…I might have to go find the recipies..
and my kids eat martini soaked olives too..I’m glad I’m not the only one.
I’m the one who cooks dinner every night around here… and I have for 2 years now… and in ONE NIGHT your son just put me TO SHAME.
Good job Bossy’s son. Well played.
one of the things I miss the most about having my kids home is cooking together. The difference is now I have a guy sitting there waiting for everything I cook but I refuse to let him in the kitchen.
My freshman diet consisted of cheetos or whatever was on sale at the amoco across the street from school. We supplemented this with weed brownies. When the harvest was good, we snuck milk cartons into the cafeteria and filled em up.
Ahh, college. How I miss thee.
Please mail the freshman cook to me.
Bossy, you’d climb out of debt post haste if you rented out your son. Just sayin’.
that looks…well, just like a meal they serve on tv! v. complete. i was enjoying looking at it. did your son develop a passion for cooking on his own or did you help out with it. my son likes to cook too, he’s 7. i’m nurturing it.
i’m lucky all the guys in my life are amazing cooks…i sadly missed the day they taught cooking at cooking school. i cook, but not so wonderfully!
Cute and cooks and edu-ma-cated. A winning combination.
Holy hell that looks delicious! Your son is going to make somebody very happy some day if he keeps that up. Well done!
Thanks ALOT. It’s midnight in MN, and now I want a steak. And exactly HOW am I supossed to achieve that????
I’m not sure what you think of awards, but I just gave you one. Because I think you’re cool. And a fabulous photographer.
He is going to make some woman very happy someday. My husband grew up in a family with 11 kids. Everything he makes is something you can cook in an enormous stock pot. Stuff like bean soup, which is pretty much beans and water.
Maybe a better caption would be:
“How to cook like a college freshman while parents foot the grocery bills!”
Looks delicious!
Just an FYI – if you ever forget the potatoes again, jab them vigorously with forks (sheds irritation at having not put them in the oven earlier) toss them in the microwave on high for 10ish minutes (depends on potato girth) and then throw into the oven to crisp up the skins a bit.
Looks like my kind of meal – POTATO and onions with a side order of beef.
Wow. Can you either:
1. Teach my kids how to cook?
2. Invite me over for dinner?
This post makes me feel even crappier about my own horrific cooking un-skills.
I am sitting here jaw-dropped over the fact that this is a college freshmen DUDE preparing this meal and I’m thinking Bossy is one helluva mama to bring her boy up to be a cool dude like that.
WOW.
Blood-Sugar-Coma-O’Clock.
My favorite time of day!
great. Now I am starving and in need of a martini
Oh, hell…now I am starving. Please send your son and all the fixings to my house in Michigan. Don’t forget the wine…
Or you could just tell me how you got your son interested in cooking. Take your time with that one, I have about 17.5 years before mine goes off to college, but I’d love for him to grow up with not only a love for food, but an interest in how to prepare it.
I am in awe of this cooking, but not sure that it’s particularly College Freshman-esque. Maybe university over here is different? Everyone just eats Pop-Tarts and Pot Noodles. I’m very impressed!
I’m starving.
Mmmm, butter on filet. What’s not to love??
It’s so cute how you set the table with the knives at the top of the placemat! I’m still trying to train my family that the knife goes… well, wherever it goes.
My baking sheets and yours speak the same language, except that mine have taken the 400-level course and successfully written their thesis. By comparison, yours appear sophomoric at best.
Heh heh, Raz said “pot noodles.”
yet another reason i heart the great getzby!!