<p>Well, we're just about done getting all the stuff for D to go to MCAD, 1600 miles away. All MCAD housing is apartments, so they need kitchen stuff too. 2 of her roommates are international students (China and Mexico), so they aren't bringing much of the common use stuff, as they have to fly. The other roommate is from the Chicago area and says she has lots of kitchen stuff and is bringing the TV. We agreed to bring the microwave. Trying to convince D she doesn't need every book she owns (and believe me, we have A LOT at our house).</p>
<p>We have a minivan reserved from Alamo, and figured it would be OK. Now I have a living room full of bins and having second thoughts. Yesterday I spent the day looking for one of those 12 passenger vans and they go for $2300, and you don't even own it when you're done :-) So since we got a good deal on the van ($600), we're sticking with that. Time to buy stock in UPS!!</p>
<p>Ugh! This is making me glad that D2 isn’t traveling that far. Her stuff is starting to pile up and take over the basement and hallway. We’re assuming she’ll be in a kitchen suite, but if she isn’t-- what do I do with the big bag of old kitchen stuff we bought at the Unique Thrift Store? Extra ladles anyone?</p>
<p>And what happens when it all comes home next summer? I’m dreading that invasion already.</p>
<p>I’ve thought about next summer and I’m pretty sure I won’t want to make that trip again! Figure at that point, one of us (probably me) will fly up, and rent a storage space for her stuff, maybe split it with another student. 3 months of storage has got to be cheaper and easier!</p>
<p>I traveled 24 hours by car to where I went to college. I had unfortunate cousins who lived nearby and got to store my things every summer! The summer before senior year, I stayed for the summer and my roommate and I had a big “apartment” sale just before graduation and got rid of most of our stuff. I think my parents still had to rent a u-haul to bring the rest back.</p>
<p>These are the kinds of things you usually purge from your memory.</p>
<p>Here is how to stretch servings and reduce fat / sodium intake when you got cooking facility and are using generic powdered cheese sauce mix variety.
buy on sale and stock generic bags of pasta in fun shapes.
boil enuff hot water and add generic pasta ( need cooking time 11-13min depending on the brand or shape)
time, and 5-6 min later, add skinny tube macaronis that came with the mac cheese box set.
when hodgepodge macaronis are all cooked al dente, drain but save bit of the murky water.
this is important, in separate saucepan, melt butter ( use the real thing, but half of the suggested amount written on the box) and add twice or three times of milk whatever that you are stretching serving wise. add orange powder, stir well in low heat so there is no orange bits are left in the sauce.
add drained macaroni into the pan and mix well. keep low heat if it is too watery, shut off heat and add bit of saved cooking water if it is too dry.
put in the fancy bowl and sprinkle few little flakes (but good) sea salt and freshly grounded pepper. </p>
<p>Use whole wheat pasta if you want go extra healty, add any fresh (at step 2) or frozen veggie (at step 3), sprinkle cooked bacon bits or browned breadcrumbs at step 7 would be nice, but kids often like 'em plain and orange.
half pound generic pasta (50-60 cents) and one box small mac cheese (supermarket store brand 75 -90 cents, if you get Kraft’s what? 1-2 bucks nowadays?) serves 4-6 people (whole family!) depending on how hungry you are.
They should just sell those orange powder packet by itself, like, 15-25 cents each. It is a conspiracy, more money, more fat, more cardboard, more bulk in the cupboard. The quality of those tubed macaroni come in box set is a joke. splurge and try Harry Cipriani’s or at least De Cecco, you will never see the mac cheese the same way again…
I do understand pasta brands have this local zoning , like Prince in Boston, Mueller’s in Midwest, if you are in NY, Ronzoni never fails.
Here, since $ saving is the issue, use any cheapo pasta, just make sure they are not 6 year old.</p>
<p>Wow, big trucks! I’ll be renting a compact to mid-sized – I had an Elantra on a trip recently and liked that. If it doesn’t fit in the car, it doesn’t go. Then we’ll get anything else needed either at Ikea, Target, or shipped in – I tend to setup a lot of Amazon.com shipments for the end of August.</p>
<p>Thanks for the recipe BandD …will send to S but he will be unlikely to use it. He just got dorm assignment…well actually it was ages ago but I just found out…all male, mainly freshman dorm…65 guys on 3 floors with shared bathrooms…one small kitchen and common room on first floor so cooking (even of cheap pasta) is unlikely.</p>
<p>I am kind of pleased that he is going to have the stereotypical freshman experience from 1965. Unfortunately, the rooms look like cells (11x14) and there is no space, and I mean absolutely no space for any artwork (or, for that matter, a tv, refrigerator or microwave). They have bunks with their desks and dressers underneath. There is one tiny shared closet–really. Luckily, he only owns 5 pairs of jeans, 15 or so t-shirts, sufficient underclothes and socks, 3 sweat shirts (none that say CMU), one parka (rather old and short in the arms but …), one suit, one dress shirt and tie and two pairs of shoes and a pair of snow boots. Really. That’s the wardrobe of my “does not qualify for Financial Aid at CMU student”. </p>
<p>I seriously thought about putting him on a bus with a couple of suitcases but I realize that I need the closure and I love to visit Pittsburgh. We will probably take his dad’s hybrid and put linens and one suitcase in the trunk. There will even be space for little sis to come along (not in the trunk).</p>
<p>I recently got a “compression sack” on ebay. I had some older ones from Granite Gear, that were big enough to throw in a large sleeping bag, a couple of pillows, and a towel or two, and compress it all down to the size of a walnut. Well, not really, but it got about 1/3 smaller at least.</p>
<p>I haven’t been able to find them anymore but I did a random search for “compression sack” on ebay and found someone selling surplus army ones for about $5. Mine arrived today and it’s just as big but has even more straps so you can squeeze it horizontally as well as vertically. (the Granite Gear ones were at least $20 retail).</p>
<p>I’m sending one with D and might get more, for her to put things that she doesn’t need right away; winter clothes, extra sheets, whatever, and she can just throw it in the back of her closet.</p>
<p>the container store has the small ones for suitcases. A real godsend when we travelled in Europe. My son has one for his little backpack and puts all his dirty clothes in it and squashes it down to next to nothing. The container store may have the large ones too. They are really quite amazing.</p>
<p>No amount of compression sack will help us with D when it is her time to go away. Her closet is bursting now and friends keep handing over stuff they grow out of…she can’t bear to throw stuff away…She is packing for field hockey camp as I type and it is only for 4 days…full little suitcase and she keeps changing her mind about what combos of shorts and tops she should take…</p>
<p>B&D, great recipe! Gonna print it out for D. One of her roomates is Chinese and bringing her Chinese cookbooks and spices straight from Beijing, so she’ll get to taste some real Chinese and not what’s in every strip mall in Florida. We thought about shipping some stuff, but there is a size limit of what fits in the mail locker in the apt building. She can only get what comes via USPS, no FedEx, UPS, etc, so that makes it harder. We’ll probably ship her winter coats if there’s no room and hope they don’t get lost!</p>
<p>@ famm, my daughters wardrobe sounds like your sons. Her roommate from Chicago is a self-proclaimed “girly girl”, so who knows how much stuff she has?? They haven’t worked out whose rooming with who yet, but I don’t think she’ll be with the Chinese girl because she’s a morning person and D is a night owl.</p>
<p>When I grew up in florida there was Muellers ONLY and then there was a much larger space given up to brands of grits…my poor mother was driven to make her own pasta (and she is English)…I remember her trying to make decent jam and marmalade sweltering in our kitchen (all you could get was grape jelly in the stores). First she tried using frozen fruit and then learned to make interesting jams and chutneys from mangos, kumquats, unripened oranges…Redbug, is North Florida still the culinary wasteland of my childhood --actually …not entirely fair…I learned to love grits, fried okra, fried mullet and I think that hearts of palm salad served with pistachio icecream (Cedar Key) one of the most creative food creations ever. However, my trips back seem to indicate that the local delicacies have been disappearing and everything is very homogeneous “american” (think Applebees and TGIF). …what will your daughter miss the most food-wise when she gets to college?</p>
<p>Muellers are evil. Do no trust pasta company that started out as noodle company.
Of course if that’s the only thing you had, I am so very sorry.
You are not going to get great pasta dish anyway in any cafeteria meal plan of any colleges.
better not knowing what you are missing… heheheh</p>
<p>I grew up in NY and really miss Ronzoni. Their pastina (tiny little stars) was my childhood comfort food. It’s impossible to find any pastina where I am in MD. </p>
<p>I agree that “noodles” are quite a different thing and that I’m probably a pasta snob. D2 wants me now to only cook whole wheat pasta. Ugh! Whole wheat is for bread, not pasta! </p>
<p>It’s funny how the shape can affect the texture and experience so much. None of those die-cut looking shapes - the ones that look like tiny cookie cutters of Sponge Bob, pumpkins and witches, the state of Texas, etc, they NEVER come out right. I wonder why they’re always gummy?</p>
<p>Right now I’m infatuated with big, fat radiatore pasta (made by Garofalo) that I found at a discount gourmet shop for $2.99/pound. What an excellent shape for pesto.</p>