Good news and bad news.
Bad news first? This semester is looking to be rough. I have 16 weeks of PSC 561: American State Government and Administration, 16 weeks of PSC 775: Organizational Theory in Administration and eight weeks of accounting. Yikes. This isn’t my first semester of grad school, but it’s my first full-time semester, with three classes. I’m still holding down my full-time job at the paper and my part-time grad assistantship as well, so I’m super nervous about it. I’ve also started looking into grad schools to obtain my doctorate at, so the pressure’s on!
Now the good news? I’m back to my once-a-week cooking sprees. My first semester of grad school offered me classes every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night for the entire 16 weeks. The second two semesters were a little kinder, with one Tuesday night class for eight weeks, and then a Wednesday night class for eight weeks. Now, I’m going to be seeing Monday night city meetings (oh the life of a reporter), Tuesday night class and Wednesday night class for the next 16 weeks, plus plenty of library study sessions for my online accounting class. This means I’ll likely be cramming a week’s worth of cooking into one Sunday afternoon, and refrigerating and freezing enough pre-cooked food to get me through my 14-hour days. This seemed like an opportune time to kill off the “Food Fridays” feature and focus on more of a day-to-day approach of blogging. I’ll likely be slowing down my crafting as well, so I’m likely to post less often. But– I promise I will substitute quality for quantity if you promise to stick with me.
Last night’s class, surprisingly, only lasted 45 minutes. So I got to spend the extra time doing a bit of make-ahead cooking for today at work. I’m still trying to save money because of the ridiculous amount of Christmas debt my credit card incurred, so I’m trying to do the best I can with what my fridge plays host to right now. Last night’s creations?
I had a ton of wonton wrappers left in my fridge, so I put my creativity to work. I found some mozzarella and feta in the back of my freezer, and I always have spinach on hand.
I didn’t really measure ingredients out, but used an olive-oil-sprayed cupcake tin to layer a wonton wrapper, a teaspoon of pizza sauce, a tablespoon of mozzarella cheese, a few pieces of whole spinach and about half a teaspoon of feta crumbles.
I baked them at 400 for about 20 minutes, until the cheese melted and the tips of the wonton wrappers began to brown. When I finished my tray, I still had wonton wrappers left over, though. So how about dessert?
Much like the wonton pizza bites, I didn’t really measure too exactly. I threw some frozen strawberries, dark chocolate chips and about a teaspoon of chia seeds into a blender, pulsed for a second, and spooned the filling onto some wonton wrappers placed upon an olive-oil-greased baking sheet.
Use your finger dipped in water to trace the edges of the wrapper, and then fold the wrappers into triangles and press down on the edges. I baked these at the same temperature as the pizza bites, but only for about 15 minutes.
Voila! Enough wonton bites for last night’s dinner and today’s lunch at work, and enough of the strawberry-dark chocolate puffs for Jake and I to share.
What’s the best kitchen-creation you’ve ever concocted while trying to creatively empty your fridge?
