Review: This book has great ideas for food and fun

 Every adult mentions how difficult it is to pay bills. No one mentions how difficult it is to find food every day, three times a day and seven days a week.

Growing up, going out to eat was a necessity. My parents hated cooking, so now it’s a real struggle to turn away from carry-outs and fast food. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to live the lifestyle my parents do, and heading into Christmas as a college student has left me completely broke.

It’s time to learn how to cook food at home. I mean decent meals, struggle meals, healthy snacks and fun desserts. “the Ultimate College Cookbook” written by Victoria Granof has been a great start to learning these skills.

First of all, it’s great to have a ton of fun recipes on hand without having to search on Tiktok for hours or remember which recipe blog you looked at. It makes for a great hang out with friends along with a cute date night in.

The recipe I want to highlight is the Hot Chocolate Lava Cakes. It is the perfect dessert for the Holiday season.

The fun of it is the fact they’re baked in mugs, so it’s not hard to turn it into a fun experience. Head to Target, pick out a cute (cheap) Christmas mug, and bake these lava cakes to eat while watching a Christmas movie.

This recipe is not expensive, which is a main reason I enjoy it so much. It only requires a few ingredients, and most of them are pantry staples.

It also very quick and easy to make. It only requires 10 minutes in the oven, and prep-time is also kept at a minimum.

The recipe also has optional additives like cayenne powder for a hint of spice. It also has great tips for serving like adding vanilla ice cream.

Personally, I left out the spice because the lava cakes were perfect as they were. They were soft cakes in the outside with rich chocolate melted in the center. Once the vanilla ice cream was added, the combination of flavors was incredible. It was the perfect warm dessert for the cold weather.

The hint of Espresso powder leaves an small, bitter hint of flavor to counteract the sweet chocolate. It is a great surprise for people who enjoy the taste of coffee, but don’t let it turn you away if you’re not a fan of coffee. It’s a surprising delight for the sweet dessert.

I recommend baking the cakes longer than 10 minutes due to the unpredictability of SVSU ovens, if you’re living on campus. They’re meant to be slightly melted, but it’s still necessary to cook the egg all the way through.

The Hot Chocolate Lave Cakes are a five star recipe.

The recipe book doesn’t stop there though. All of the dessert recipes are great, even Espresso Brownies are listed after the lava cakes. However, the reason I bought the book in the first place was for meal ideas, and it delivers.

There is a wide variety of foods listed in the book with some more traditional dishes and some recipes from different cultures to try.

The book is meant for college students, so the recipes are friendly for a ton of different kitchen appliances.

I enjoy the book a lot because of the different types of foods. There is a section for breakfast, grains, big meals, solo meals, brain foods and snacks and sweet treats and sauces.

Whenever I don’t plan for dinner, it’s so simple to pick up the book and figure something out from there. Even if it’s not this book, I recommend having some type of simple cookbook in the kitchen to make life easier.

To advocate for this one though, it does gear towards college kids which is nice as it keeps the recipes fairly cheap, and it keeps it simple.

Occasionally, the book does tend to overcomplicated recipes in some cases. Each recipe seems to have vastly different ingredients which makes it frustrating to have to revisit the grocery store nearly every single time. It would be nice to have it reorganized into recipes which use similar ingredients.

However, the positives of this book far outweigh the negatives. Each recipe has tips and variations of the recipe to make it to your liking.

It even gives helpful directions in the introduction on how to start out as a cook in the kitchen with certain kitchen staples, how to use different kitchen appliances and more. It is a great start for people who are just now learning how to cook for themselves.

I feel it does a much better job at keeping things simple than other cookbooks which seem to be made for people with experience.