Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Poor college student here but I manage through just good shopping. My top two favorites are:

sauteed carrots, onions, garlic and canned corn and black beans chipotle seasoning, salt, red pepper... then toss in a 1 cup of quinoa (costco sized bag!) and 2-3 cups of water with a bit of chicken buillon.

olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes (+), sweet paprika then toss in 1 can of tuna (save the juice and dump a lot of dried parsley in the juice to hydrate) sautee for a while and season properly while making whole wheat spaghetti (costco sized amount!) then toss that, tuna mix and parsley mix all together.

yummy.

I'm a creative advertising major and my dad HATEs that, he's always wanted me to go into business or computer engineering (his profession) and takes school very seriously - i.e. it shouldn't be something you do for fun. He is also notoriously hard to please and has always been.

For my mom's birthday a couple years I made pizza dough and pizza from scratch for the first time ever (half margherita, half sauteed mushroom with gruyere on one and half pesto shrimp and half heavy cream/zukes/proscutto on the other) and he told me, 100%, I should consider opening my own pizza shop. it made me smile bigtime. :)

I always make a big vat of queso...

start with a roux, i use cheddar and pepper jack and spices. then i spice up some black beans (separately). make fresh pico. dice up avocado and toss with lime juice. mix the pico into the cheese.

then i throw all of this in the crock pot like so: beans at bottom, cheese/pico mixture, then avocado on top and throw in pickled jalapenos.

it's always a hit :)

All my guy friends (20-21) can all eat entire medium pizzas (with bacon sausage peppers onions... you name is pretty much) by themselves =/

I make a huge huge vat of queso and everyone loves me for it! Although I am an Austinite so I've got a leg up on making amazing queso, but here's a recipe i use for the base recipe:

http://homesicktexan.blogspot.com/2008/04/more-natural-chile-con-queso.html

In Austin, TX this is gonna be hard... so many Mexican/TexMex I don't know which to choose! But my personal favorites...

- Torchy's Tacos for great, cheap tacos (try the fried avocado!)
- Salt Lick (not the one inside the city) for amazing BBQ
- Matt's El Rancho for Bob Armstrong Dip (queso)
- Austin Java Co. for when everyone in your group wants something different (bfast, burgers, pastas, salad...)

My boyfriend's mom stays at home all day and cooks the most amazing food with tons of fresh, organic and amazing ingredients. My mom works from 3pm-midnight every day and usually makes pasta dishes to put in the fridge for everyone to eat throughout the day while she's at work which are filling and aplenty.

In my opinion, that's a tie.

I think two starches is fine for 15, especially with the mushrooms and garlic - polarizing foods.

I agree with a nice winter salad. I also don't know how your family likes kale but I'm sautéing a whole mound with just olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes and coarse salt.

ahhhh I see after reading that I've said exactly what dbcurrie has :)

Mountains of clementine (as chickenlivers says) and KALE - my new favorite: mince some garlic and make a paste with some coarse salt, saute in some olive oil, throw in red pepper flakes and then toss in the kale. saute till crispy edges. freaky good.

I also prefer the stalks to the florets :)

@fsharp4565 - very well put.

Brussle Sprouts & BACON hell yes!