The advantage of this is that you can have a quick fix meal and you can control what goes into your food. If you cannot eat the premade meatballs from the freezer section because of food allergies or gluten intolerance, making them at home is a great alternative. You can also flavor them any way you want. Stores only carry one or two different flavors but you have unlimited number of flavorings – ranging from as spicy or mild as you want.

Quick dinners are great when you are in college but if you want to try cooking more or just want to be more adventurous with dinner, cooking in a microwave is a great way to get started.

Eating at home also gives you an opportunity to try new foods without paying as much as eating at a restaurant.

Just try cooking at home more too, rather than go out for dinner on a first date try cooking dinner together, it is a great way to get to know one another, or rather than order takeout for that night in with the girls have a potluck and everyone bring something homemade.

Kendra Shamley

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Flour Tortillas | 18 ounces All Purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 2/3 cup lard or vegetable shortening 1 cup cool water Combine the flour and salt in a large bowl. Work the lard or shortening into the flour until the texture is somewhat like sand. Then stir in the water and combine until the dough just comes together (it will be a little sticky). Sprinkle the extra flour onto a clean counter surface and knead the dough until it’s no longer sticky. Cover and allow to sit at room temperature for one hour. Once the dough has rested divide it into ping pong or golf ball sized balls, to roll them out use either a floured rolling pin or you can press the balls of dough between 2 plates lined with plastic wrap. Don’t worry if they’re not exactly the same size. Use a griddle heated to 375 degrees or a saute pan on the stove heated over low to medium-low heat. Cook the tortillas until they are lightly browned and begin to bubble, then flip to brown on the other side, about 2-3 minutes on each side depending on how hot your pan is. Makes about 16 medium sized tortillas. /// Steak Fajitas | 1 large bell pepper, any color; sliced 1 large onion; sliced 2 thin cut sirloin steaks, or 1 pound Fajita seasoning, use your favorite store bought mix or your own home blend Heat the pan over high heat and add a few tablespoons of oil. Season the steaks with salt, pepper and some fajita seasoning. When the oil is hot add the steaks to the pan and sear to the desired temperature (I prefer medium-rare or medium). When they’re done, remove them from the pan and cover with aluminum foil to rest while you sauté the vegetables. Sauté the pepper and onion until tender and sprinkle with more fajita seasoning. To serve, slice the steaks thin and against the grain and return to the pan with the vegetables. Serve right out of the pan or serve on a platter for a nicer presentation. Serve with lime wedges, cheese, sour cream, chopped lettuce and tomatoes. PHOTO: David Demic

Some recipes, like a baguette for example, can use either bread or all-purpose flours because the main goal of this type of bread is gluten development. Baguettes are chewy with a thick, crunchy crust and large air pockets; much different from a soft dinner roll with a thin crust and soft, dense crumb texture.

Then there are pies and pastries. These doughs usually have a high fat content because of butter or shortening which is the source of their leavening.  When you incorporate butter into flour and then form the dough with water you then have little bits of butter throughout the dough, when the heat of the oven heats the water molecules in the butter it turns them to steam which is what creates the rise.

Different kinds of flour also mean different flavors. Whole-wheat flour makes whole-wheat bread or it can be used in addition to white flour to add nutrients and fiber to chocolate chip cookies. There is also rye flour, spelt flour, barley flour and wheat berry flour which all make excellent breads, just make sure to follow the recipe precisely as these flours are different from the standard wheat flours.

If one feels really adventurous, they can try making their own sourdough starter at home or a friend has some already, ask them if they would be willing to part with some of theirs.

Before yeast came in a jar at the store this is how you kept natural yeasts around for baking.  A sourdough starter is also incredibly versatile – one is not limited to a single loaf of sourdough bread, sourdough pancakes, muffins, sourdough biscuits or just add different flavors to that loaf before you stow it in the oven. Cinnamon and raisins are welcome additions to a loaf of sourdough, or add multi-grains or flaxseed for an extra boost of nutrients.

Making bread at home can feel like a daunting task, but try and have fun with it.  What’s the worst that can happen? Your dough doesn’t rise or you accidentally kill your sourdough starter because you forgot to feed it? That’s okay! Make a few mistakes, it’s just bread, not a life or death scenario.

Kendra Shamley

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Ingredients: 1 cup All Purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 1/4 cup milk 2 teaspoons vegetable oil or melted butter 3 eggs To make the crepes Mix dry ingredients. Add the milk, oil or butter, and eggs and mix just to combine (over mixing will cause the crepes to get tough). Let the batter stand for 30 minutes to an hour. Heat a medium sized saute pan over medium to medium-low heat. Using a paper towel, carefully spread a small amount of butter in the pan so the crepes don’t stick. Add enough batter to the pan so that the batter coats the pan in a thin, even layer when gently swirled. Use a large rubber spatula to loosen the crepe after about 2 minutes on the first side. Cook for another 2-3 minutes on the second side, depending on the thickness. This recipe is very versatile, for savory crepes you can add herbs, such as chives, to the batter; or fill them with cheese or chicken. For dessert crepes you can drizzle them with chocolate, sprinkle with fresh berries, or just a dusting of powdered sugar.

Fresh herbs and vegetables are everywhere in the summer. Basil, chives, oregano, mint and so many more herbs are at their peak, and also their most sustainable. Vegetables abound, and the taste of any veggie right off the plant or out of the ground cannot be beat by any supermarket offering. Go to your farmer’s market and pick up a couple tomatoes, some green beans, maybe a pepper or two, and see if you can’t taste the sun and the rain when you bite into them. Fresh picked lettuce? Divine. Cucumbers? Crisp and flavorful. And we haven’t even gone over the fruit selection.

We are blessed to have local meat producers too, who care about how their animals are taken care of, and the quality is a testament to their toil. Remember that summer is the season of chicken and fish. There are local free-range chicken producers that peddle their wares at the farmer’s markets and online, and sell and deliver locally only. This includes free-range, naturally produced eggs, whose superior quality is worth an entire column in itself.

Now what to do with all this bounty? With the obvious exception of meats, eat the foods raw, or lightly seasoned. Try fresh garlic, salt and olive oil tossed with just barely cooked green beans. Or an appetizer of sliced tomatoes and fresh mozzarella drizzled with olive oil and garnished with fresh basil. Need something heavier? Grill that home raised chicken with just picked rosemary and thyme.

And for dessert, try Fresh peaches, lightly grilled, with drizzled local honey. I’m sure you are thinking, ‘she just told me to grill a peach,’ well, yes I did. Halve a peach, put it skin side up, and give it a couple minutes. The sweetness that a little heat brings out will surprise you. Pair it with some ice-cold tea with a few mint leaves floating around and you will be left feeling sated and refreshed.

The moral today is, when you use good quality ingredients you do not need to prop them up with lots of other flavors. Forget the premade seasoning mixes. You do not need them.

I challenge you to try a new fruit, vegetable and herb this summer. With the easy access to the internet that we all now enjoy, you can find simply fantastic recipes in minutes. Feel free to contact me, also, if you need ideas or recipes.

Kendra Shamley

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Penne with Pesto, Potatoes and Green Beans from William-Sonoma "Essentials of Italian Cookbook"

My name is Kendra and throughout this summer I will give readers tips, tricks and recipes for healthy and affordable foods.

While I don’t pretend to be the Iron Chef, my expertise in food comes from my culinary education I received at the Art Institute of Colorado, however my passion for good food sparked as far back as high school, where I was part of the culinary team.

My biggest “beef” with bad foods is that most people just don’t seem to care enough about it. Food is just so personal. It goes into your body, so you should want to know where it came from, who’s touched it, what it was grown in and what’s in it.  If you don’t care what’s in it, why should the manufactures that make it?

Throughout human history the primary goal of man was to get enough to eat and a sturdy shelter to keep him warm, but the modern era has ushered in a new way of thinking—or lack thereof—that puts food on the back burner (pun intended).

Fewer and fewer people know how to cook basic foods these days. Many, if not most of my generation, eat out at least once a day and there is just no excuse to not know what a pig or a chicken looks like unless it’s a picture on cellophane on the outside of a wrapped, ready to eat grocery meal.

The kicker is that family pets sometimes eat better than the people that take care of them. The dog is eating “all natural white meat chicken with real vegetables” while the family sits around the television eating Velveeta. Mmmmm plastic.

And yes, there are the excuses. I’ve met a few people who, when working with raw meat, were disgusted by it. Kids won’t eat vegetables because they’re “gross”—but they’ll eat jell-o and fruit snacks.

There’s a reason why modern food documentaries, along with Upton Sinclair author of “The Jungle,” talk about how disgusting animal factories are.  Educating yourself on this topic opens your eyes as an eater. You wouldn’t eat poop, chicken feathers or plastic pellets, so common sense dictates you don’t feed these things to cows, pigs or chickens, and yet this is very often the case.

I challenge you to think about your next meal.  Could you go meet the farmer that grew the lettuce on your burger? Could you shake the hand of the butcher who ground that juicy beef patty? Do you know what all the ingredients are?

Ask questions about your food, because you wouldn’t just stuff other random stuff into your body without at least looking at the label.

Kendra Shamley

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