Ultimate kitchen hacks: Recipes for stress

Guaranteed to cure all your stress… or cause even more!

By Caroline Ho, Web Editor

 

With finals right around the corner and term paper deadlines haunting you like that tacky Halloween decoration you still haven’t taken down, you know it’s crunch time. And by crunch time, we mean “time to stress-eat everything within a five-kilometre radius.”

The Other Press is here to help you channel some of that end-of-term anxiety into epicurean energy! Spend some time in the kitchen to give yourself a break from studying. Whip up these gastronomic delights expertly curated to fuel both body and mind. Once you’ve tried these recipes, studying is going to seem easy as pie, one way or another.

 

Extra-loaded energy-booster beverage

When there’s serious schoolwork to be done, nothing gets those brain juices flowing like excessive quantities of caffeine and sugar! You could go to the 24/7 convenience store down the road to pick up an energy drink, but then you’d have to go through the trouble of going outside and putting on pants (knowing you, probably in that order). Instead, why not try this crafty homemade mix?

 

Cooking time: 5 minutes

Serves: 4, or 1 if you’re feeling really productive

Ingredients:

3 tbsp instant coffee

1 cup Coke or Pepsi

1 cup Mountain Dew

2 cups other off-brand soda from the back of your fridge

2 tbsp loose leaf Earl Grey tea

4 Orange Pekoe bags

20 g matcha powder

100 g dark chocolate

2 scoops mocha ice cream

Sugar to taste

 

Instructions:

1. Consume instant coffee first to make sure you have the energy to prep. Popular options include eating by the tablespoonful cinnamon-challenge-style or snorting.
2. Google “what has caffeine other than coffee” to make sure your ingredients list is comprehensive.
3. Accidentally get into an argument on your favourite internet forum about the merits of different takeout coffee cup lids, because that one hipster place near your work is totally better for spill prevention, even if it does sacrifice a bit on heat retention.
4. Yes, they sometimes run out of the right size lid, but you have data from your last 14 visits proving that they’ve carried every size at least 80 percent of the time.
5. Begin creating an MS Paint diagram illustrating your points, then wonder why you can’t spend half this much effort on your own schoolwork.
6. Anyway, now that you’re sufficiently amped up, mix soda and tea ingredients together in a large bowl. Stir, then let sit for a couple minutes for the tea to become infused with carbonation. (That’s how science works right?)
7. Break up chocolate into chunks, then place in a blender along with matcha powder and ice cream. Blend until nice and creamy.
8. Add soda-tea-mix to blender and pulse until mix is totally smooth, except for the tea bags still swirling around in there.
9. Taste-test and add sugar to desired sweetness level. We recommend between 1/2 and 10 cups.
10. All done! Pour into a large cup and consume immediately before you have any time to reconsider the wisdom of this drink, your studying habits, and every choice in life that has brought you to this point of desperation.

 

One-pot soup

What’s more wholesome and relaxing than a hearty bowl of soup? Except it’s now 3 am and you don’t want to wake your roommate up by banging pots and pans around and whatnot. Fear not, this ludicrously simple and versatile one-pot soup comprises minimal preparation, minimal cleanup, and maximal culinary pleasure.

 

Cooking time: 10 minutes

Serves: 1

 

Ingredients:

2 cups milk

1 cup chopped vegetables

1/4 cup rice, quinoa, or other grains

1 cup crackers to use as croutons

 

Instructions:

1. In a small pot, gently heat up milk until warm, though short of boiling.
2. Meanwhile, start looking for fresh vegetables, then realize you have none. Come on, you’ve been waist-deep in midterm season for months. Who’s got time for groceries? You do, however, have… raisins, which definitely count as a fruit, so that’s pretty close.
3. Better idea: Corn flakes! Corn is almost definitely closer on the vegetable spectrum, plus it doubles as a grain. Look how efficient you are!
4. Measure out corn flakes while waiting for milk to heat up, then contemplate whether cereal with milk technically counts as soup or not. I mean, it’s a liquid consumed out of a bowl, so…
5. Actually, didn’t you have a debate with your douche-y ex about this years ago? You’re pretty sure you won that argument, but you don’t actually remember which side you were on.
6. Well, now you’re in the mood for that specific brand of cookies your ex used to always buy for you. Hey, cookies are pretty close to crackers anyway.
7. Optional step: Crumble cookies into crouton-sized pieces, or just keep whole if you prefer your croutons more structurally intact.
8. Once milk is finally warm, add half of cookie-croutons and reserve other half for dipping.
9. Realize you never added the corn flakes, shrug, and pour them back into the box because you don’t need that extra fibre.
10. Congratulations, your healthy soup recipe has transformed into cookies and warm milk. Santa would be proud… and so would your ex.

 

Sleepy, melatonin-rich medley

After a full night of productivity, you may find yourself in need of a heck of a wind-down. This recipe is designed to calm your overworked mind down and ease you right into a solid night of sleep.

 

Cooking time: 7 to 8 hours, ideally

Serves: 1

 

Ingredients:

2 cups almonds

2 cups walnuts

 

Instructions:

1. Set out almonds and walnuts, which both contain very high levels of melatonin. Seriously, it’s true. No, don’t Google it to fact-check, haven’t you learned from last time??
2. Set out two bowls. In one bowl you’re going to need exactly 250 almonds and 100 walnuts, okay? So start counting.
3. One almond, two almonds, three almonds…

…

135, 136… wait, was that 137 or…

…

Zzzzzz…