The first month of school flew by in a haze, and I find each day rapidly escaping me. Between classes, clubs and my Capital Bikeshare rides or jogs past the Supreme Court, I sometimes wonder how I find the time to do it all. That being said, while I have found a chunk of time to exercise and boost my endorphins daily, I unfortunately cannot say the same about blocking off time to cook. 

Unlike my quarantine schedule at home, when I had copious amounts of time to prepare both intricate and simple dishes from scratch, my current living style, with minimal kitchen space coupled with my not-the-best time management, makes cooking in-depth recipes a near-impossible feat. If only I had four hours to spare per day to cook a balanced meal from scratch! 

My habits got to the point that I knew I had to make a lifestyle change. Annie’s Mac & Cheese with chopped-up hot dogs for dinner just wasn’t cutting it anymore, however delicious it might have been. I knew I needed to find some new, easy, yet quick recipes as soon as possible.

Some people search online for simple recipes. Others browse through cookbooks. My go-to these days has been TikTok. A consultant for all tidbits of information, a repository of dance and an online cookbook all in one — among countless other things. In this sense, the app was a live cookbook awaiting execution in my kitchen.

In my collection of saved videos, I have several quick and easy recipes stashed away that I am dying to try. I decided to attempt a pasta recipe, deemed “a college recipe” by its creator Emily LaCava, since she made the simple meal frequently when she herself was a college student. I’ve heard many times that social media recipes like those of BuzzFeed Tasty don’t turn out remotely as successful as they appear to be on socials, and I was curious to see how this TikTok concoction would turn out. As my roommate said before I brandished my spatula and whisked out a pan, “Good luck, hope it’s edible.” 

Luckily for you all, I tried the recipe out myself, and the dish turned out to be not only edible, but extremely delicious! This pasta dish is a quick 15-minute recipe, no joke. And it’s hard to go wrong with pasta anyway. The recipe is below, and the original TikTok can be found here. The creator doesn’t give out specific measurements, so I took on the responsibility of figuring them out!

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces of pasta, any type — I used farfalle
• ¾ cup of frozen sweet peas
• ½ tablespoons of minced garlic
• ¼ cup of white wine
• ½ cup of finely chopped white onions
• ½ cup of grated Parmesan cheese
• ¼ stick of butter
• ¼ cup of pasta water
• Oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Optional: garlic powder

Instructions:

1. In a pot, bring the water to a boil.
2. Toss in the 8 ounces of pasta, salting the pasta water heavily. Let it cook for four minutes.
3. In a saucepan, saute the garlic and onions using olive oil.
4. Use salt and pepper — optionally, add garlic powder — to season the garlic and onions.
5. Add ¼ cup of white wine into the saucepan to give the mixture a sweeter, more flavorful taste.
6. After the pasta has boiled for four minutes, add in the frozen peas. Wait four minutes to drain the pasta and peas. Save ¼ cup of the reserved pasta water.
7. In the saucepan, pour back the reserved pasta water and mix well with the current mixture.
8. Pour the drained pasta into the saucepan, coating it well.
9. Add the ¼ stick of butter to the saucepan, making sure it melts completely.
10. Mix in the ½ cup of Parmesan cheese, stirring to distribute it equally.
11. Serve and top with Parmesan cheese.
12. Enjoy!

Isabella Xu is a junior in the McDonough School of Business. Homemade Gourmet appears online every other week.