The Vegan Roommate -- and other nightmares you might encounter in college

Congratulations to me, my resolution to not think about school throughout July got a little interrupted by the dreaded course schedules. But more on that after my vegan experiments.

So...my new roommate is a vegan. I love her to death already, but I have to admit that the first words that crossed my mind were FUCK MY LIFE. Yes. The all caps were necessary. Now that my initial freakout is over (she's vegan for health reasons not because she's weird) I've decided to start trying some vegan cooking. We do need to coexist food-wise for a little while. Tonight, I'm starting with an old recipe my grandma, and then my mom used to make -- not quite as good as her meatballs, but Sarah can eat it. So here it is, pasta fagioli...but without the meat! I'll even tell y'all how to make it! Scroll to the bottom if you want to skip the recipe and read the rest of my post...

Start out with a couple pieces of garlic and some olive oil, and roast them together until the garlic has browned a little bit. Careful though, olive oil burns.

Next you're going to pop open a few cans of cannellini beans and tomato sauce and literally just throw them in with the garlic and oil. I usually use one of those cute little 8 oz tomato sauce cans with four Progresso cans of cannellinis. I guess I'm going to figure out how to make less of it... Chick peas work too if you're after something a little less mushy and creamy.

Then add about a can-full (more if you want to cook it longer like I do) of water, a few bay leaves and some red pepper and just let it cook cook cook! It smells absolutely amazing while it's going. You'll know when it's ready, just taste it, and it'll look all delicious and creamy.

For the pasta, I usually use elbows, but the little tiny shells and linguine both taste pretty damn good with it too. If you don't know how to cook pasta then I can't help you. Google it.

So that looks awesome right? It tastes pretty damn good too. If you're not trying to be adjusty (soooo not a word) like me, it's delicious if you chop up some duck or lamb and put it in. Actually you can add a lot of things, I'm just lazy. Either way, it's like the ultimate Italian comfort food.

Anyways, I promised a few other nightmares. So here's my other one...course schedules. Mine is just not working for me. Imagine my terror when instead of getting chem, econ 101, a studio art class, and a writing seminar, I got chem, arabic 101, and a writing seminar. Admittedly the whole thing is probably my fault. As the darling and already brutally honest Sarah put it..."Why the fuck did you sign up for Arabic?" Cue some frantic schedule checking and me figuring out that, yes, I can fit the studio art class in my schedule, and that yes, I can switch arabic out for econ 101...but only if I'm willing to SPRINT from chemistry to econ. I am. Bring it on Shirley...I'm ready for you!