about me
Raina Uppal
Since I was little, I loved food! My mum is from Hong Kong and my dad is from India so I grew up in a real melting pot of cuisines and cultures. Our kitchen always has a warm smell of steamed rice and fresh ginger. When I was growing up, I used to watch MasterChef while eating dinner and I’d imagine that I was eating the mouth-watering food on the show! Seeing John and Greg, the MasterChef food critics, evaluate the food gave me the idea to become a food critic. My logic was, if I’m going to work in order to buy food, I may as well get paid to eat. Since then, I’ve had many other career aspirations, from being a fortune teller to printing bank notes and now it’s come full cycle and I feel like I might be back at food critic again.
I also grew up surrounded by jokes. My dad is a very funny guy, always joking and telling us stories at the dinner table. I guess I picked up on some of that and now my head is always filled with puns and dad jokes. I started Rate My Strachan because I thought it would be a fun way to combine my interests in writing about food and making people laugh (often it’s just myself laughing at my puns, but that’s okay too). I wanted Rate My Strachan to be a light-hearted and overall positive place where we can celebrate the food we eat with laughter.
I know that some people have complaints about the food we get at Strachan but overall it’s a lot better than I was expecting. We have food from all around the world and there’s ample choice for vegetarians, vegans and lactose-intolerant weaklings like myself. Obviously, there’s room for improvement in the food, perhaps the one thing I’d change is less tofu for the vegetarian option because it got so repetitive that I stopped being vegetarian. I would also say that the meal plan system needs to change urgently because not only do people have to pay for way more food than they actually want when the computer system could easily just charge us for the food we buy, it also leads to a lot of food being wasted. Partly, we get given these ginormous portions to justify the expensive meal plans but also, but also it incentivizes people to buy more food than they actually need and some of that inevitably goes to waste.
I realized that there was a solution to the problem of food waste at Strachan. If enough people donated a small amount of money from their meal plan, say $20 worth, we could buy eco-to-go containers and food for local homeless shelters. Through the Rate My Strachan Instagram account I reached out to the Trin community and found volunteers from first to fourth year interested in helping me with the distribution of food, which we will do every month. I decided to name this initiative Strachanto because it’s a combination of Strachan and Toronto. I’m hoping that even more people will volunteer because this is a great project that can make a real impact on our community and environment.
Penne pasta in a marinara tomato and basil sauce with a side of lightly sautéed broccoli.
Flatbread with pecorino cheese, cherry tomatoes and basil. Quick, easy and delicious.
Start by coating the bottom of pot with vegetable/olive oil. Throw in the chopped onions and let them become golden before you add the ginger and chilli flakes. Then add canned tomatoes to stop the mixture drying up. Now you can add turmeric (it burns so make sure to add it after the chopped tomato). Then add in the vegetables starting with the ones that take the longest to cook (carrots and broccoli). Make sure there's enough water and then cover with lid.
Sweet, ginger-infused baby bak chui, spicy silken tofu with cilantro and dainty basmati rice
Silken tofu, red bell peppers, broccoli, zucchini and button mushrooms in a spicy red Thai sauce with extra chilli flakes and cilantro
Start by sizzling cubes of chopped onions on oil. Then add thinly sliced garlic and half a can of canned tomatoes. Then add the vegetables, as these will take longer to cook than the chickpeas. Add the chickpeas and cover the pot. Lastly, add cilantro and stir.