cheap food creations for the dorm

[happytechnogirl]

Anyone have any fun stories of cheap food you used to make as a student living in residence? I know the traditional Kraft Dinner made in a coffee maker story...but any more? Or any simple meals with bang for the buck I might try to make in residence? I cook a lot for a student, but I'm always looking for new and interesting recipes to try out in Western when I move there in September!

Thanks!

[chezcherie]

yes, please. kid#2 will be hitting the dorms in sept., and he'd love to have some ideas.

[ellencho]

Bagel pizzas. Just steal the different bits and pieces for your bagel pizza during the week. Swipe a bagel in the morning, some cheese in the afternoon at lunch, and at dinner most college dorms have some form of pasta with red sauce so take that too. When you're studying later, and hungry, assemble your bagel pizza and toast in a toaster oven.

[Malawry]

I made anything and everything in my dorm kitchen when I was a college student--fresh baked bread, hummus from dried chickpeas, whatever I felt like. It can be done!

What cooking equipment do you have? That helps us know what to suggest.

[mizducky]

Anyone have any fun stories of cheap food you used to make as a student living in residence? I know the traditional Kraft Dinner made in a coffee maker story...but any more? Or any simple meals with bang for the buck I might try to make in residence? I cook a lot for a student, but I'm always looking for new and interesting recipes to try out in Western when I move there in September!

Thanks!

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I seem to recall a whole lotta Top Ramen happening ... either in the trusty coffeemaker, or for the slightly better equipped, in a saucepan on a hotplate.

Speaking of that hot plate--if your dorm does not have student-accessible kitchens, do not despair. You too can make like a SRO hotel resident and create your own makeshift kitchen with assorted small electrical appliances (allowing for your school's rules on having such things in dorms--I vaguely recall that some dorms ban many cooking gizmos as fire hazards). With some assortment of hotplate, toaster oven, little George Foreman-type grill, microwave, and small fridge you can make an amazing amount of actual for-real food (i.e. not just Top Ramen). Omelettes are pretty straighforward with the hotplate and an inexpensive non-stick skillet. The grill or toaster-oven can let you do burgers, chops, and other small meat items; you can do baked potatoes in microwave or toaster oven; the toaster oven even gives you access to (relatively smallish) baked goods. If you can only pick one appliance, go for a good-quality toaster oven--IMO they're the most versatile gizmo.

[godito]

Some friends used to make "dashboard hot dogs" during road trips (yup, it's exactly what you're thinking: the top of your dashboard is hot enough to cook a hot dug AND it's bun) but I don't think that's what you're talking about. I've seen grilled cheese sandwiches made with an iron. Other than that we ate a lot of ramen noodles and campbell soup...

[Shalmanese]

Consider buying a portable induction nob if they don't have a kitchen. I haven't used one in dorms but my experience with them suggests they would fit very well. And it also eliminates the fire hazard aspect.

[pamjsa]

Speaking of that hot plate--if your dorm does not have student-accessible kitchens, do not despair. You too can make like a SRO hotel resident  and create your own makeshift kitchen with assorted small electrical appliances (allowing for your school's rules on having such things in dorms--I vaguely recall that some dorms ban many cooking gizmos as fire hazards). With some assortment of hotplate, toaster oven, little George Foreman-type grill, microwave, and small fridge you can make an amazing amount of actual for-real food (i.e. not just Top Ramen). Omelettes are pretty straighforward with the hotplate and an inexpensive non-stick skillet. The grill or toaster-oven can let you do burgers, chops, and other small meat items; you can do baked potatoes in microwave or toaster oven; the toaster oven even gives you access to (relatively smallish) baked goods. If you can only pick one appliance, go for a good-quality toaster oven--IMO they're the most versatile gizmo.

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These days, most residence halls do not allow students to have hot plates, Foreman grills, toaster ovens, microwaves--except for those provided and designated for public use--or much of anything beyond a hot pot, a coffee maker and an air popper. All in the name of safety, of course. And given that every campus I've taught or lived on has had at least one fire in campus housing per year, I don't think this policy is a bad idea.

That being said, I'll add that I made lots and lots of pasta dishes using my little hot pot, both cold salads (small refrigerators are almost always permissible) and hot entrees. You can boil small portions of chicken in stock, then dice and use in green salads or pasta dishes. It's also useful for melting chocolate (fondue, anyone?) I never tried a cheese fondue in the hot pot, but I'm guessing that might work as well.

[happytechnogirl]

I made anything and everything in my dorm kitchen when I was a college student--fresh baked bread, hummus from dried chickpeas, whatever I felt like. It can be done!

What cooking equipment do you have? That helps us know what to suggest.

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Well i wasn't assigned a suite style dorm i need ideas for a single room without a floor kitchenette

a lot of small appliances (i.e. mini george forman grills) are banned from residence as well, but i'm a rulebreaker i'll sneak a coffeepot / little hotplate in i did buy a little fridge too (3.2 cubic feet with freezer)

[WHT]

You can do a lot with one of those utility lamps like they sell at most home improvement stores with the clamp, ceramic socket and aluminum reflector. They can be used to create an oven or hot plate with a few items from the dollar store. Use a 75 Watt bulb and you are set to do all kinds of neat stuff. Think easy bake oven on ‘roids.

[AzianBrewer]

Being in NYC for college, I had many opportunities for local cheap eats. However, my bros and sis went to some boonies for school and developed a passion for spams, canned corned beef hash and Vienna sausage!

[Msk]

Toast-n-Serve Magic Bag Thread

That would seem to fit the bill.

Msk

[vestadunning]

When I was in college, I was viewed as the resident cook. My specialty was making meals out of college staples like ramen noodles and ingredients freely available from the cafeterias (condiments and the like). The only things I had to cook with were a microwave and an electric wok.

It's this kind of thing that really shows a cook -- given constraints like that, can you make anything palatable? I gave it my best shot.

Often, the best way was to make a "salad" of a bunch of veggies at the cafeteria -- veggies I'd later use in the cooking. They must have thought of me as "the girl who makes salads completely out of broccoli and chicken and peapods" at one of the cafeterias.

One of my favorite dishes -- perfect for late-night food -- was a variation on cold noodles with sesame sauce. Instead, I made cold ramen with peanut sauce. Peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar, and hot pepper were all available as condiments, take as many as you want, from the cafeteria. A little vinegar (I had some around for cleaning -- white isn't as good as rice vinegar, but in college, who cares?) and I was all set.

Cook the noodles, drain, rinse in cold water, refrigerate for a couple minutes while making the sauce, then cool the sauce in the freezer for a couple minutes. 10-15 minutes and I could, given a big enough pot to boil the noodles in, cook this for my entire floor!

[fiftydollars]

Can you have a rice machine?

[AmyDaniel]

Can you have a rice machine?

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I had a rice cooker in college (it was probably forbidden, but it saved my life).

happytechnogirl, if you get a rice cooker, a hot plate, and a small pan (I guess - unless you can cook w/a wok on one of those things), you might be able to make egg fried rice. My mother makes a little variation on it, with some fried onions and cumin seeds before she scrambles the egg and adds the (day-old!) rice. V. good.

[racheld]

It is not an urban legend that you can fry chicken in a popcorn popper. I've seen it done. And cook noodles and vegetables and soup and stew, all from scratch. Well, not the noodles---they didn't have little wooden drying racks sitting about or anything, but the two girls across the hall could turn out some Lovely dishes. They were both great cooks, but one had the odd habit of making instant coffee with hot water straight out of the tap...Yuk. But she would take a big swig and give out an AHHHHHHH worthy of a truck driver.

And then there was the night that my own roommate could not eat the entire can of tuna and squished the contents down into the bathroom sink drain with a spoon. Best never spoken of again.

[markovitch]

ramen, frozen stir fry mix. the biggest obstacle I hit during my college tenure was finding the time to use up fresh products i bought-- yes frozen isn't nearly as good, but neither are the science projects they become when you don't have the time to cook them before they go south. plus cooking time is a fraction of fresh.

[markovitch]

and develop a taste in condiments. on campus food will quickly become condiment-delivery devices.

[ghostrider]

I went through graduate school with a hot plate & my Boy Scout mess kit. No joke. These simple instruments gave me my first self-taught lessons in cooking. Everything was trial & error.

My idea of a good meal was to sautee a chopped onion, minced garlic & some ground beef, put the skillet aside while I boiled some spaghetti, then add the cooked spaghetti to the skillet & reheat the mess. Greasy (I eventually learned to spoon off much of the grease) & not very nuanced (salt & pepper may have been involved), but unwittingly Italian in approach. Once in a while I would add tomato sauce to the skillet mixture but for the most part that seemed excessive to me.

30 years later I'm making rigatoni amatriciana every week. Who'd have thunk it!

Edited August 28, 2005 by ghostrider (log)

[Soup]

I've seen busin (sp?) burner, beaker and ramen all used to make a good snack.

[snowangel]

What would a dorm say about one of those neato keeno induction burners? I see lots of possibilities there.

[deltadoc]

The good ol days of college. I had an electric fry pan with cover. It had a thermostat control on the handle.

I'd buy one of those Jenos, Chef-Boy-Ar-Dee or Kraft pizza mixes. Let the dough rise in a plastic bowl. Greased the fry pan, patted out the dough, added the sauce and cheese packet and even sometimes bought a 1b. of mozz and then put on the cover. TUrned it up to 350, as I recall, and within minutes, I had a perfect pizza, crisp crust on the bottom, fully cooked all the way through, and served it right in the fry pan. However, with a spatula, I remember that the entire pizza could be lifted out and placed on a paper plate (big paper plate!).

doc

[jsolomon]

When I was a Freshman, I used to brew beer in the closet in my dorm room. It was cheap, good, and I could bribe my Student Assistant with it whenever I wanted.

At the point that most dorms are in right now with not allowing you to have anything useful in your dorm room to cook with, I would go to an outdoor outfitter and get some jetboil stuff and just cook outside the dorm on the lawn.

Hopefully you're not on a dry campus so you can make some nice wine sauces.

But, if I were going to recommend something, you ought to get a crock pot. Soups and stews are simply divine, and easy. You can also do pot roasts, ribs, bread (carefully), lasagne, and mulled wine--that one is the most important if you're studying something like 18th century lit.

BTW, what are you studying, so we can make more appropriate suggestions?

[Carlovski]

What would a dorm say about one of those neato keeno induction burners?  I see lots of possibilities there.

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I can just imagine a dorm room full of induction hobs, sous-vide machines and water baths.

Dry Campus? Do such things exist?

Can't imagine that in the UK!

[jsolomon]

What would a dorm say about one of those neato keeno induction burners?  I see lots of possibilities there.

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I can just imagine a dorm room full of induction hobs, sous-vide machines and water baths.

Dry Campus? Do such things exist?

Can't imagine that in the UK!

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You forget that America was formed by people too uptight to live in England... We even completely prohibited alcohol in the US for several years by a constitutional amendment.