When the meals at Usdan are not quite up to par and the frozen food section at Weshop has been cleaned out, make the journey to your local dorm kitchen and create your own masterpiece. Looking past the lack of utensils, questionable cleanliness of kitchen counter tops, and grimy pots and pans, any Wesleyan student can turn this space into a culinary tour de force. Just stick to simplicity and balance, and deliciousness will surely follow.
The well-balanced yet delicious meal we cooked last week included Spanish beans and rice, pasta and marinara sauce, pan-fried sausage, and a tossed salad. Ingredients for this delectable meal were bought, gathered, and pillaged from Weshop, the refrigerators of our fellow Clark hallmates, and the Usdan salad bar. As freshmen, chefs must be innovative, fearless, and above all, resourceful. Furthermore, frosh cooks must be willing to scavenge for ingredients throughout campus and employ creative methods when cooking.
Step one: Inspect the cooking space. When a large group of teens are still under the impression that their mothers are present to clean up after them, the kitchen sometimes suffers from the tragedy of the commons. The first rule in culinary expertise is a clean workspace. In a frosh dorm, cleaning could involve anything from scraping the glued-on macaroni from the pots and pans to wiping the exploded pizza sauce off the microwave to attacking the film of grease covering the counter tops. Once the area is clean, lay out the ingredients and assemble the utensils. You can get by on just a fork, knife, and spoon if that’s all you can find, but feel free to rummage through the drawers and cabinets for additional cookware.
Step two: Begin boiling water for the rice and pasta. Include a spoonful of marinara sauce and any available spices that an RA with plenty of dorm cooking experience may have left behind. Once the water is boiling, add the pasta (which could be anything from linguini to penne) and a pinch of salt. Cover the rice and let each item cook for their prescribed times.
Step three: While the rice and pasta are cooking, begin preparing the beans and heating the left over marinara sauce. Leave the beans on low heat to simmer and sprinkle the marinara sauce with dashes of garlic salt and oregano, compliments of your friendly RA. Although this meal can be left vegetarian, chefs may also fry up some sausage on the side and toss it into the marinara sauce for flavor. If burners are limited, we have found that sausages can be fried in a panini maker (however we do not necessarily endorse this idea because, upon trying this with bacon, the panini maker began to spark and hiss violently).
Step four: Since strainers are a luxury item freshmen simply cannot afford, drain the pasta using a spare plate. For a rich, creamy taste, add any butter found in the communal refrigerator. Gently fluff the rice with a fork and then add the beans, including the juice. Set both aside to cool slightly. With the remaining produce from the Usdan salad bar (lettuce, chickpeas, cucumbers, shredded carrots, olives, diced onions), toss the salad together in the largest bowl available. Once the salad is assembled, have the chefs draw straws to see who will go door to door asking for dressing. To put the cherry on top of this creative endeavor, craft a playlist with which you can sing along loudly and thoroughly annoy everyone else in the dorm. Recommendations from the authors include Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles and Regina Spektor. Bon Appetit!
Leave a Reply