Last week while I was waiting on the checkout line at the grocery store, I picked up a copy of Real Simple’s easy dinner guide and decided to throw it on the conveyer belt alongside my container of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream and already cooked rotisserie chicken thigh that the nice woman behind the Boar’s Head counter cut for me. Clearly, I desperately needed some guidance in the kitchen. While many of the tips in this magazine were helpful, the dishes they suggested were still a bit gourmet for my college needs, and my abilities. Therefore, I have created my own “College Cookbook” that is a more realistic model for easy dinners to make when you are an incompetent culinary college student like myself.
1. Breakfast for Dinner
When you don’t know what to make for dinner, you can simply turn dinner into a different meal altogether. Eggs are a common ingredient to have on hand, and luckily this ingredient can have very diverse uses. Fry ‘em, hard boil ‘em, scramble ‘em. The possibilities are truly endless. Throw some bread in the toaster, and voila, you have toast! To make your eggs more interesting, put them on a tortilla and wrap it all up to make a breakfast (or dinner) burrito.
2. Grilled Cheese
The best investment for an amateur cook’s kitchen is a Panini maker. I promise it will change your life. One meal you can never go wrong with is a grilled cheese. Simply place as few or as many slices of cheese in between two pieces of bread and place on Panini maker. Close cover and open to reveal a beautifully melted, mouth watering grilled cheese. Of course, you can really add anything to a Panini. I like to add prosciutto to get some protein in the mix and then drizzle some honey over it to add some sweetness to the grilled cheese.
3. Soup
Grilled cheese pairs very well with soup, mostly because you can dip one in the other. Soup isn’t a filling meal on its own but is perfect as a side or for a night when you’re not that hungry. All it takes is pouring the soup into a bowl and heating up in the microwave. Make sure to put a microwave cover over the bowl so the soup doesn’t splatter all over the inside of your microwave because that is not fun to clean up. Campbell’s and Progresso are both great brand options. This option gets more appealing as the weather gets colder.
4. Pasta
Pasta is my go-to dinner option. Before I learned how to make pasta, I thought it was a difficult process, but now I consider myself an expert. All it takes is boiling water on the stove and throwing in the pasta. Stir and check on the consistency of the pasta occasionally until the pasta is cooked to your liking. The boiling of the water tends to take longer than the pasta actually takes to cook, so be sure to get the water on the stove early to avoid having to stand around and wait. Once the pasta is cooked, you can add any type of sauce you want. I usually buy Classico traditional sauce and mix in a scoop of mascarpone cheese to make it creamier. If your skills are a little more advanced compared to mine, you can sauté any vegetables for your pasta as well.
5. Baked Potato
Potatoes are also underrated as a filling meal, mostly because you can stuff them with whatever you want. I usually fill mine with shredded mozzarella cheese and microwavable broccoli. I recently discovered that there is an actual potato button on my microwave. All you have to do is select how many potatoes you want to cook, and the microwave sets the timer for you. This process is very quick and the result is very yummy!
6. Quesadilla
Quesadillas are one of the more ~professional~ meals I make for myself. The most important ingredient involved here is frozen Purdue chicken. In order to make this chicken, you just throw it on the stove with a little olive oil to heat it up from its frozen state. This already cooked chicken ensures that you don’t burn or undercook your chicken. It’s also already cut into small strips and pieces that are easy to put into a quesadilla. Once the chicken is made, place a tortilla on a pan on the stove and put the chicken on one side of it. Then add anything else you want inside. Some easy options: shredded cheese, avocado, black beans. Next, close the tortilla with a spatula and press down gently. The tortilla will then become crisp and the interior will melt. Once this happens, use the spatula to carefully flip the quesadilla to the other side. Dip in salsa when done for a complete meal.
There you have it, folks. These dinners never fail me, and I hope you all get good use out of these easy ideas as well!