Dorm Recipes: How to Never Leave Your Room

    As temperatures drop and gusts of wind strip away the warmth held in by sweaters and hoodies, it becomes more of a hassle to make the trek to the Gazebo or the Cafe for meals. Although the physical distance is short, the required effort on a Sunday to cast off lounge wear and leave the coziness of your room can be disheartening. Sometimes you may even wonder if the food is worth it. Before you reach this extreme, I suggest considering cooking in your dorm room.

    If you already have a refrigerator and an electric cooking appliance, such as an InstaPot or an electric hot-pot, you have the potential to hole up in your room on any cold day. Unless you are looking for a wide variety of dishes to cook, there are enough ingredients if you take a look around you. It may seem as if we need to spend a lot of extra money to cook, but try experimenting with the groceries at the Gazebo or leftovers from the Cafe.

Here are a few of my own ideas to inspire your own dorm-cooked meals:

Scrambled Eggs and Rice
    Along with breakfast burritos, the Gazebo offers scrambled eggs bowls in the morning. For people who may find tater tots too heavy on some days, some simple scrambled eggs with pico de gallo and corn salsa may be enough. I personally found that the scrambled egg breakfast bowl can be reheated and served with rice as another meal. The fluffiness of the egg can be maintained at later times if you allow the egg to steam a little by placing a lid over the pot as you reheat it.

Gazebo Grocery Fried Rice
    The three ingredients from the Gazebo that I use to make fried rice are red onion, baby carrots, and Big Franks. Red onions and Big Franks are almost always available at the Gazebo, and baby carrots are in stock from time to time. Typically, half an onion sliced perpendicularly to the roots, three pieces of Big Franks cut into quarter-inch thick circular slices, and a few baby carrots thinly sliced lengthwise can be one or two servings. You can add as much rice as needed and salt and pepper to taste. If you feel that something is missing, perhaps mixing in ketchup may do the trick by adding in some sourness and sweetness.

Random Salad Stir-fry
    If you have leftover salad from a meal at the Cafe, you may want to stir-fry it for some variety. Because what you end up stir-frying depends on what salad is served, this option is for when you do not have anything particular in mind. You may get carrots, onions, and broccoli on some days, or only celery, cucumber, and tomatoes on others. I’ve learned through a few salad stir-fry attempts that cucumbers can actually be cooked! Add a little bit of oil to a pan and pick out each kind of vegetable to add at different times. Or, you can haphazardly toss everything into the pan at once, probably without detracting too much from the taste. Add the stir fry to anything to make it more nutritionally balanced.

    Dorm cooking is not only for days with inclement weather. Whenever you feel like testing your creativity, having more choice in what you can eat, or reaffirming that your cooking skills are those of a somewhat independent adult, try these ideas or make your own dishes. I can vouch that they will make you feel less fettered to either the weather or Cafe-Gazebo opening times, even as they bind you to your comfortable room.