Chapter Five

Anytime Meals

Creamy Rice

No matter what anyone tries to tell you, a cup of soup (particularly one of the non-cream-based variety) is not a meal. It is a snack or an appetizer, at best. However, mix your favorite bean or vegetable soup with rice and yogurt, and it all of a sudden becomes pretty hearty, not to mention (as the name suggests) really creamy.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. 1. Mix equal parts soup and rice together (the rice should not be drowning in the soup).
  2. 2. Add a few dollops of yogurt, and mix to incorporate. Make sure not to add so much that the yogurt overwhelms the flavor of the soup — less is more in this case!

A Tip about Temperature

Adding the yogurt does cool down this dish, but it's delicious eaten at around room temperature. If you want to keep it super hot, though, heat up the soup and rice a little more in the microwave before adding in the yogurt.

Enchiladas

I'm from Texas, so few things make me happier than Tex-Mex cuisine, and even fewer things make me happier than a plate of enchiladas. The trick with this dining hall version is to coat your tortillas with plenty of salsa to keep the enchiladas nice and juicy.

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. 1. Generously coat one side of each tortilla with salsa. Layer cheese and your protein pick on top of the salsa and roll it up into a burrito.
  2. 2. Top the dish with a generous amount of salsa and more cheese.
  3. 3. Microwave the enchiladas for about 2 minutes.
  4. 4. Top the final product with a bit of sour cream, if you’d like.

Pizza Bagel

When I was little, my mother started making me pizza bagels so that I would stop pestering her to buy me Bagel Bites, and I still love them. When normal late-night fare like mozzarella sticks or grilled cheese sandwiches just isn’t cutting it, pizza bagels are an excellent midnight snack.

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. 1. Cut the bagel in half and toast both halves.
  2. 2. Top each half with tomato sauce and grated cheese.
  3. 3. Microwave the bagel halves for about 1 minute, until the cheese melts.

Fried Rice

Fried rice is one of my favorite hibachi staples. This recipe may not get you all the live theatrics, but it is really easy to make and captures the same fantastic flavors. Feel free to nix the egg if it's not your thing.

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. 1. Mix peas, corn, oil, and soy sauce into the rice. Add a small scoop of scrambled eggs, if you'd like.
  2. 2. Microwave for about 1 minute, or cook it at a sauté bar.

Greek Pizza

It’s pizza — Greek-ified. Swap out tomato sauce for hummus and mozzarella for feta, load on the olives, tomatoes, and cucumber, put it all on top of a grilled pita, and you’ve got yourself a great alternative to your everyday slice of pizza.

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. 1. Grill the pita in the panini press until you start to see dark grill marks.
  2. 2. Spread hummus on top of the grilled pita.
  3. 3. Top with feta, olives, cucumber, and tomato. Drizzle with olive oil.
  4. 4. Cut the pita into slices.

Scalloped Tomatoes

The name of the recipe sounds intimidating, but this dish is super simple — the perfect thing to make when you want Italian, and pasta is getting redundant. The bread, tomatoes, cheese and herbs combine to make a comforting stuffing-esque dish that makes me wonder why people don't eat stuffing year-round.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. 1. Rip the bread into bite-size pieces and put half the pieces in a bowl. Drizzle olive oil over the bread.
  2. 2. Add half the tomatoes to the bowl. Top the bread mixture with tomato sauce.
  3. 3. Make another layer with the remaining bread and tomatoes.
  4. 4. Top the dish with cheese, oregano, and crushed red pepper, if you’d like.
  5. 5. Microwave for about 21⁄2 minutes.

Chicken and Waffles

If you have not tried the dreamy sweet and salty marriage of fried chicken, waffles, maple syrup, and barbecue sauce, you have not lived. Also, waffle makers are one of the best things to hit dining halls since soft-serve.

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. 1. Make a waffle in your dining hall’s waffle maker.
  2. 2. Put a piece of chicken or two on top of the waffle.
  3. 3. Drizzle equal parts maple syrup and barbecue sauce over the entire dish.

Choose Your Chicken

There are a lot of variations of chicken you can use in this dish. If your dining hall isn’t offering fried chicken, try pulled chicken, grilled chicken breast, chicken drumsticks, or even chicken nuggets; they all work fine.

Cheese and Mushroom “Polenta”

I love cheesy mushroom polenta (polenta = the Italian version of grits). Unfortunately, polenta is not an ingredient you would commonly find in a dining hall, but you can substitute oatmeal for polenta and get the same hearty taste and texture. Now I am convinced that savory oatmeal is the next big thing — beyond mushrooms and cheese, there are almost endless possibilities for add-ins.

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. 1. Cook the mushrooms by either microwaving them on a plate with salt, pepper, and a little water, or sautéing them if you have access to a sauté bar.
  2. 2. Mix a few heaping spoonfuls of grated cheese into the oatmeal; stir until the cheese is melted and fully incorporated.
  3. 3. Top the oatmeal with the cooked mushrooms and drizzle olive oil and a little extra cheese on top.

Spanish Rice

My love affair with Spanish rice began at my elementary school cafeteria, and to this day I order my fajitas with double rice instead of rice and beans. I sometimes melt cheese on top of the rice, because since when did covering anything with cheese not make it taste better?

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. 1. Mix a little bit of tomato sauce plus a sprinkle of chili powder into the rice and stir in the corn.
  2. 2. Microwave for 30 seconds, or until everything is nice and hot.
  3. 3. Spritz a little bit of lemon juice on top, if you’d like, and season with salt and pepper.

Satay

The most critical element of satay, which is essentially grilled meat on a skewer, is the peanut sauce. I like my sauce really spicy and just a little sweet, but you can adjust the flavors to suit your personal tastes.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. 1. Combine a few big spoonfuls of peanut butter, a few squirts of chili sauce, and some soy sauce in a bowl. Whisk with a fork until the mixture is smooth.
  2. 2. Add a little bit of yogurt and sugar. You can add more or less of any of these ingredients depending on your tastes.
  3. 3. Put your protein pick on a plate and drizzle a little olive oil and chili powder over the top; dip your protein into the peanut sauce.

Balsamic Caprese Chicken

There's an almost infinite number of dishes that you can make “caprese” style by adding tomatoes and mozzarella, but this caprese chicken is definitely one of my favorites. Try this same combination on a burger, with eggs, or stuffed in an avocado. My basic rule of thumb: throw virtually anything over tomatoes, mozzarella, and maybe some pesto, and you will pretty much always be satisfied.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. 1. Mix together balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and a pinch of sugar in a bowl.
  2. 2. Drizzle half the dressing over a piece of grilled chicken.
  3. 3. Top the chicken with a piece of mozzarella, the tomato slice, and some pesto.
  4. 4. Drizzle the rest of the dressing on top of the mozzarella.

Ratatouille Baked Potato

Thanks to the Disney-Pixar movie, everyone is probably familiar with ratatouille, the French vegetable stew. But though it may be a stew, it has some great saucelike qualities. Don't believe me? Pour it over a baked sweet potato.

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. 1. Top the vegetables with a generous amount of tomato sauce.
  2. 2. Microwave for about 2 minutes, or until the vegetables are soft.
  3. 3. Cut an incision into the potato, and spoon the ratatouille inside.

Salad Pizza

I first discovered the joys of salad pizza with my friend Thea at Abbot's Pizza in Venice Beach, California — it is a great way to add a little extra oomph to a plain piece of pizza. You can eat the salad first, and then eat the dressing-soaked pizza. Alternatively, you can make each bite a combination of salad and pizza. Both are great, and they’re even better if you spread sour cream on the base.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. 1. Spread salad on pizza.
  2. 2. Top with grilled salmon or chicken, if you’d like.
  3. 3. Either eat the salad first, and then eat the pizza, or take a bite with everything on it.

Shakshouka

Shakshouka is an Israeli egg dish that is fantastic beyond the fact that it is such a fun word to say. It’s spicy, it’s hearty, and you can eat it at any time of the day.

Ingredients

Instructions

  1. 1. Put a few ladles of tomato sauce in a bowl and mix in as many jalapenos and shakes of red pepper flakes as you are comfortable with.
  2. 2. Place the eggs on the tomato sauce.
  3. 3. Sprinkle with feta.

Tofu Scramble

When the dining hall is no longer serving breakfast, crumbled tofu can be a totally acceptable and actually quite tasty substitute for scrambled eggs, especially alongside lots of vegetables and a punchy soy-garlic sauce.

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. 1. Crumble the tofu in a bowl with a fork or your hands. Add the vegetables to the bowl of tofu.
  2. 2. Toss the vegetables and tofu with soy sauce and a few shakes of garlic powder.
  3. 3. Microwave for about 2 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender. You may want to add a little extra soy sauce and some chili sauce before you eat.

Chicken Pot Pie

Chicken pot pie is an all-American dish that, ironically, I tried for the first time during my study-abroad term in France when one of my college friends made it for me. Of all the great meals I had in France, it may have been one of the best things I ate. Garlic bread works really well as the “crust” of the pie in this dining hall version.

Ingredients

Equipment

Instructions

  1. 1. Put the chicken, mushrooms, corn, peas, and Alfredo sauce in a bowl, and then sprinkle a little garlic powder or oil over the whole thing.
  2. 2. Add a few shakes of salt and pepper.
  3. 3. Toast the bread.
  4. 4. Break the bread into smaller pieces and arrange them like a crust over the chicken and vegetables.
  5. 5. Microwave the chicken pot pie for 30 seconds.