I have a terrible secret to confess. I’m a student and I… ::hangs head in shame:: cook proper food. I’ve had pasta a grand total of once this academic year, I don’t consider cheerios to be dinner food and I’ve never even looked at a frozen waffle.
I’ve been routinely cooking myself dinner every night for well over a year now. It started off so innocently - I wasn’t especially fond of the cafeteria food, so I started investigating the little kitchen they provided us with. Simple things to start with - pasta, stirfries, sausages, that sort of thing. Then the vegetarians lured me with their wicked ways, and I suddenly found that i had to actually think about what I was cooking - it’s much harder to achieve variety without much thought on a vegetarian diet. I quickly became proficient at some basic dishes - Dhal, bean chilli, that sort of thing.
After that I’m afraid it’s just spiralled out of control. I’ve started making elaborate soups, varieties of cous cous, a wide range of indian dishes. Last week I even made flapjacks for crying out loud - I just suddenly thought “Hey, I know what I’ll do to pass the time - I’ll make flapjacks!” and then I did… They’re fairly good ones as well; I may need to try a few more times to get the consistency right, and they’re slightly overcooked, but they’re basically decent flapjacks.
Today though, today is the last straw. For no good reason other than I felt like it, I am baking bread.
The shame is too much to bear… Tell me, is there any hope for me?
Seriously, this is quite possibly one of the more random things I’ve done. I was in a friend’s room last night and I suddenly said “I have the really bizarre urge to make bread”. He responded that he too had been thinking about making bread for the past few days, and so today we gathered the requisite ingredients, and bread was made (or rather is in the process of baking as I type).
Heck, the main reason I didn’t make proper food during my college years was the absurd reluctance of colleges/universities to provide or even allow cooking facilites in their dormitories.
I can certainly understand not putting a kitchen in a single or double-occupance room. But making posession of hotplates/electric burners/toaster ovens punishable by a $50 fine the first time? Not putting a kitchen in an on-campus apartment? That’s absurd. When I was in school, we had two prevailing theories about the reasons:
The food service contractor was strong-arming the school into keeping students from cooking for themselves.
The school was paranoid that we’d set the place on fire.
Either way, in my three years living on campus, I racked up a total of $300 in fines for having heating elements in my room.
Stupid school. Good luck ever getting a donation from me!
Heh. Nothing at all to be ashamed of, back in my college days (a whole two years ago) I kept myself well fed too. I never went the veggie route myself, I enjoy consuming the seared flesh of dead animals too much for that, but being on a student budget forces creativity even when you eat meat. While my fellow students debated the merits of different flavors of Ramen or the best instant mac&cheese and hotdog combonition I was forced to keep quiet, while smiling to myself thinking of the baked macoroni casserole I’d made the night before.
My journey down the dark side started innocently enough, at first I was content with just using the stove and the microwave more creatively, with simple stir fries or mexican dishes. Then I discovered the oven and it was all over. Once I crossed the line and started making casseroles everything else just happened. I was making my own sauces from scratch, I baked a few cakes, waffles from scratch etc… I bought a BBQ for my small patio and taught myself how to make marinades that would tenderize and flavor cheap cuts of meat to rival the best restaurants. I spent two weeks tweaking my garlic mashed potatoes too perfection! And yes, I too have yielded to the late night urge to make bread.
I even started having DINNER PARTIES! I’d spend a whole saturday in the kitchen making a three course meal for friends, eagerly awaiting their praise once they sat down. I was out of control, and it only got worse after graduation.
Armed with the money from my first real job I started buying nice stainless steel cookware, a block of Henckels knives, cook books and all sorts of neat kitchen gadgets. Then about a year ago I discovered that in addition to cooking my own food I could also make my own beer. These days I eat and drink extremely well
There, there Kitarak, it happens to us all. I was known to cook proper food as an undergrad (including a whole roast dinner once!) in the little tiny kitchens with a Baby Belling as an excuse for a cooker and oven!
Like others have said, its nothing to be ashamed of, it just proves you have more sense of self preservation (well, you don’t eat cafeteria food for a start!) than other students - oh and a bigger budget!
WFIW, I used to think that I was putting students to shame cooking properly, until I met someone who would cook five course meals as a reugular thing every single Sunday! :eek:
Angua: Wait… A student, cooking 5 course meals every sunday? :eek: That’s scary.
Anyway, my budget isn’t actually that large. I mean, I’m hardly broke, but once you’ve got the requisite tools of the trade (many of which I’ve pinched from home or recieved as gifts) it’s not that expensive to cook properly; especially to cook vegetarian food.
TheFunkySpaceCowboy: Dinner parties… Hmm. That doesn’t sound like a bad idea…
banks: Yes, our college is also fire paranoid. They give us kitchens, but we’re not supposed to cook in them. Umm… yeah.
Ok, technically we’re not supposed to fry in them or use them to prepare main meals. The kitchens are for the preperation of light snacks only. ::snicker:: I of course obey these rules very carefully.
I was convinced I was going to cook properly when a student, but I’m just too baffed out all the time to do so. Plus it seems a waste to make myself a nice meal, but Hamish gets home so late from work that I’m usually falling over by the time he could eat with me.
Kitarak, yes, he used to, but he was very wierd (even for a Cambridge NatSci!), and “Daddy was rather well off”. 'Niff said there.
You’re right about it not being overly expensive once you have everything though, but College kitchens are a pain, one girl used to use her kettle to make pasta in because College were that uptight about cooking!
Anyway, grad accommodation is better - in my final year I had a huge kitchen, which not only was I expected to use (by not having to pay a kitchen fixed charge), but I also was able to have large dinner parties because of the nice, large dining room
Angua: Our college kitchens are ok actually. Last year we had two hobs and a microwave. Not enough to cook gourmet meals, but suficient to get by. This year we have an oven on top of that, so we’re doing quite well. It’s only a little baby oven, but it works, which is the important part.
Shade: A misture of all of those. I picked up some basic cooking skills from my mother before university, and once here I learned some recipes off friends. I have a slightly odd way of using recipe books - I read the recipes for inspiration, but it’s rare that I actually follow them. I take the bare framework of a recipe and build around that. It usually ends up better than (my attempts at following) the recipe.
As an example, the bread mentioned in the OP has a slightly odd taste to it - I followed the recipe exactly. Other than that it worked perfectly 'though.
bah, its too time-consuming for me as a college student to go through such elaborate lengths to prepare dinner. Besides, I live 20 minutes from campus, and my mom’s boyfriend apparently loves slaving over a hot stove every night. That is not to say I dislike home-cooked meals, I just don’t like making them myself.
My dinners usually consist of such things as grilled salmon in lemon butter sauce (had it so many times I’m quite sick of it now) Beef Stroghanoff, Spaghetti with sauce made from scratch with hot links and garlic bread, corned beef and cabbage, beef kabobs, steak with sides of beans, rice, and 2 vegetables.
The meals he cooks are pretty balanced; since he makes 2 vegetables there’s usually one I can tolerate (most vegetables cause me to vomit if I try to eat them). I eat fairly small portions and despite being ravenously hungry at dinnertime I only consume a small plate of food, usually consisting of a little bit of everything.
Given that most of the students I see these days eat a bag of chips and drink a bottle of Pepsi for a “meal,” I’m relieved to hear that someone is going against the grain.
