The start of a new semester always presents a dichotomy between novelty and familiarity. New classes with professors promise an excitingly different semester. At the same time, the return to campus feels like a return home, an easy slide into familiar routines and activities. One such source of constancy is the dining hall — we always count on Food Services to provide comforting staples such as tacos pizza, and frozen yogurt. However, after a semester of two dining hall meals a day, the always-delicious mainstays sometimes begin to lose their allure.
The dining hall, nevertheless, does not have to become a bleak expanse of monotony. With a little effort, even the dreariest of winter days can be spiced up with a little culinary innovation. On days when you have only enough creative power to “make” a bowl of cereal for dinner, look at the trays of your peers in the dining hall. Some people come up with the most creative (and, I will admit, the strangest) meals. While I would not recommend emulating the student who mounds his plate with mashed, baked, and French-fried potatoes, I encourage you to be inspired by the student who makes an incredible wrap or salad relying on ingredients from almost every food station.
This week, I present you with two tasks. First, try out the following recipes for a Hot Cuban Sandwich and Strawberry Sweethearts — two recipes guaranteed to make your fast-approaching Valentine’s Day dining hall date a very special occasion. Second, I challenge you to devise one new dining hall delicacy, be it a breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert item, and email me your recipe. The most creative meal idea will be published for all other food aficionados to draw inspiration from next week.
Hot Cuban Sandwich:
Ingredients: 2 slices of rye bread, 2 slices of deli ham, 1 teaspoon of brown or yellow mustard, pickle slices, 2 slices of Swiss cheese, 1 teaspoon of butter, 1 pickle wedge.
Directions:
1. Spread the bread slices with mustard, and sandwich ham, cheese and pickles between them.
2. Spread butter on the outside of both pieces of bread.
3. Heat in the Panini press until the bread becomes golden brown and the cheese melts.
4. Cut into triangles and serve with the pickle wedge and chips.
Strawberry Sweethearts:
Ingredients: 2 chocolate chip or sugar cookies, strawberry ice cream (may be substituted with cherry or any other festive flavor), mini chocolate chips.
1. Place one scoop of ice cream between the two cookies.
2. Firmly press the cookies together.
3. Roll the exposed edges of the ice cream in chocolate chips.
