Making dinner in a dorm
It is well known that dorm kitchens are far from ideal. At their best, they consist of an oven with a stovetop, a microwave, a sink, minimal counter space, and a fridge if you are lucky. With minimal appliances and space, I have been attempting to use them to the best of my abilities and continue to fuel my passion for cooking.
My hope is to prove to others that living in a dorm does not restrict you to eating ramen and mac and cheese. I will continue to try, and most likely fail, to make meals in the dorm kitchen and provide tips and tricks to help others succeed.
This week, my boyfriend Emmett and I made ourselves bagel sandwiches for dinner, with peach cobbler for dessert. Here is what we did, and what we would change if we were to do it again.
Bagel sandwiches
Here is everything that we used:
- Bagels: $2.49 for 5 bagels- 50¢ per bagel
- Cream cheese: $3.99 for 7 servings- 57¢m per serving
- Cheese: $3.69 for 12 slices- 31¢ per slice
- Sausages: $3.99 for 8 patties- $1 per sandwich (we put two sausages on each sandwich)
- Eggs: $2.99 for a dozen- 25¢ per egg
- Salt + Pepper- $2.49
Total: $19.64 – Per Sandwich: $2.63
All ingredients can be easily changed for different tastes and diet restrictions, but this is how we like them.
The recipe is very straightforward, and there are not many ways that you can go wrong. You simply cook everything and assemble the sandwich as expected. The eggs can be fried to any liking, with runny yolks, or completely scrambled.
One of our struggles was only having one very small frying pan to fry the eggs and sausages. We handled this by frying the sausage first, and then keeping them warm while the eggs cooked. This definitely added to the cooking time, so I do recommend using two pans if possible to make the cooking process more streamlined.
These sandwiches are a super easy way to make a filling meal that is a little more than your typical dorm foods. To surpass dorm food expectations even further I wanted to attempt to make a spectacular dessert, and peach cobbler seemed simple enough. This was my first time making a peach cobbler, and it went much better than expected.
- Peaches: $3.99 per lb- $2.99 for 2 peaches
- Sugar: $2.69 for 2 lbs- 47¢ for ⅓ and ½ cup sugar
- Flour: $1.99 for 2 lbs- 13¢ for ½ cup flour
- Vanilla: $1.39 for 8 oz- 3¢ for 1 tsp
- Butter: $5.49 for 1 lb- 51¢ for 3 tbsp butter
- Baking powder: $2.99 for 8.9 oz- 6¢ for 1 tsp baking powder
- Milk: $2.99 for a half gallon- 12¢ for ⅓ cup milk
- Cinnamon: $1.69 for .8 oz- a fraction of a cent for a sprinkle on top
Total: $23.91 – Per ½ recipe: $4.31 – Per Serving: 54¢
This is the recipe that I used: https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/peach-cobbler/.
The first challenge I ran into was that I simply did not fully read the recipe and did not know all the work I needed to put in. So first word of advice, read the recipe in full.
Secondly, I only had 2 peaches, and the recipe called for 5. I ended up halving the recipe, and it turned out just fine. I decided to add vanilla extract to mine, which the recipe doesn’t call for, but I think all baked goods should have a splash of vanilla.
Another issue I faced was the lack of a good baking dish, but I do have oven-safe Pyrex containers, so I ended up baking my cobbler in 2 dishes that I could pop a lid on and store right in the fridge. I highly recommend these dishes as they are perfect for a couple of servings and are stored very easily.
I am sure there aren’t many students who happen to have every ingredient for bagel sandwiches and peach cobbler lying around like I happened to. So if you are interested in trying either recipe for yourself, I added up how much it would cost to buy all of the ingredients.
It would cost approximately $19.64 to purchase all of the ingredients for the bagel sandwiches which would make at least 4 or 5 sandwiches. It is around $2.63 per sandwich, and when you are done you are left with more eggs and cheese to make more meals with in the future.
The peach cobbler is more complicated to cost evaluate. I calculated that to purchase all of the ingredients required, and some vanilla extract, it would cost $23.91. This seems like a steep price, but this is because flour and sugar cannot be purchased in small quantities. The half recipe that I made only cost $4.31, and it made about 8 servings which would be 54¢ per serving.
Of course, when purchasing the long list of ingredients, you now own a bag of flour, a bag of sugar, and other baking necessities. You have opened a door to endless possibilities for more baking experiences.
