Also known as: The Adventures of Cooking in College - Adventure 2
My list of meals is small and repetitive, but happily, edible. (For the most part.)
My last post on the soup was my first experience cooking in a new dorm. Since then, I've made Mac n' Cheese, a Grilled Cheese Sandwich, lots of fried eggs, a bowl of ramen, and Pigs in a Blanket (hot dogs in a crescent roll). Most of these continued on to take the place of many other meals, as this author is a happy left-over addict. Unfortunately, as the author is still in a new-to-her kitchen, things don't always work like she would expect them to. For example, there is no 'middle rack' in the oven. When making my piggies, they started on the upper-middle rack, but started browning on top while still raw on bottom. So I switched them to the lower-middle rack. I thought they were so perfect when I pulled them out of the oven...only to discover the bottoms of the rolls burned to a lovely charcoal color.
This is where improvise comes in. During their first meal-time appearance, I ate them with left-over ketchup packets from a recent trip to KFC. It was ok, but I could still taste the burnt roll. On their first reappearance as left overs, I mixed a little Cream of Chicken soup with a tiny bit of water and pepper, and poured it over the hotdog rolls like gravy. Sounds weird? Well, yeah, but it tasted so good, so I really didn't care.
My first Sunday dinner at College. Yum!
Dorms, while inexpensive, are also inexpensively made; you get what you pay for. I payed for single-layer cinderblock walls. I did not anticipate being able to hear the girl-next-door's phone vibrate on her desk while I sat at mine studying. I've heard quite a few interesting conversations through these walls. On the plus side, one dorm was playing church music today, and the entire block was able to enjoy it. Now I, who have always been a self-considered night owl, have been trying to go to sleep at a decent hour. The same cannot be said for some of the other girls in my building. My compromise? Ask them to keep the noise down after quiet time. Still hear them? Yep. So I've learned to sleep with my iPod headphones in. Uncomfortable at times, but I'd rather fall asleep to my music, as opposed to phone calls about how much one of my neighbors misses [insert boys' name here]. My roommates and I are also learning to compromise with our time. Mostly it involves dancing around each other in the kitchen, and checking before hogging the bathroom for half an hour, but it's all good.
Obviously, by the fact that I am sitting here typing this, it can be understood that I survived my first week of college :)
I've learned to fight with the kitchen, not against it. I've learned that my next shopping trip includes fun items like ketchup, a yellow highlighter, some form of fresh edible plants, and a raid of DI's kitchen supplies. Sounds fun to me!
Love you all!
Katie Helen
