If you walk around any campus you will realize that to college students, food is very important. Very, very important. Listening to snippets of conversations, no matter what time of the day, you’ll hear people setting plans for their next meal, talking about what they ate at their previous meal or arguing about which dining hall is their favorite.
Harris is the largest dining hall on campus. As such, it has the most options. Harris is also the dining hall that most students choose to go to, especially for dinner. It always has its staple foods like cereal, peanut butter, pasta, soups, grilled chicken and whatever the main dish of the day is, but after a while of eating the same combinations of food over and over again, everyone needs to switch it up a bit. I asked a few students what fun recipes they have come up with in Harris and they are pretty creative! So if you are getting a bit tired of the food on campus, consider some of these options before you spend all of your money at Oasis or head off campus.
Most of us have the luxury of an unlimited meal plan, so why not use it? Grab all the food you can and experiment… within limits of course.
Many students said they cannot function in the morning if they do not eat breakfast, but most days they are running late for class and don’t have time to sit down for cereal or a waffle. For breakfast, there are always eggs and some type of bacon or sausage. But eggs and bacon is average, so why not spice breakfast up? Try and make a breakfast sandwich on your own. First, gather your ingredients, take a spoonful of eggs, whatever breakfast meat is available, and cheese from the sandwich bar. Then toast a bagel or bread, add the eggs, meat, cheese and—tadah!—you have a great breakfast sandwich. This introduces new flavor combinations to breakfast and is perfect if you have to eat breakfast on the go.
My favorite thing to do at lunch in Harris is use the panini press, that machine can turn any average turkey and cheese into a hot, gooey and delicious sandwich. You do not have to use the panini press only for lunch sandwiches; you can make a ton of different things on it. One option is to create a quesadilla. There are always tortillas; all you need to do is take your favorite cheese from the sandwich station and place it on half of a tortilla and then fold the tortilla over. If you like chicken and cheese quesadilla’s, you can cut up some grilled chicken and throw that onto your tortilla. Just put your quesadilla on the panini press for two minutes, put some salsa on the side to dip it in, and you have a perfect Mexican meal. You can try any number of combinations with this machine; all it takes is some creativity!
The more ambitious chefs in the kitchen, or Harris in our case, take on the microwave. Harris serves pizza a couple days a week, but the same type of pizza all the time can get a bit boring, so some students have progressed past Harris pizza and started making pizza bagels. All you have to do is pour some marinara or red sauce from the pasta bar on your favorite bagel from the bakery, put whatever cheese and toppings from the salad bar you like on pizza and take your concoction to the microwave. You could make a pepperoni pizza bagel, a pepper and olive pizza bagel or just a good old cheese pizza bagel. Putting your pizza on a bagel also makes it more filling so you don’t have to keep taking trips to the food line to get more pizza! Trust me, making a pizza bagel is as easy as pie (pizza pie that is).
On the other hand, the salad bar is always a great option if you are trying to lay off of all the pasta and pizza. But if you always eat a green salad and want something different, try a bean salad. Try olives, some type of bean—whether it be kidney or edamame—and green beans. If you toss these ingredients in a bowl and drizzle some balsamic vinaigrette on top, you can have a healthy salad with a twist. You could even toss a spoonful of mozzarella cheese or bleu cheese in your bean salad if you’d like. This is an easy and delicious side dish, and for a bonus it has a lot of protein!
Connecticut College is known for having some of the best food out of all colleges across America, but eating the same food for months on end can make even the best food not so appealing. It is up to you to create your own fun and delicious meals. You can try some of the ideas that I heard from kids around campus, like a breakfast sandwich, panini, quesadilla, pizza bagel or a bean salad, or you can experiment and develop your own recipes! Ask around; everyone has their recipes from Harris that make eating in a cafeteria a bit more fun. •
