Dorm-room cooking?

[telophase]

An entry and comments over on Just Bento contains tips and ideas for cooking in dorm rooms, or other places where you have a limited set of tools. My comment concerned making dinner for ten with one hotpot:

My sophomore year roommate and I once cooked and served dinner for ten in our dorm room using one hotpot. We sauteed mushrooms* for starters in the hotpot, then boiled water for spaghetti. After the spaghetti was cooked (in several batches - it was a small hotpot), we heated the sauce in the hotpot, then mixed it with the spaghetti in a bowl, and served it to our friends along with a few loaves of bread we’d picked up in the store.

I think we got someone else to bring dessert, and it was probably a couple of bags of cookies.

* Get some button mushrooms, wash them and pop off the stem so you’re left with the caps. Sautee the caps upside down in a bit of butter and lemon juice, so the juice collects in the bowl. Carefully lift out of hotpot [or pan, if you're cooking in a real kitchen - ed] so as not to spill the juice, eat while hot. Yum! Not exactly recommended use for a hotpot, though. :)

Anyone here have any ideas or stories about cooking in limited circumstances? Other than generic pot/cup noodles and ramen? :D (I don't currently have limited circumstances tool-wise, but I enjoy hearing stories of ingenuity. XD Also, I'm hungry.)

Comments

[awamiba.livejournal.com]

Kay and I had one of those small toaster ovens in our dorm room (no, we weren't supposed to, but you weren't supposed to have a candles either and really, the RA had candles everywhere in her room). We made all kinds of stuff in there: lasagna, cake, tuna melts, etc. We also had a small microwave, so we made a lot of pasta and oatmeal. :) Most memorable food? Burritos made out of leftover uncle ben's rice, leftover corn, and leftover tortillas. They were highly disturbing.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

Hee. :D In grad school, I remember making cut-rate enchiladas by spreading tortillas with refried beans and sprinkling grated cheese on them, then rolling them up, putting canned enchilada sauce on them, and sticking them in the toaster oven to heat up. XD

[raucousraven.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this counts, but when I was a one-pot person I used to cook three days' worth of green curry in descending order of its ingredients' need-to-be-cookedness. So the chicken would all get steam/sauteed up first, at the bottom with some water and a little oil and salt and coconut milk, then the potatoes and carrots would get added in with more water, and then the curry and remaining coconut milk and what-have-you would get added last. I had this system worked out for several dishes, and still use it from time to time.

[telophase.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing you either like your carrots crispier than I do, or you cut them far smaller. :D I'd throw them in earlier.

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

I'm getting into cooking myself, and while I don't live in a dorm, my kitchen space is woefully small so I might as well be (the only counterspace I have is taken up by my drying rack D:).

If you have a freezer, cut things like onions (ie, things that freeze relatively well) ahead of time. That way, when your recipe needs them, you got a freezer bag full of it.

Here are some recipes I've tried that work really well:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Restaurant-Style-Egg-Drop-Soup/Detail.aspx
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Salsa-Chicken-Burrito-Filling/Detail.aspx
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-and-Egg-Hash/Detail.aspx = I've actually skipped out on the chicken in this one and just mixed in the egg after it got fried enough in the pan. Makes for a great skillet-type meal.

[affreca.livejournal.com]

I spent a month in Alaska near a glacier doing field work. We had an established camp, including an oven for drying sediment samples. We were told not to use it to cook pizza, so we made quiche. I didn't get very warm, so it took a while.

Hot Pots and Toaster Ovens? Feh!

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

My mom, who went to college in 1939 (Texas Southern Christian Women's College - now TWU) taught me her dorm's favorite Ironed Cheese Sandwiches: build your sandwich to your liking (extra points for swiping the bread and cheese, perhaps some sliced tomato, from an earlier meal - I never asked how they swiped the butter - don't wanna know!) , wrap well in two layers of foil, iron with very hot iron until melted and slightly smashed. Careful not to burn yourself on the drippy cheese. I've heard rumors that these are very good with Bass ale but as young ladies of her generation (and mine) were not permitted alcohol on campus I would not be able to speak to that. Young ladies of 1939 would, of course, clean and reuse the foil but we never did unless we were almost out.

I have even made these in hotels since I often take laughing cow wedges for plane travel and can generally squirrel away toast/bread from breakfast. It's a quick and easy late night snack when your aren't finished working until 9 or 10 and can't face room service.

(Also - old style popcorn poppers [circa 1980 or so] make great electric woks).

[herchuckness.livejournal.com]

I'm limited to one plug-in electric coil burner for cooking, which makes pasta with homemade tomato sauce a little challenging. I do have a gas fireplace though, so I fire that sucker up while I'm cooking the sauce, then rest the pot full of sauce on the nicely pre-heated tiles to keep it simmering while I boil the pasta. I occasionally use the fireplace top to warm up bread or muffins too.