using your meal plan to its fullest

You might have noticed that we often get a lot of our ingredients from Kline, our dining hall. As financially-challenged college students, we advocate the dining hall as an absolutely invaluable resource. Now we by no means wish to undermine the college's food service, but rather to slowly move towards independent living by learning simple recipes that we can cook on occasion. Cooking for us has become a lovely pastime, and our meal swipes get used either way!

1. The Basics. The dining hall can be extremely useful when you are baking and find that you are lacking such basic necessities as milk or butter. Milk is always provided for cereal and coffee, and butter can usually be found (at least at Bard) by the bagels. If you are VERY nice to the dining hall workers they may spare you an egg or two, but otherwise Bard's Green Onion Grocer (or any equivalent) works just fine.

2. VEGETABLES. VEGETABLES. VEGETABLES. The salad bar is your new best friend. The next time you go to grab some salad at lunch bring along a compostable paper cup or two and drink in the possibilities. (or, if you have some, tupperware is the superior option)

Especially successful vegetables that are usually offered at salad bars include:

-cherry tomatoes

-onions

-mushrooms

-broccoli

-peppers

-spinach leaves

-baby corn (if you're lucky)

All of these can be easily stir-fried or sauteed and paired with pasta in a primavera-style dish. More uncommon vegetables like eggplant can also be easily bought at the Green Onion or any supermarket.

3. Spices. I'm not sure other schools have the same wealth of condiments and spices that Bard does, but next time you're in the dining hall keep an eye out for such offerings. In Kline, a selection of spices as well as oil, balsamic vinegar, and soy sauce can be found at the corner of the salad bar nearest to the entrance. At the other end of the salad bar, honey mustard is also available, which can be pretty versatile (we like it on fries and sandwiches). Now remember, dear reader, not to be greedy- only take what is needed for the meal in mind. This blog does not advocate theft, but thrift and innovation.

4. Cheese. Bard has a pretty standard sandwich-making station, consisting of an assortment of lunch meats and cheeses. Unless they run out of one cheese, Kline typically has American, Cheddar, Provolone, and Pepper Jack (I THINK. And sometimes Swiss?). And if Bard kids are lucky, Kline will also put out feta by the salad bar. An example one way to be creative with cheese can be seen in the previous post.

5. Cooked Foodstuffs. In addition to raw materials, a lot of times the meals the dining hall offers daily can have enormous potential. Kline offers plain pasta and red sauce every day- both of which can be used to make more elaborate dishes. Also, left over cold chicken cutlets (sometimes placed on the other side of the salad bar) can be a tasty alternative to lunch meat for sandwiches or simply a hearty addition

to your salad.

Vegetables probably gotten on each of our three dinner swipes, in preparation for a stir fry.