The beginning of a new semester is always full of adjustments. New class schedules warrant new schedules for work, exercise, studying and even sleeping. The adjustment I usually find the hardest, however, is when to eat.
If you have class at 12:30, do you have lunch at 11:45? Or do you wait until after class? If you have a class afterward, and can’t possibly wait until 3:30 to eat lunch, how early should you eat breakfast so that you’re actually hungry at 11:45? 7 a.m.? It’s the sort of thing that I know shouldn’t be so hard, yet there was one semester when, for the first three days of every week, the only meal I could figure out how to eat consistently was breakfast. Dinner, if I got it, usually consisted of chips and salsa because I was too tired to so much as stick something in the microwave.
Confronted with the problem of what to eat and when, many college students turn to a drastically simplified diet, usually consisting of what is quick to fix and cheap to buy. Most of us after graduation will never again call our friends with the exciting news that Ramen is on sale for $0.06 a pack (OK, so maybe we will — that deal was incredible), but before we enter the real world, the consensus seems to be that we don’t need real food either. I have one friend who appeared to live on nothing but peanut butter and SPAM. Maybe I was spoiled by a childhood of home-cooked meals with something different every night. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, I’ve never been able to settle into any sort of routine with my food that lasts for more than a week. I crave variety!
Dining hall food may not be great, but the convenience of so many options there for your choosing, without the need of preparing anything yourself, really does have its appeal as you’re staring into your fridge on a Tuesday evening with plenty of food at your disposal, but not the first glimmer of inspiration as to how to make a meal out of it. Add to that a desire to eat healthily, and you’re in one heck of a pickle. But after more than three years, I’ve finally figured a few things out:
First of all, fruits and veggies make life a whole lot easier. Fruit requires no cooking, and when my mother asks me if I’m eating enough of it, I can honestly tell her “yes.” Veggies like green beans, asparagus and broccoli steam in just a few minutes, and are manageable even if all you have is a dorm fridge and a microwave. (Asparagus will keep longer if you store it out of the plastic produce bag — in the moisture of the bag, the delicate heads are prone to rotting.) Toss steamed vegetables with some pasta, olive oil, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, et voila! Dinner.
For the more adventuresome (endowed with a stove), I’ve discovered that Swiss chard (also found by the name of red chard or rainbow chard) is delicious when lightly sautéed with garlic and olive oil (canola works well too), and pairs nicely with an omelet for lunch. Since both the egg and the chard cook quickly, the above meal usually takes less than 10 minutes from start to finish, which is great for relatively short breaks around mealtime.
A fillet of salmon on medium to medium high heat in a little canola cooking spray is usually nicely cooked with about three minutes on each side. As it cooks, it will turn opaque, and ideally you want it to still be a little translucent in the middle. Pair it with some steamed veggies and microwaveable rice pilaf, and you can be sitting down to a proper dinner in less than 15 minutes.
So whether you’re rushing between classes, or even just want a nice dinner without a lot of fuss — bon appetit!
Sarah’s column runs biweekly Wednesdays. She can be reached at s.brummett@cavalierdaily.com.
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