This is the first in a weekly series of recipes I will share that can be made with simple ingredients right in your dorm room or lobby kitchen!
To start off, I’m going to introduce some cheap ingredients you can get at Dollar General to keep on hand.
The first two are salt and pepper. They’re small items, but if you are someone who can just go with seasoning your food with salt and pepper then these will be great for you.
Cooking spray, garlic powder and onion powder are also necessary ingredients. You can keep any other seasonings in your room if you use other ones a lot but those two are the top-notch ones to keep on the shelves. I also have ground ginger, but that is a seasoning I like the taste of so I use it a lot.
Next off are the sugars—brown and white. Get both because they are both used to cook different ways.
Next off are crackers or chips, pancake mix, powdered sugar, instant potatoes and any type of bread in a loaf that you prefer.
Pancake mix is a great one to have because I personally use it instead of flour. It is pretty much mostly flour anyways.
Instant potatoes are good to keep around just because I think mashed potatoes are awesome, and they are an easy side dish to add to a dinner. It’s a pretty good late-night snack before bed, too. They kinda just get you ready to fall asleep.
Lastly, bread. Having bread around can be used for so many things such as french toast, garlic bread, grilled cheese and quick sandwiches.
Okay, now to the ingredients to keep around in your fridge. If you don’t have a fridge in your room, you should either get one because it is so convenient or just use the fridge in the lobby to stash your stuff.
Starting off with some of the most useful ingredients are eggs, milk or heavy cream, salted or unsalted butter, mixed shredded cheese, bacon, cream cheese, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce.
I know that sounds like a lot, but they all come to use when you begin making different small recipes.
Some condiments that are just a no brainer to keep in your fridge are ranch, honey mustard, lemon pepper sauce, ketchup and mayo. Those sauces can be used as dips, dressings and can go well on sandwiches.
Alright, the last bit of ingredients could be any vegetables that you like to eat, maybe spinach or carrots. It is hard to determine what veggies to get because you have to know what you are going to make so they don’t go bad sitting in your fridge and not being used.
Now to the first recipe…
Crack Cheeseball
Total Time: 30 minutes
Servings: 6-8
Ingredients:
1 8 oz package of cream cheese
2 spoonfuls* of butter
½ package of bacon
½ spoonful of salt
1 spoonful of garlic and onion powder (optional)
3 spoonfuls of ranch dressing
1 1/2 handfuls of shredded cheese
1 package of crackers or chips
*The “spoonfuls” are just your regular cereal or soup spoon since that’s what most of us have handy in the dorms.
For this recipe the materials you need are a microwave-safe bowl, a paper plate with a few paper towels stacked on top of it, a spoon to measure with, a small plate to form the cheeseball on after mixing and a spoon or fork to mix with.
To start off, place the bacon on top of the paper plate but make sure there are at least 2 paper towel pieces that they are sitting on and at least one piece on top. This will avoid the grease from the bacon from leaking into the paper plate and then out onto the surface underneath.
The paper towels on top are to help with the bacon grease from splattering on the microwave.
Once you have the bacon ready, put it in the microwave to start off at two and a half minutes.
If you check it after that time and the bacon does not appear to be crunchy then put it back in for increments of 30 seconds, checking on it in between. The bacon needs to be crunchy enough that it will fall apart into crumbles and small pieces.
After the bacon is done cooking, set it aside until it has cooled down.
While it is cooling down, put the 2 spoonfuls of butter in a microwave-safe bowl and place it covered in the microwave for 30 seconds.
Once the time is done, remove the bowl from the microwave and add all of the remaining ingredients except the bacon to the bowl.
Stir all of the ingredients together thoroughly so that they are well mixed evenly into each other. The mixed product should be sticky.
You can take small scoops of the mixture out of the bowl and place it on the small plate, using the spoon to create the ball from the mixture.
Once you have made the cheeseball part, go back to your bacon and remove the paper towels from the plate, leaving just the bacon on the plate now. Smash and crumble it using your fingers or by pressing the bottom of a spoon on the bacon so that it becomes small pieces.
After you have crumbled all of the bacon, take a spoon and spoon out piles of the bacon crumbles. Using the spoon, begin to pour and press the bacon crumbles into and around the entire cheese ball so that it appears like it is all bacon crumbles.
Serve with chips or crackers to dip in the cheeseball.
Ingredients photo caption: photo of ingredients used includes crackers, cream cheese, salt, ranch dressing, shredded cheese and butter.
Sarah Heydinger is a senior convergent journalist majoring in art education.
