Meal ideas - dorm living, no kitchen

[Anonymous]

Temple seems to have a lot of retail locations that take swipes. Are none of those acceptable either?

[Anonymous]

If the food is really that bad to the point of causing multiple people to feel ill, shouldn’t you be reporting to the college and the health department? That is not normal.

[Anonymous]

Do not get a toaster oven or an induction burner. They are not allowed for a reason. College kids can do dumb stuff and they don't need a fire hazard around. (Fun story - one of my suitemates managed to burn easy mac badly enough in their microwave that the smoke alarms went off and they evacuated the dorm. And microwaves are allowed!)

Your kid should eat in the dining hall, certainly he can figure something out. Salad bar, sandwiches, find some sides that are acceptable, etc. It's also a social experience, which he'll miss out on if he's holed up in his room eating canned soup.

[Anonymous]

Please do not encourage him to keep an illegal toaster oven. Dorm fires are a real risk and it’s really not fair to the rest of the inhabitants of that building.

Honestly, I’d encourage him to do his based to make do at the dining hall. If you are eating PB&J at home I’m confident he can make a PB&J in teh dining hall - the benefit of the dining hall being that he will enjoy the socialization of eating with other. And can easily add a piece of fruit, salad, and a bowl of ice cream to it. Way too many freshman are having difficulty making connections at college these days. Advising them to eat alone in their room is not helping.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about an electric sauté pan that he can use in the kitchen area where the microwave is located. My dd is a vegan and dorm food service never had enough options so she would cook her food in the small kitchen and then take it back to her room. Made it easy to do all kinds of meals.

It doesn’t sound like there’s an actual kitchen, just a mini fridge and microwave in the room itself. Actually cooking in the dorm room seems pretty unrealistic/unsanitary. No proper prep surface, no way to properly clean things, insufficient food storage, and things that heat up and produce smoke are a fire hazard in dorm rooms. I’d suggest they stick with much simpler premade and microwave options, plus some meal deliveries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please do not encourage him to keep an illegal toaster oven. Dorm fires are a real risk and it’s really not fair to the rest of the inhabitants of that building.

+1

And they’ll be found out pretty quickly when there are cooking and burning smells coming from the dorm room.

[Anonymous]

The family prepped meals from Whole Foods, Costco etc. They come in large quantities and can be many meals for one person and last in the fridge for a few days.

[Anonymous]

He can manage. I’m sure there is a salad bar, cereal bar, etc. Surely he can manage. I would not encourage “cooking” in his dorm room, beyond PB sandwiches, Mac and cheese microwave cups and ramen. Past that, dorms aren’t sent up for food cooking and prep. There isn’t a place to wash dishes other than the bathroom sink and it will sink- both the cooking and the dishes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am PP with the long list and just saw that it's temple. Temple is in kind of a grocery store desert which makes it harder. Can you buy him a granny grocery cart? That will make it easier to get things home.

Acme just started a 5% off discount for students, and there is an Aldi right down Broad Street along with a Giant (it's a different strain of Giant than the DMV Giants, so he will have to get his own discount account). There is a Trader Joe's near Jefferson Station that will have a lot of prepared microwaveable meals, if that's in budget.

There's a big grocery store just a 5 min walk. It seems overpriced, like Whole Foods prices, but it does have everything he could want in terms of basic groceries.

I think the best solution is to get a small toaster oven and just keep it under wraps. That allows for some easy breakfast and lunch options to save money cooking at home; and find some decent restaurant nearby for better protein options for dinner.

Great, tell your kid to bring a fire-hazard into the dorm. You are clearly not thinking. If it’s so atrocious, why don’t you give him more $$ to eat out with his friends. Do not endanger other students!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The family prepped meals from Whole Foods, Costco etc. They come in large quantities and can be many meals for one person and last in the fridge for a few days.

Those are too large for a dorm fridge. He’s going to be grocery shopping daily to feed himself, especially if his roommate would like some fridge space too.

[Anonymous]

Buitoni now makes a pasta in a pouch you can microwave in 1 minute. After cooking it, he could pour pasta sauce directly into the pouch of pasta and eat it from there. Same goes for microwaveable rice in a pouch. Could pour in some teriyaki sauce and even add pre-cooked chicken strips from the grocery store.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The family prepped meals from Whole Foods, Costco etc. They come in large quantities and can be many meals for one person and last in the fridge for a few days.

Those are too large for a dorm fridge. He’s going to be grocery shopping daily to feed himself, especially if his roommate would like some fridge space too.

He has time to grocery shop daily? And also to prepare and clean up after 2-3 meals a day?

[Anonymous]

When my meal plan ran out I would make salads with canned tuna or salmon. I also had a hot sandwich maker that worked well with deli meat and cheese.

Help him find something that is decent. Chicken tenders, fries, grilled veggies, etc. are hard to mess up

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is his problem to solve. He decided that every single thing on offer in the dining hall was inedible? I mean, THAT’S the place to go to put together meals — salad bar + grilled chicken + rice = stir fry; pasta + peanut butter/soy sauce/brown sugar = sesame noodles; just about anything can be made into a taco or put in or on a salad.

Sadly, this is true. It is Temple University and their dining hall food is quite bad.

So why did he choose to attend a school where he already knew he didn’t care for the food?

And really, you can’t screw up pasta or cereal. Put him back on the regular meal plan and tell him to be creative.

Seriously? No one in their right mind chooses a school based on food. But this is DCUMland so I'm sure there are a few wackadoodles here who do.

My DS chose one school over another for that very reason!

[Anonymous]

Does the cafeteria have a griddle and/or toaster available at breakfast?

My one college dorm cafeteria had both, and pans, etc. and a supply eggs at breakfast (even pancake batter sometimes) and omelet toppings. If you didn't like what was on offer you could scramble or fry up some eggs. Toast a muffin. Grab some ham or bacon, peppers, onions, mushrooms, etc. and make your own decent sandwich to eat on the spot (or secretly slip into a tupperware container for later).

There are whole books available on how to cook a meal you like from ingredients on offer in the cafeteria.