Eating in college is a struggle. Home cooked meals slowly become a distant memory as ramen and daily Chipotle visits become the new diet, and you are left wondering how you managed to consume your daily intake of sodium before 10 a.m.
This week, the Collegian Cooks staff created a meal based around the idea of comfort food. For us, nothing screams “comfort food” quite like macaroni and cheese. Mix that with some lobster, and add a healthy salad and brownies, and you have the best and most satisfying dinner of your college career.
Here are some recipes for our favorite comfort foods.
Lobster mac and cheese
What you will need:
- Salt
- Vegetable oil
- 1 box of your choice of noodles
- 1 quart of milk
- 1 stick of unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
- 12 oz of Gruyere cheese, grated
- 8 oz of extra-sharp Cheddar, grated
- 1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
- 2 lobster tails
- 1 1/2 cups of bread crumbs
Step one: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and add a box of pasta to a pot of boiling water.
Step two: While the pasta is boiling, heat up the milk on the stove, but make sure it does not boil. In another pot, melt the butter. Add in the flour and mix. Whisk in the warm milk.
Step three: Use your best kitchen shears to cut the lobster tail down the back, crack it open, take out the meat and cut off the undesirable bit. Chop it up into small pieces and cook it on the stovetop, like you would your ex-boyfriend. Cook it for five to seven minutes until the meat is opaque.
Step four: Take the milk mixture off the heat and add in the grated cheeses, salt, pepper and nutmeg. Add the cooked pasta and cooked lobster to the cheese mixture.
Step five: Add the lobster macaroni to a greased baking dish. Sprinkle the top with bread crumbs and more cheese. Put it in the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling.
Kale salad
What you will need for the salad:
- 1 bunch of kale
- 1 Honeycrisp apple
- 1 medium-sized bulb of fennel
- 1/3 cup of dried cranberries
- 1/4 cup of roasted pumpkin seeds
- What you will need for the dressing:
- 1/4 cup of olive oil
- 1 teaspoon of lemon zest
- 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
- 2 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
- 1/8 teaspoon of salt
- A few pinches of ground black pepper
Step one: Chop the kale into small bite-sized pieces and put it into a bowl. Sprinkled it with salt, and massage it into the kale to bring out the color and texture.
Step two: Chop the apple into small pieces. Cut the fennel bulb into thin slices. Add both to the kale. Add cranberries and roasted pumpkin seeds.
Step three: In a small bowl, add all the dressing ingredients together. Drizzle it onto the salad and toss it. Let the salad sit for a few minutes to get the best flavor.
Brownies
- 2 cups of sugar
- 1/2 cup of cocoa
- 4 eggs
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla
- 1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
- 1 cup of butter
- 1/2 bag of chocolate chips
- 1 box of raspberries
- Whipped cream
Step one: Preheat of over to 350 degrees.
Step two: Mix sugar, cocoa, eggs and vanilla into a big bowl. Add in flour and salt, and mix well.
Step three: Melt butter and add it to the mixture. Mix in chocolate chips.
Step four: Put it into a baking pan and bake for about 40 minutes, or until it is cooked all the way through.
Step five: Once the brownies are cooled, pair them with raspberries and whipped cream.
Collegian chefs Zara DeGroot and Clarissa Davies can be reached at entertainment@collegian.com, or on Twitter @zar_degroot and @daviesclarissa.
