Photo taken by Maya Konings
By (roommates) Maya Konings, EIC Lifestyle and Caroline Dehn
Cooking for yourself in college can feel like a chore. Combining forces with your roommates to cook a nice meal can relieve some of that stress while giving you an activity to bond over that breaks up your everyday living routine. Not only can cooking be therapeutic, it can be something to look forward to during a busy week. When you’re living with someone, it’s easy to forget how to actually be friends as well. For us as roommates, cooking dinner together once a week has become a cherished ritual that only makes our friendship stronger. Here are some easy, satisfying, and affordable meals to inspire your next roommate dinner night!
PEACH AND BURRATA SALAD
Peaches are one of the most delicious, quintessential fruits of the summer, so we had a small moment of panic when we realized that it was approaching the end of August and we had not cooked a single meal with them yet. Enter this simple, yet wholly delicious, and satisfying peach and burrata salad. To build the salad, we roasted a couple of sliced peaches in the oven with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. While they cooked, we mixed arugula, kale, chopped cucumbers, basil, and sliced avocado in a large mixing bowl with balsamic vinaigrette. Then, the magic happens upon assembly. We topped the salad mix with the warm roasted peaches straight out of the oven and a generous slice of burrata cheese. While ripe peaches are plenty sweet on their own, roasting them to the point of caramelization brings out a whole new flavor profile that feels so luxurious, you won’t believe how easy it is. We are of the firm belief in this apartment that all salads should be eaten with bread, so we finished off the meal with some toasted garlic bread. The end result was the perfect mix of freshness, lightness, and indulgence. Even though peach season is now over, you can replicate this meal by roasting whatever fruit is in season. Apples during the fall and winter would be absolutely delicious!
MEDITERRANEAN BOWL
Nothing’s better to us than bowls for dinner. Though plates do the job, bowls condense the meal’s components, marrying the flavors together in a way that a plate simply cannot. One of our favorite bowl dinners is our Mediterranean Bowl. We started with the Trader Joe’s falafel mix. This mix not only makes delicious falafel, it certainly saves so much time over making them from scratch. We recommend popping those in the air fryer for extra crispiness. Next, we boiled some pearled couscous and began chopping the essentials: cucumber, tomato, red onion, mint, and parsley. Once the couscous is done, combine with the chopped herbs and veggies along with olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. The next step is making a quick tzatziki with Greek yogurt, shredded cucumber, lemon juice, mint, parsley, salt, pepper, and a small dash of olive oil to thin. Finally, because two sauces are always better than one, we made an herb-tahini sauce. We blended our chopped herbs, tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper, and olive oil until smooth, then drizzled it on top. This meal is refreshing, satisfying and packed with flavor.
LEMON RICOTTA PASTA
We all love a quick and easy pasta dinner but sometimes just the plain old pasta and marinara doesn’t cut it. Ricotta pasta, in all of its forms, has quickly become a staple in our apartment. The creaminess of the ricotta can upgrade any other store-bought sauce, but we love to use it as a base for a homemade creamy lemon sauce. First boil water for your pasta. While it boils, combine ricotta, lemon juice, lemon zest, garlic (powder or finely minced), honey, salt, pepper, a chiffonade of basil, and chili flakes (optional), in a medium-sized bowl. Before you drain the pasta, add a couple tablespoons of the starchy water to the ricotta mixture. Lastly, combine the pasta and ricotta mixture with extra basil and lemon zest to taste. Top with a few cracks of fresh black pepper and even a drizzle of Trader Joe’s hot honey. This pasta will cure your midterm blues and warm you up during this fall weather.
FARMERS MARKET HARVEST BOWL
We almost always cook our weekly roommate dinner on Sunday evening, and this past week, Maya decided to make an early morning trip to the FreshFarm Market in Dupont Circle (open Sundays from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.) to pick up some seasonal ingredients for our meal. I arrived at the farmers market with no list, just vibes, ready to buy any ingredients that called to me. I ended up purchasing an adorable acorn squash, a head of broccoli, a giant bunch of kale, and some fresh herbs. For this dinner, we wanted to let these wonderful seasonal ingredients shine. We roasted the acorn squash and broccoli in the oven, air fried some crispy chickpeas on the side, and blended up the herbs with tahini, lemon juice, and yogurt for a creamy sauce. The end result was fresh, comforting, and delicious. After a long, stressful week, it was exactly what we needed to end our Sunday on a good note. I’m already looking forward to going back to the farmers market next week!
