Home-cooked in college

There are two distinct areas when it comes to how students eat when they are away from home.

Young adults either try cooking for themselves, or they go out every night to eat fast food because it is cheap and easy. After all, most of them are on conservative budgets.

But truth is, even light cooking will save college students money and allow them to eat more healthy.

However, there are reasons college students don’t cook. They often don’t have the equipment they need to prepare easy meals.

And they don’t want to bother with clean up, share ingredients with roommates or take time to food shop.

Following is a college cooking kit that includes everything students will need to make a home cooked meal, except perishable ingredients.

Nonstick grill pan
These are wonderful for cooking any protein, pan-grilling vegetables or even making great panini sandwiches with almost no oil.

3-quart saucepan with a lid
You can cook pasta, rice, grains or any vegetable, and cleaning is no problem, unless stuff gets burned.

Extra-virgin olive oil
It’s important to limit butter and never eat margarine. Use this oil to cook just about everything. You don’t have to buy a really expensive oil. A liter will last a student a full semester.

Olive oil spray
A can of it is good for keeping whatever you are cooking from sticking.

Grains
Couscous doesn’t even need to be cooked, just reconstituted with boiling water.

Pasta
There are a number of large companies making full lines of whole-grain pastas that bear no resemblance to the old chewy, dark brown whole-wheat pasta.

Brown rice
You can buy the quick-cooking kind to help yourself save time. A few flavored rice blends that don’t have high amounts of salt or any MSG are good too.

Cooking sauces
Most grocers and all natural food stores now carry jars of ethnic cooking sauces that are really good.
They come in Indian, Mexican and other varieties that can be added to any protein and simmered for great results.

Spice mills
Sea salt, peppercorns and various spice blends like Tuscan, garlic pepper, lemon pepper and steakhouse are available in ready-packed spice grinders. Use them on tofu, pasta and pizza. They also make a simple salad come alive.

Canned black beans
Easy for students to make by adding a few ingredients (hold the lard). Served with pasta or couscous, they provide a great-tasting and nutritious meal that’s cheap.

Chipotle chili in adobo
This is for students who like spicy foods. Sold in cans, these are great in dips, rice, pasta and beans.