Home Cooking

30 May 2023
By William Johnston

Rome is, as we all know, a place renowned for its fine cuisine. From roman chicken to carbonara, to the humble suppli, the city is a veritable smorgasbord for the discerning gourmet. Tragically, on a college student budget, one must economize, meaning that my flatmates and I have been obligated, from time to time, to feed ourselves. What follows then is a hodgepodge of some of the tips and tricks we have learned from these experiences, as well as a few of our favorite recipes.  

Tip Number 1: 

Lots of people eat lots of food; plan accordingly! 

Very early on in our culinary adventures, we discovered that amounts of food which might seem perfectly reasonable for, say, a household of four, become almost comically inadequate in the face of six young men. 

Two packages of ground beef, gone almost immediately…
Two packages of ground beef, gone almost immediately…

Tip Number 2:

You can never go wrong with garlic.

Need an extra bit of flavor for your pasta? Is your soup feeling a little tame? Throw some garlic in and watch your meal transform! Fried, baked, raw, cooked with butter, it’s all delicious. 

Tip Number 3:

Measuring utensils? Who needs ’em?

Unfortunately, our kitchen did not come with any sort of measuring device. To compensate, we’ve devised a kind of vague system based around the two sizes of spoons we do have. Carbonara, for instance, requires roughly one big spoon of garlic, whereas tacos needs two or three.

Our measuring devices.
Our measuring devices.

Some Favorite Recipes:

Peanut Butter Noodles

Ingredients:

A few shakes of vinegar 

Some amount of Peanut butter (less than a jar, but more than half a jar)

Sesame oil (If you can get it, which you can’t) 

Rice Wine (ditto)

One or two little spoons of sugar

Three or four big spoons of garlic 

Four or five big spoons of garlic

Honey (to taste) 

Green onions (which, again, you will not be able to find)

Around two packages of pasta (one package will definitely be too little, two packages probably too much, maybe a package and a half? A package and three-quarters?)

Directions:

-Heat the water and chop the garlic.

-Combine the other ingredients in a large bowl, stirring vigorously so that the peanut butter dissolves into a smooth mixture.

-Drain the pasta and quickly combine with the peanut butter mixture and garlic, mix together and serve hot, with the non-existent green onions as a garnish.

The result, still good four days later!
The result, still good four days later!

Meatball Medley

Ingredients:

Two packages of store-bought meatballs

One onion (chopped)

Two or three big spoons of garlic (chopped)

Three eggs

An obscene amount of butter

One big spoon of olive oil 

Directions:

-Heat the olive oil in a pan, add onion and garlic and cook until the garlic begins to brown.

-Add meatballs and some of the butter, then cook at medium heat while stirring constantly.

-Add more butter, and continue stirring.

-Add the eggs and still more butter and cook until the meatballs are well done and the onions begin to fry. 

-Serve hot with a big loaf of white bread!