It sucks when it’s 8 p.m. and you have no clue what you’re having for dinner. No one’s going to make it for you, and you’re on the verge of going to the drive-thru or ordering take-out again.

Save the money and the calories by stocking these five magical ingredients. With them, you can whip up a quick and delicious dinner any night of the week.

1. Cooking wine. Though not really the kind of thing you want to drink straight-up, cooking wine is great for making amazing sauces, putting in some casseroles, or adding major flavor to meat dishes.

As with regular wine, white tends to go better with chicken and red with beef. If you like to drink wine, there’s also something to be said about keeping your cellar stocked with good drinking wines that can double as cooking wines.

2. Chicken broth. Every bit as useful as cooking wine, but for slightly different things. Chicken broth can help make a wonderful pasta sauce, is a fantastic base for soups with a lot of flavor, and will make rice and noodles taste a lot better (if you boil them in the broth instead of water). Read More »

Don’t get me wrong; there is absolutely nothing wrong with microwaving a frozen entrée/Hot Pocket for dinner in your dorm room. It is quick, easy and far tastier than the offerings downstairs in the cafeteria. And in terms of “cooking” in a dorm room, that is about as close as you are gonna get.

For those of you who have moved onto bigger and better things – mainly, an apartment or house on campus – a can of Spaghetti-O’s also makes quite a handy dinner. But, let’s be honest, there are only so many nights that you can handle the sound of the noodle/sauce combo loosening its grip on the inside of a Chef Boyardee can and plopping (still shaped like said can, mind you) into your microwave-safe bowl.

Not to mention the awful nutritional information.

Being that you are finally grown up enough to live in the college equivalent to a big girl bed (a house/apartment on your own!) it is time to step away from the microwavable meals of your past and move onto something far superior…without much extra work.

Below is a list of some super easy, super tasty and even super healthy alternatives to the microwavable meal. Step away from the Easy Mac, ladies; it is time to fire up the stove for a dinner your mother would be proud of, without cutting into your bar….er….study time. Just mix and match some of these tasty ideas and you have yourself a real dinner. Read More »