college university school - How can you get hot kosher food on campus?

So you're living in a college/university town with no kosher restaurants. How can you get hot kosher food?

Answer

The Grandma meal plan:

• Ask your grandmother if she could cook and freeze some kosher food that you could pick up next time you visit. Lots of grandmas derive pleasure from feeding their grandkids.

Campus food services:

• Ask your campus food services department if they'll bring in kosher meals. Many will: perhaps frozen double-wrapped oven-reheatable airplane meals. The meals may be mediocre and expensive. Try not to pay for a full-semester meal plan in advance: you may not use up all the money.

Cooking:

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  Try really hard to live in a unit where everyone keeps kosher and where there's a kitchen used only for kosher. Rent or share an apartment if necessary.

  
  


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  Here are some things you can cook yourself:

  
  
  
  
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    With hot water from a coffee shop's urn (if kosher), or from an electric kettle (I assume kettles are allowed in a dorm room):

    
    
    
    
    
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      Oatmeal.

      
      
    
    
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      Instant mashed potatoes.

      
      
    
    
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      Instant soup. (These are often high in salt and fat. The added glutamates improve the taste. Better yet, make your own soup; add glutamate-filled soup powder to the soup, or glutamate-filled soy sauce to the noodles.)

      
      
    
    
    
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      Fine couscous pasta.

      
      
    
    
    
    
  
  
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    With a rice cooker:

    
    
    
    
    • Rice, hard-boiled eggs, oatmeal, chicken, fish, etc.
    
    
    
    
    
  
  
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    With a toaster:

    
    
    
  
  
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    With a toaster oven: (Some aren't much bigger than a toaster.)

    
    
    
    
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      Toast.

      
      
      
    
    
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      Anything baked: pizza, chicken, fish, potatoes, casseroles, etc. (depending on how you designate/kasher the appliance).

      
      
    
    
    
    
  
  
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    With a pot and a metal spoon: (Look around campus and find a non-smoothtop stove. Either gas or conventional electric coil-top is fine. Then ask your rabbi how to kasher an element. Kashering an element usually takes somewhere between five seconds and five minutes to do. Or, buy a portable, plug-in element.)

    
    
    
    
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      Anything boiled: pasta, eggs, rice.

      
      
    
    
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      Anything stir-fried: meat, poultry, vegetables.

      
      
    
    
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      Anything fried: fish, chicken, green tomatoes.

      
      
    
    
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      Steamed vegetables.

      
      
      
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  

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