Hey everyone, welcome back to the blog! For those of you who are also living in snowy places right now, I hope you’re all bundling up, and for those of you who are in warmer weather, please know that I’m living vicariously through you. In case it wasn’t already made abundantly clear by my brunch blog series, having access to yummy food near where I live is something that’s very important to me. But of course, eating out for every meal is just not feasible. So, my friends and I have started making the most of the many fun features of Valentine Dining Hall, our one and only dining hall on campus, to craft some yummy (and at times mildly bizarre) meals. So, while there are many more creations that I didn’t take a picture of, here are a few examples of us cheffing it up in Val! As a bit of a side note, the featured image for this blog is not an example of one of my own creations, but is instead one of my favorite Val memories; when they prepared a chocolate covered strawberry station for us for Valentine’s day.
If I have one thing to say about Valentine Dining Hall, it’s that the salad bar is pretty glorious. Over the past year, Val seems to have been making an effort to expand and diversify the salad bar offerings, and I am eternally grateful. So, you may be thinking to yourself, “wow, there’s a lot going on in this picture”. To that I say, you are correct! Lately, i’ve been having a lot of fun creating delicious but perhaps mildly unhinged salad creations. In this photo, you are looking at a salad with spinach, arugula, iceberg lettuce, avocado, carrot, edamame, corn, grain salad, and vegan chorizo. As ridiculous as my salad may sound, I promise you it was so so yummy. Val has a rotating flavor of tofu and chicken in the salad bar every week, so lately i’ve been making a very fun buffalo chicken salad with ranch. I’d say the salad bar is definitely one of the easier ways to chef it up in Val, and it’s a part of the dining hall i’d highly recommend.
So admittedly, the photo you see here is probably not the most aesthetically pleasing meal to ever exist. However, please take my word for it when I say that this yogurt bowl was absolutely delightful. As of late, I’ve developed a serious obsession with yogurt bowls; are they breakfast? Are they lunch? Are they a dessert? The possibilities are endless! And, now that Val offers six different kinds of granola (at last count), I have been having entirely too much fun making some over-the-top yogurt creations. In the photo here, I have greek yogurt sweetened with honey and topped with vanilla granola, chia seeds, peanut butter, green apple, and cinnamon. To really understand the obsession I have, my friend (hi Leah!) and I have a shared album where we upload photos (essentially daily) of our Val yogurt bowls. I also wanted to mention that Val does offer non-Greek strawberry yogurt and coconut milk dairy-free yogurt as well, so there’s an option for everyone. As someone who’s now probably 70% yogurt at this point, I thank Val for fueling my addiction.
As of this week, Val added a new “build your own” ramen dinner to the menu rotation, and since I am so very very pleased, I thought it had to be included. After picking your broth and protein of choice (I chose pork belly and tofu!), there were many toppings stations scattered around Val to complete your ramen bowl. Personally, I chose nori, beansprouts, scallions, and hoisin sauce, but I also saw a ton of my friends experimenting with other toppings. This dinner was absolutely delicious (I genuinely still think about it), and I really appreciated how Val made the meal so customizable.
For today’s blog, I figured I’d save the best (and most unhinged) example for last. Unfortunately this creation was not even my own doing, but since I watched it come to life first-hand and since I think it was one of my friends’ finer moments, I felt like it had to be included. For context, Val has a waffle maker and pancake maker that are available all day. So, may I present to you…a waffle topped with whipped cream topped with pieces of a pancake topped with chocolate sauce topped with powdered sugar. While Val is a great place to chef up some yummy practical meals, it also allows for monstrosities like this to be created. I of course tried some of the choco-pancake-waffle (I genuinely don’t know what to call this thing), and honestly, it was delicious.
Well, I hope you’re feeling nice and inspired to go chef up some yummy creations of your own. Dining hall food is definitely what you make of it, and in Val, a little creativity can go a long, long way. As always, if you have any questions about anything Amherst College related at all, please don’t hesitate to contact me! My email is eknauer27@amherst.edu. Bye for now!