Emily Chan
When you think of what college students eat, gourmet meals are not what comes to mind unless popcorn and ramen noodles count as fine dining in your eyes.
TikToker Karen Rosenbloom (@karens_cooking) is a private chef, and she’s demonstrating how she made a simple but fancy dinner for her college friends that cost less than $25.
While it may not exactly be gourmet, it’s definitely a step up from the usual college student fare. The meal serves four people. She purchased all her ingredients from Trader Joe’s and utilized them in different ways.
First, Karen made confit garlic bread. She cooked garlic in a pan filled with oil, then spread the confit garlic, along with some butter, onto fresh slices of ciabatta.
After seasoning the bread with salt and pepper, she baked them in the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit until they turned golden brown.
Next, Karen cooked up some lemon and goat cheese orzo. Orzo is a form of pasta that is shaped like large grains of rice. She used the leftover garlic-infused oil from making the garlic bread as the base for the orzo.
Karen sautéd one diced onion and the rest of the garlic she had on hand in the oil. Then, she deglazed the mixture with a bit of lemon juice and added in cooked orzo.
She finished off the orzo with more lemon juice, lemon zest, goat cheese, and freshly chopped basil. The orzo was paired with roasted chicken thighs that she rubbed in a compound butter.
After roasting for about twenty minutes, Karen removed the chicken from the oven, squeezed in some lemon juice, and set lemon slices on top of the chicken.
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