Catering Team Wins Culinary Olympics Boiling Point Competition

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Typically, the annual UConn Dining Culinary Olympics is held in January in the South Ballroom, buzzing with chefs, judges, and hundreds of attendees. The full-day event consists of a recipe contest amongst chefs in the morning and the Boiling Point competition with teams in the afternoon. Due to COVID, Dining Services had to rethink the event. For the 21st Annual Culinary Olympics, the event consisted of just the Boiling Point competition and took place on November 17th and 18th in Dining’s Innovation Lab. The event was not open to the public.

Five teams signed up and each came to the Innovation Lab during their assigned time. Upon arrival, each team was given the same mystery basket of ingredients and 60 minutes to create their dishes. The mystery basket this year consisted of: lamb chops, a Jimmy Dean biscuit sausage egg and cheese sandwich, lentils, mandarin oranges, celery root, and cold brew coffee concentrate.

The judges presiding over the event were Cynthia Costanzo, interim director of the UConn Student Union, and Jay Frain, interim executive director of UConn Recreation.  

Catering won with their dish: Orange espresso lamb chop with fall-inspired fresh celery root slaw, cheesy bacon mashed, and home-style honey sriracha baked lentils & pork. Congratulations to our team members Amanda Flynn, Jeremy Quintana, and Kathy Halgren on their creative dish! The Bistro took second place, and chefs from Gelfenbien won third. Other teams included participants from Putnam and McMahon dining halls.

 

Finalists Chosen for Class of 2021 Senior Slice

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The staff at McMahon Dining Hall have chosen six finalists for the inaugural Senior Slice. Congrats to the finalists! Voting is open until the end of the day on March 12th, 2021.

Vote here dining.uconn.edu/senior-slice

Non-Vegan Pizza Finalists

  • Sophia Arruda – Spicy red sauce (base) with capicola, onions, roasted poblanos, pineapple, gouda, oregano & thyme
  • Daniella Costa – Mac n Cheese (base) with pulled pork, onions, peppers, cheddar cheese, bbq sauce & oregano
  • Sophia Arruda – Queso (base) with pulled chicken, jalapeno, corn, black beans, Monterey Jack cheese, pepper jack cheese, oregano & cilantro

Vegan Pizza Finalists

  • Giuliana Marchetti – Spicy red sauce (base) with vegan meatball, vegan Italian sausage, spinach, peppers, vegan slice Chao cheese, pesto (nut/cheese free) & oregano
  • Julia Roemer – Traditional red sauce (base) with eggplant, tomatoes, broccoli, spinach, basil & oregano
  • Frank Magnante – Garlic oil (base) with eggplant, spinach, broccoli, onions, pesto (nut/cheese free) & oregano

 

Dining Services Launches Senior Slice

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Dining Services is launching Senior Slice!

Like Senior Scoop, we are looking to make this a fun and tasty UConn tradition for the senior class.

Members of the Class of 2021 can build and submit their favorite kinds of vegan and non-vegan pizzas.

Dining Services will then select a few finalist pizzas for seniors to vote on. The winning vegan and non-vegan pizza will be served at McMahon, North, and USM this spring. Stay tuned, more locations may be added!

More than one idea can be submitted. Please submit your ideas by the end of the day on February 28th:  https://dining.uconn.edu/senior-slice/

Questions: Contact DDSMarketing@uconn.edu

 

In The News: Dining to Develop Plant-Based Cafe

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The idea of a plant-based café on campus was first brought forth to Dining by Maddie Pickett, a fourth-semester biomedical engineering major. Dining created a survey to see what students at Storrs thought of the idea and many were in favor of seeing this idea come to fruition.
 
This new venture for the fall will involve students through the entire development process and also provide dining with more opportunities to support CT farms, in particular, our student-run Spring Valley Farm.
 
Stay tuned! Next steps are to create a mission statement, invite students to share their favorite plant-based recipes, and then test some of these recipes with students in our innovation lab. Check out the article in the UConn Daily Campus http://bit.ly/3jkh2Ho

UConn Bakery Opens Online Stores

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The UConn Bakery (Not Just Desserts) has launched two online stores on the UConn Dining Services website. One store is for the bakery’s standard cakes and baked goods and the other store is for the annual Thanksgiving Pie & Baked Goods sale.

Items in the Bakery online store include: birthday/occasion cakes (10”, half sheet & full sheet), 10” gourmet chocolate chip cookies, and gluten-free cakes/baked goods. Students and staff are welcome to place orders, pay with Husky Bucks, and pick up at the C-Store or Bakery.

Items in the Thanksgiving store include: Pies, cheesecake, cookies, breads, pumpkin whoopie pies, gluten-free pies/cheesecake. Thanksgiving orders must be received by 4:00pm on Wednesday, November 11, 2020, and all orders have to be picked up at the Bakery on Wednesday, November 25th. Orders cannot be picked up prior to the 25th.

At this time the Bakery is not able to do shipments or deliveries to offices/student rooms.

The campus community and public are welcome to start placing orders.

You can find access to both stores here: dining.uconn.edu/bakery

Dining Halls to Distribute Reusable Bags for To-Go Food

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Beginning Friday, September 11th, Dining Services will begin to distribute blue reusable bags in the dining halls for students to use for to-go food.

The bag is super lightweight and can be easily folded up into the inner pouch to save space which makes for easy portability.

Each student will receive one bag and it will be noted on their OneCard when they receive their bag.

If students forget their bag they will be able to request a recyclable/eco-friendly plastic bag at the dining hall.

For more information on this, check out the article featured in the Daily Campus.

Mango Opens in the Rec Center

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Stop by and check out Mango in the Rec Center. We created our own menu of fresh smoothies, grain bowls, salads, wraps, and grilled gooeys!! Choose something from the menu or you can build-your-own bowls, salads and wraps. Mango accepts meal plan points. View the menu at https://dining.uconn.edu/mango/

Mango Hours:

Monday – Thursday: 7:30am – 7:30pm
SMOOTHIES ONLY 7:30am – 10:00am
**CLOSED 1PM – 3PM (Rec Ctr cleaning)**

Friday: 7:30am – 1:00pm
SMOOTHIES ONLY 7:30am – 10:00am

Saturday: CLOSED
Sunday: 3:00 – 7:30pm
SMOOTHIES ONLY

Chef Profile: Angel Soto

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Angel Soto: Q&A

With almost four decades of creating menus and serving students, you could say chef Angel Soto is a familiar and welcome face in the dining halls at UConn. After graduating from the culinary arts program at EC Goodwin Tech, Angel got his hands-on experience serving large groups through food services in the Army. In 1996 he retired from the Army with 20 years of service, four years in active duty and the remainder in the reserves. After leaving active duty he joined UConn Dining Services and also returned to EC Goodwin Tech for a few years as a chef instructor for the adult bilingual education program.

Today you can find Angel in Buckley Dining Hall whipping up omelets for students to start their day. He also currently serves as the UNITE Here Steward and Executive Board Member.

What do you love about working at UConn?

What I enjoy about working at UConn is the interaction and service we provide to our students. The greatest satisfaction for me is receiving the many thanks and compliments from students on a daily basis and for that I’m grateful!

Working at UConn has allowed me to meet many people with skills that have influenced me in many ways. With skills gained along the way, I’ve been able to continue my passion for creating menus and keeping my love for the culinary arts alive.

I have achieved many accomplishments throughout my 39 years in food service here at UConn, but the two achievements that stand out the most for me was receiving the SUBOG Employee of the Month in 1985, voted on by the students and Employee of the Year in 2011, voted by my peers.

What is your favorite thing to cook at UConn?

I enjoy cooking all types of food, but my favorite would have to be whipping up omelets at the omelet station. We provide students with many options to create their omelets and working at this station allows me to interact with the students and for me, that is so rewarding!

What is your favorite thing to cook at home?

I cook many meals at the home front, but believe it or not I’m not the head chef at home, my wife is!  She’s a great cook and I appreciate her taking that duty on. But when I do cook at home my family would say that their favorite is my Puerto Rican cuisine dishes. I grew up in a very large family with six brothers and four sisters. You would often find my mother in the kitchen creating Puerto Rican dishes for my siblings and me. I would say she and many of my aunts influenced me to become a chef!