Too often our dining halls have nothing worth eating. Even the freshmen are starting to notice just how much of the food is literally the same thing as what was served the day before. It’s too bad that the dining halls’ idea of culinary creativity is prefixing random ethnic descriptors like “Asian” onto the name of generic vegetable dishes (it’s just zucchini!) or adding unnecessary tildes to remotely Mexican meats.

So it’s time to take things into your own hands and create unique dishes with what you’ve got in the dining hall. If you take a look around at the ingredients, condiments and toppings available to you, the combinations are endless. Here are eight dining hall combo suggestions you can make yourself that are guaranteed to make heads turn:

1. Breakfast strawberries. Those syrupy, gooey waffle strawberries that probably came out of a can might seem gross when they’re making your waffles soggy, but they’re actually a pretty versatile and yummy breakfast ingredient in other scenarios. They can go well in an unsweetened bowl of cereal, in oatmeal or as dip for a donut. You can even use the gooey sauce as a syrup for juice or as a fruity sweetener for coffee or tea.

2. Crazy sandwiches and omelets. If your dining hall ever offers a Panini bar or an omelet bar, consider all the random ingredients you can put in them! Think outside the basic meat, lettuce, tomato and cheese and venture over to the salad bar for arugula, the pasta bar for parmesan cheese and the hot-food line for thick slices of meat. And if you really know what you’re doing (and are willing to receive an odd stare from the server), you can always try something wild like fruit jam in an omelet.

3. Peanut butter and jelly. Most dining halls (except poor Ricker) have peanut butter and jelly among the spreads next to the bread, so grab a butter knife and make this old-fashioned elementary-school-lunch part of your college diet. This might seem like an obvious combination, but sometimes it takes all year for the people who immediately rush to the hot food line to notice these ingredients. These sandwiches are especially convenient to prepare ahead of time for midnight snacks or a lunch away from the dining hall.

4. Neat dips and sauces. If you’re not all that hungry or just feel like finger food, consider making your own dip or sauce to dip chips in. If you’re not in Stern and don’t have chips every day, toast with cheese microwave-melted on top also goes well with dips. Salad ingredients such as tomatoes and olives, as well as dressings, pasta sauces, hamburger condiments and other sauces and spices can be combined to create a very tasty concoction.

5. The sampler burger. If you’re in the mood for a burger, but the puny patty and disproportionate bun aren’t going to do it for you, aim for something bigger and better. Toast the bun, or replace it with a bagel, sliced bread or a tortilla. Or try every kind of patty (regular, turkey, veggie) under one bun. Ask the server to grill onions or mushrooms for you, and, if it’s brunch, don’t forget the bacon!

6. Fancy pasta dishes. If you thought the only thing you could do with the pasta they serve is put sauce on it, think again. The grilled chicken served with the hamburgers is just begging to be chopped up and tossed into your spaghetti. The squash, mushrooms, carrots and other heated vegetables are also great for mixing. If this isn’t enough, go to the spice rack (if you have one) and attack your pasta with dried basil, garlic powder and red pepper flakes.

7. Unique drinks. Trust me, soda’s not all that healthy, the juice gets old when they don’t change the flavors for a week and you really can’t trust milk that they dub “organic” (quotes and all). Instead, try making pretty-looking fruit juice combinations — I’m fond of the sunset-colored mix of fruit punch poured over orange juice. And in the dessert drink department, you can make a root beer float or combine ice cream, milk and your favorite toppings in a cup for a fresh, spoon-blended milkshake.

8. Ice cream toppings. Next time you serve yourself a cup of ice cream or fro-yo, avoid the boring ice cream toppings and go visit the dessert line, the fruits, the spreads or even the salad bar. Cake, pie, brownies, cookies, banana, peanut butter and walnuts all taste delicious with ice cream. Who says FloMo has to be the only dining hall with eight ice cream flavors a day?