The first time I tried to cook in college ended with burning a pan of scrambled eggs. Three times. I’m what you’d call kitchen impaired, forever a slave to the nearest pizza place that delivers at 2 a.m. With that in mind, I had no idea what I was thinking when I told my girlfriend I wanted to cook her dinner. In a panic, I called my mom, my roommates, and the ever helpful Internet to become a master chef of exactly five incredibly simple dishes that any girl would love.

1) Breakfast in bed

Difficulty: so easy it hurts.

Ingredients: eggs, cheese, bacon, sausage, pancake mix, and syrup.

The dish with the highest satisfaction rate on this list also happens to be the absolute easiest thing to make. All it takes is the ability to wake up a half an hour earlier than your partner. Scramble the eggs with cheese, in a pan on medium, and stir them until they look edible. If you don’t have a stove, you can always bake carton eggs, but the results might vary. Place the bacon and sausage in a frying pan, and cook that on medium to high, until brown and crispy. Add the recommended amount of water to the pancake mix and cook on a pan until both sides are a nice golden color. Breakfast in bed, while incredibly easy and cheap to make, is seen as one of the most thoughtful gestures in our society. This is probably because you have to actually wake up early to do it right. If you do, you’ll earn some serious points.

2) Chicken parm

Difficulty: is this even cooking?

Ingredients: eggs, flour, breadcrumbs, chicken breasts, parmesan or mozzarella cheese, store bought red sauce.

This is the real dinner I actually decided to make my girlfriend, mostly because it was the only thing I thought I could possibly do. In order to make this Italian classic, you’ll need to slice the chicken breasts into thin, flat sections. Then, you dip each breast in egg, cover it in flour, then breadcrumbs, put it on a frying pan and cook it on medium to high until each side is golden brown. Cut into the center of the chicken to make sure it is cooked through. Add cheese to the top of the chicken, and bake it in the oven with the sauce in a pyrex dish. It’s simple, quick, easy, and delicious. Most importantly, it’s chicken and cheese, how could she not love that?

3) Dorm steak

Difficulty: easier than normal steak.

Ingredients: steaks, olive oil, Lowry’s steak seasoning.

Everybody in the world knows that a steak wants to be grilled. However, if you live in a dorm or frat house, you might not have access to a working grill. That’s why I’m going to teach you how to cook your steak in the dorm, using an oven. Steaks cost a little more than everything else on this list, so it’s high risk, high reward, because if you can do it right, she’ll think you’re Gordon Ramsay (without all the cursing).

Start by coating your steak in olive oil, on all sides. Then, press the seasoning into all exposed parts of the steak, so that it is completely covered. Sear the steak on both sides in a frying pan until the top and bottom are completely brown. Then place the steak on a pan, and place it in the oven on broil. Ask the butcher who sold you the steaks how long to cook it (or, if you’re like me, read it on the side of the package). If this comes out right, you’ll never have to pay for a fancy steak dinner again. Why go out, when you can fantastically cook a $9 steak right here at home?

4) Spaghetti and white clams

Difficulty: Not.

Ingredients: spaghetti, clams, olive oil, garlic.

There aren’t many things easier to cook than pasta. Even a kitchen train wreck like me could figure that one out. If you know what you’re doing, you can make an extremely nice, elegant looking, yet still simple dish. The instructions are simple. Put the pasta in boiling water, and cook for the length of the time the box tells you. Strain the pasta into a bowl. Put clam meat and enough olive oil for the meat to sit in into a pot, then add garlic. Cook until the clam meat starts to brown and is edible. Add the contents of the pot to your pasta, and mix thoroughly. You can add more oil and garlic, if necessary. It’s simple, cheap, and makes you look like you studied abroad in Italy.

5) Pizza. Yes, pizza

Difficulty: if Domino's can do it, you can do it.

Ingredients: pizza dough, pizza sauce, cheese, whatever you like on your pizza.

This is not a fancy dish. This is not a difficult dish. This is just pizza. Pizza is on this list for the only reason that making pizza with your girlfriend is fun!

Flatten the dough, curl the crust, and add the sauce, then the cheese, then the toppings. If you do it any other way you’re just wrong. Making pizza with a girlfriend is fun because it gives you the opportunity to be creative with your food in a low cost, low risk scenario. Everybody loves pizza, and this will be a surefire hit.

6) Anything else

Difficulty: just order take-out; it’s easier that way.