Creative Cooking Without A Kitchen

We're having our kitchen completely renovated. Its been a month since demolition, and we've survived with a gas grill, microwave, toaster, a sous vide, and coffee maker. And a lot more takeout than usual. We've done ok with dinners as long as its not raining (which has been about 3x per week) using the grill. Breakfast and lunch have been the most difficult, a lot of frozen breakfast burritos and sandwiches. This morning the microwave decided it had enough of our overuse, and gave up for good.

We likely have another two weeks without appliances. We have a refrigerator/freezer. I'm not buying an air fryer or toaster oven. Using the tools above, I'd be grateful for any creative meal ideas anyone has, especially breakfast and lunch.

Are you replacing the microwave?

If you can get hold of PAN maize flour (this is different from Masa Harina) you can make Arepas in your grill. Cut in half, add cheese and stick back in the grill*. Perfect for breakfast (great with avocado and other salad ingredients)

I understand you can make rice in the sous vide also.

Either of these would go with the endless varieties of protein or vegetable or protein and vegetable dishes and stews that can be done sous vide. If you want a bit of variety get a box/block of Japanese curry roux and stick some of that in as well.

* Once cooked and halved, if you hollow one out a little (or ring round it with mayonnaise) you can add an egg and toast it under the grill. Otherwise drop an egg in a greased mold (ceramic, metal or silicon) and cook the egg under the grill that way.

Yes, but unfortuantely we had to order it to fit the space in our cabinets that were just installed, because of a trim kit. I'm guessing its about a week before we get it -- but really everything in this project has taken about twice as long as expected so I'm not counting on it.

We've had a fair amount of microwave rice (which is not very good) up to this point, but I will have to look into the sous vide method.

Why not use the gas grill to cook eggs in a cast iron pan? Ditto for bacon and other gems

grilled salmon

grilled baguette with mozzarella & sliced fresh tomato (caprese)

ultra yum

This has been our weekend plan several times. And several times its rained on those mornings. Supposedly no rain in the forecast this weekend so I'll be trying again -- fried eggs with corned beef hash. During the week, I don't really feel that I have enough time to heat up a cast iron on the grill and make breakfast. The contractors have been showing up around 7:30 or 7:45 and at that time we try to stay out of their way...don't want to be walking through the kitchen to get food, get to the grill, etc.

I have tried to sous vide eggs a couple of times. I guess technically it's poaching since the water isn't boiling, but I've put the whole eggs in their shells in. Once too undercooked and once the yolks were hard but the whites were still runny. Eventually I may get to a perfect poached egg. But also a lot of time just to get a couple of eggs!

Thanks for the ideas!

I'd buy one of these, in part because I'd use it for breakfasts and lunches:
Otherwise, overnight oats, ricotta and yogurt parfait.

A cheap $20 electric hot plate can really help. (I think we paid $10 for ours, lol) We bought it probably 35 years ago for a similar situation as yours, and have used it many times since when the need arises. Doesn't take up much more space than a thick cookbook. Cook breakfast out of the rain.

No Crockpot?

There's a lot you can do with a slow cooker in terms of stews/chili for lunch food, and it can also be used to make coffeecake and similar for breakfast. I like the recipes on https://www.ayearofslowcooking.com

Not quite sure the timing on a sous vide but softboiled eggs with bread (toast preferred but you work with what you've got) is a common breakfast in South East Asia. Kaya is optional (if you can find it).

Cobb salad (or chicken ceasar) often work for lunch. Once in a while, I'll go buy a bag of bhel puri (indian snack mix). Grab some cucumbers, tomatoes, tofu puffs (this you have to cook) and some onions to make a different kind of salad.

Yes! My wife thought of that on Sunday, and when I get some time this week I'm going to go dig around in all our kitchen boxes and see if I can find it. Never should have packed it away, but then again we were told the work should be done by end of July and here we are guessing it will be some time in September since they started a couple weeks late and seem to only schedule workers 2-3 days per week.

Can't you just buy a used mini fridge and stick it in an another room?

I have also grilled during a thunderstorm--sure, not the smartest idea, but I wanted steak.

We have a refrigerator/freezer, thankfully. We asked them to leave it in the house until the new appliances come. When they install the replacement, there will be a one-day transition where we put everything into coolers. I've grilled dinner several times in the rain in the last month, sometimes with a large golf umbrella in one hand. I have very little desire to grill breakfast or lunch in the rain though, at least on weekdays when I'm working. I'm much less tolerant of everything in this world before 8 am.

Mac N' Cheese could never go wrong for a earlyy breakfast or a snack!

You can make breakfast casseroles in the crock pot.