Eating ideas when you have no kitchen....

[Elohcin]

We are about to begin a long, long awaited remodel and will be without a kitchen for 10 weeks. I am trying to think of quick and easy things to feed my family during this time that don't require a ton of prep or clean up. I will only have a small toaster type oven, a single burner, a small fridge and small sink. Not much. We are really trying to eat well to avoid the upcoming flu/sickness season.

 

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

Anyone else done this and survived? Deconstruction starts in two weeks and I am getting nervous.

[DawnM]

Do you have a crockpot?

 

I would suggest:

 

http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/

[DawnM]

You may also want to do 2 OAMC meals and put them in your freezer if you have room.

 

Dawn

[jeri]

you can do all kinds of meats, veges, adn even pizza! I fondly (not) remember washing dishes in the bathtub while being 7 adn 8 mths pregnant, then measuring the countertops between contractions! So, it can be done!

 

Jeri

[wulfbourne]

Crockpots are great. Also, do you have a grill? You could grill things. You could even cook with pans on a grill, just not as much temperature control. Salads are good. You can get some of the pre cooked and sliced chicken breast to put on it for meat if you want. You'll probably have to buy food every other day or so if you only have a small fridge, so eating good shouldn't be too horrible. If you have one burner, you could do one pot recipes:

http://southernfood.about.com/cs/maindishrecipes/a/onepotrecipes.htm

http://www.eartheasy.com/eat_one_pot_meals.htm

I hope your kitchen turns out great!

[KatieJ]

We remodeled last summer..It can be done! I did have a spare bedroom I set up as a temp kitchen which was a huge blessing.

 

Paper plates and silverware were very nice to have around..I did wash the silverware at times tho.

 

I cooked pretty much everything, but boiling water became an issue as I did not have a burner. I now have a nice electric tea pot so I think I could pull that off if I wanted to.

Get an electric fry pan if you can......you can do stir fry, pancakes, etc then.

We took our old microwave out of the kitchen early on, as it was going to be replaced anyway and set it on a dresser in teh bedroom and that worked great.

 

 

 

We mostly ate sandwich ( grilled or cold) and salads. It was beastly hot and we didn't always have the a/c on becasue of the construction so cold meals were fine.

My outdoor grill was too far away and thru the construction zone, so I preferred to keep my cooking to the one bedroom. I kept a dishpan in there and washed dishes in my laundry room sink as needed.

If you have the option of freezing things now, I would do that. Even plain pasta can be cooked and frozen. Casseroles can be made now and frozen and then baked in your toaster oven. I have not frozen rice plain, but have frozen it in a broccoli rice casserole and it thaws out just fine.

Cook up some chicken and or ground beef and then you have a start to lots of meals. Tacos, sloppy joes, quesadillas, fajitas, etc. can all be thrown together easily if the meat prep is done.

I did put an occasional casserole in the toaster oven, but usally it was a baked potatoe or baked chicen/fish.

Meatballs can be made ahead and frozen, or you can do them in an electric fry pan.

[plansrme]

We were out of our kitchen for 3 months. I used a cheap rice cooker (I cooked some all-in-one recipes in it that came out of the instruction book), an electric kettle (used almost exclusively for boiling eggs), the crock pot, waffle maker and a microwave. I was so sick of crock-pot meals that I haven't used it in the 6 months we've been back in our kitchen, but it was wonderful when we needed it. We also used our grill a lot, and this was in the dead of winter (okay, a Georgia winter, but still winter). We really did miss veggies! Clean-up was such a pain that I didn't even make many salads, but I should have. Everyone in my family got sick during this 3 months, inlcuding the ones who usually do not catch things. The ones who usually do catch things got sick twice. We had strep throat, flu, colds, ear infections, sinus infections, throw-up viruses. You name it, someone in our family had it. So all that to say, you are right to focus on healthy foods during this time.

Here are some veggie-intensive foods we ate or that I wish we'd had more of:

 

sweet potatoes in the crock pot;

salads, even bagged salad from the produce dept. would've been better than nothing;

smoothies from the blender (chock full of fruit)

boiled eggs (not a veggie, but good--my kids were thrilled when I figured out I could boil eggs in the electric kettle)

wraps with turkey, lettuce and hummus and whatever else you can find

brown rice made in the rice cooker

quesadillas made on the electric griddle (I didn't like mine and didn't use it much, but this would have worked on the outdoor grill as well)

eggplant, corn on the cob and other veggies off of the grill

chile in the crock pot (heavy on the beans and tomatoes)

 

Another thing I wish I had done was cook some food in advance. If I had browned some lean ground beef, for instance, I could have made sloppy joes (mine are full of carrots and red peppers and tomato paste) in the crock pot. I also wish I had asked a neighbor to let me know when she was going to be out of her kitchen for a few hours so that I could have commandeered it to make a decent fresh meal once in a while.

 

You also can cook on your grill using a cast iron skillet. I cooked some wonderful steaks this way near the end, but I never figured out other things to cook like that.

 

My whole family was desperate for veggies by the end, so in addition to a beautiful new kitchen, I got kids who realized that they miss veggies when they do not have them. Bonus!

 

Terri

[Elohcin]

Wow, thanks. Keep it coming.

 

I had forgotten about the grill and crockpot. A rice cooker is a great idea too.

 

We are lucky to have a bar area in our basement that has a fridge, very small sink, but seating for 6.

 

I appreciate the encouragement and am writing down every idea.

 

Thanks!

[BMW]

I went through this years ago! I remember having rice cakes with peanut butter... and I loved getting fresh veggies and serving them up with ranch dressing (that would require being kept cold if you have any left over)... I would put out cherry tomatoes, broccoli and pretzel sticks and call my "dinosaurs" over to eat their "tree and sticks"... It was also fun using the waffle maker as a sandwich press! We loved grilled cheese sandwiches made in the waffle maker!

[My3Boys]

Great suggestions above.

 

We are campers so I have no problem cooking in our dutch oven over coals in our firepit. I "bake" just about anything I can cook in the oven that will fit in the dutch oven. Think crockpot, only faster, and you can do bread, rolls, muffins, cake, etc.

 

Plus, the kids think it's fun. At least ours did.

[Okie]

I agree, the crockpot is your friend. When we did remodeling I wasn't totally banned from the kitchen, just usually in the next room on a table or some such. I could usually still access the oven and microwave, and used a large plastic bin for water. It worked, just not convenient.

 

Just the anticipation of that new kitchen should make the inconvenience worth it!:001_smile:

[Mommyof4ks]

Wow, and here I was concerned about remodeling our kitchen next year. I don't have any advice not already listed, but thanks for asking this question. We may move our remodel to the spring so we can take advantage of the grill.

[Elohcin]

I wish I could say it was just the kitchen but we are putting in new flooring in the kitchen, dining room, living room, and hallways. So it is pretty disruptive.

 

Thanks for all the great suggestions. I have lots of new ideas.

 

Anyone else?

[Loupelou]

We lived in our basement with no kitchen for 8 months a few years ago. It was hard but worth it. We made liberal use of our crockpot, campstove, and toaster oven. You can make great toasted sandwiches and homemade mini pizzas in the toaster oven. We did cookies in that too.:D Stir fry and rice was a staple. It's a good time of year still for lots of fresh veggies. Really, the crockpot is your friend... there are some amazing recipes online, it doesn't have to be boring, and there is enough variety you shouldn't get bored.

[justamouse]

Been there, done that and all I have are some prayers for your sanity.

 

Our remodel took 9 weeks and I was about to go psycho on everyone at the end.

 

The first day that there aren't strange people tromping around your house? BLISS.

 

So, get a case of WINE. That helped more than anything.

[GailV]

The biggest problem I had with the crockpot during our recent kitchen remodel was cleaning. I only had a small wet bar sink to use, and it was awkward to clean anything with much size. How did y'all get around that?

 

We moved our microwave into our basement. We used the toaster over. We discovered that we had plugged the toaster oven, the microwave, and the basement refrigerator into the same circuit. Oops.

 

Anyway, I discovered I could make quesadillas in the toaster oven, and dd liked them better that way so we still do it. We made lots of frozen french fries in the toaster oven -- great quick side dish for grilled meat.

 

We grilled a lot -- you can cook burritos in foil on a grill. Check out camping sites for meal ideas. Also, my kids worked on various GS badges that had to do with outdoor cooking.

 

I discovered the joys of an electric kettle, since I started to crave tea and other beverages made by boiling water.

 

Also, our neighbors offered use of their kitchens. I should've taken them up on the offer -- people love to help out.

[claire up north]

I would go with a lot of soups. I love soup, so this would not be a hardship for me. Soups, stews, and various one-pot noodles with sauce stuff.

 

Good luck!