Kitchen Kaput
October 3, 2015 7:05 AM Subscribe
My cooking area will be off-limits for the better part of two months. Help me design an alternative.
Basically I won't be able to access the stove or kitchen sink for some time and I would very much like to not live off fast food/frozen entrees for this period. I will have access to my fridge and a 10' by 10' open space in an extra bedroom with wooden floors. You can assume there are basic tools and pantry items, plus a slow-cooker and microwave.
I live alone. Sometimes I cook in batches, and other times just make enough for that meal.
Basically I won't be able to access the stove or kitchen sink for some time and I would very much like to not live off fast food/frozen entrees for this period. I will have access to my fridge and a 10' by 10' open space in an extra bedroom with wooden floors. You can assume there are basic tools and pantry items, plus a slow-cooker and microwave.
I live alone. Sometimes I cook in batches, and other times just make enough for that meal.
I'm in this same boat soon and people have told me I need to get a basic propane outdoor grill (for outside.) I wouldn't get one unless I were planning to have it for years anyway, of course, but if you've been thinking about it, maybe now is the time. I've never done it before, but as far as I can see, it's easy to set up and winds up being the same as any cooktop, but better because it can work as a makeshift oven as well.
I'll be watching this thread with interest!
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:11 AM on October 3, 2015
I'll be watching this thread with interest!
posted by fingersandtoes at 8:11 AM on October 3, 2015
Kitchen reno three years ago. I had two dorm fridges, but you have that covered. I used a laundry basket for dirty dishes and hosed them off in the yard or washed them in the tub. Make sure you have a good drain screen to avoid clogs. We used a lot of paper napkins and paper plates. If your microwave can also cook convection, you can bake pretty much anything. Electric griddle and hot plate came in handy.
posted by raisingsand at 8:36 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by raisingsand at 8:36 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
I recently asked a question about no-cook meal ideas here. You might find some ideas you like.
posted by atinna at 8:58 AM on October 3, 2015
posted by atinna at 8:58 AM on October 3, 2015
A friend had to stay at a motel for three months during out-of-town training and she knew it would be too expensive to eat out for every meal. The room came with a mini fridge, a microwave, and a coffee maker. She added a crockpot and made all her meals at "home." She even made bread in the slow cooker.
(I like phunniemee's idea of a flexible shower hose for doing dishes in the shower.)
posted by bentley at 8:58 AM on October 3, 2015
(I like phunniemee's idea of a flexible shower hose for doing dishes in the shower.)
posted by bentley at 8:58 AM on October 3, 2015
For actual equipment, I'd recommend a toaster oven and a double burner cooktop, plus a counter-height table.
If there's ever a time to live off paper plates, this would be it. Real silverware is nice to have and easier to wash in a bathroom sink, and cookware is going to be a pain, but use disposable for the rest.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:59 AM on October 3, 2015
If there's ever a time to live off paper plates, this would be it. Real silverware is nice to have and easier to wash in a bathroom sink, and cookware is going to be a pain, but use disposable for the rest.
posted by Lyn Never at 8:59 AM on October 3, 2015
The cooking part is less of an issue than the lack of a kitchen sink. I used to live in a basement apartment with no kitchen and used a large toaster oven and an electric burner to great effect. But I did have access to a large utility sink for dishes. If you're very good about scraping all the bits off your dishes, you should be fine with the bathtub or bathroom sink to wash.
posted by bluefly at 9:00 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by bluefly at 9:00 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
When we did a kitchen renovation, I made a lot of food ahead and froze it, making sure to use dimensions that would fit into the slowcooker so I could just plonk the frozen block in and leave for the day (lasagna, stews, chickpea curry, enchiladas, etc.). We didn't have a hotplate but we did have an electric skillet; the two are pretty much interchangeable (but I don't think we used either a whole lot). Ate a lot of salad with protein-stuff on it (boiled eggs, supermarket pre-grilled chicken, canned beans, etc). Bought premade versions of things I'd otherwise make from scratch (roasted chicken, prewashed salad greens, pre-grilled chicken breasts, canned beans, meatloaf, etc).
Dishwashing, the most useful thing was a standard plastic dish pan, small enough that it could be filled with hot water in the bathroom sink. Wash dishes in the pan (to avoid food scraps into bathroom drain) then dump the soapy/foody water into the toilet to flush (city sewer, not septic tank). Relax your environmental morals and use paper plates, makes life easier, but this method makes it not too painful to wash your cooking gear etc.
posted by aimedwander at 9:06 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Dishwashing, the most useful thing was a standard plastic dish pan, small enough that it could be filled with hot water in the bathroom sink. Wash dishes in the pan (to avoid food scraps into bathroom drain) then dump the soapy/foody water into the toilet to flush (city sewer, not septic tank). Relax your environmental morals and use paper plates, makes life easier, but this method makes it not too painful to wash your cooking gear etc.
posted by aimedwander at 9:06 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
No kitchen in the UK is complete without an electric kettle and a large plastic bowl to wash dishes in.
Seriously, I don't know how people in America manage without electric kettles.
posted by essexjan at 4:45 PM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Seriously, I don't know how people in America manage without electric kettles.
posted by essexjan at 4:45 PM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]
Chinese grocery stores usually have nice propane stoves for about $20. Between the propane burner, a microwave, two dish pans and a Playmate cooler I survived nicely for 2 months without a kitchen.
posted by cat_link at 5:00 PM on October 3, 2015
posted by cat_link at 5:00 PM on October 3, 2015
An Instant Pot got us through a kitchen renovation despite allergies that rule out most prepared food. We did have a outdoor hose bib for the bulk of the washing up.
If you can find Katharine Whitehorn's Cooking in a Bedsitter, that will cover generations of tricks for cooking with no space, money, kitchen, sink, or Trader Joe's.
posted by clew at 9:33 PM on October 3, 2015
If you can find Katharine Whitehorn's Cooking in a Bedsitter, that will cover generations of tricks for cooking with no space, money, kitchen, sink, or Trader Joe's.
posted by clew at 9:33 PM on October 3, 2015
The late Roger Ebert wrote a cookbook, relatively recently, of dishes cooked in the rice-cooker.
Will you have access to an outdoor grill? I know that the next couple months are probably not prime outdoor cooking months no matter what hemisphere you're in, but you can use that with (oven-safe) pots, pans, dutch ovens. Do you have a pizza stone? Don't want to heat/cool it rapidly, but that'll be awesome in your grill.
Get a tabletop burner and put it on a very stable table. You should also have some other surfaces you can put hot pans on (sturdy racks with insulation beneath to protect the table). Seconding the Asian groceries-- they'll also have smaller cookware, appropriate for 1-person cooking as well. It's usually cheap in both senses of the word, but it'll last 2 months.
posted by Sunburnt at 2:27 PM on October 4, 2015
Will you have access to an outdoor grill? I know that the next couple months are probably not prime outdoor cooking months no matter what hemisphere you're in, but you can use that with (oven-safe) pots, pans, dutch ovens. Do you have a pizza stone? Don't want to heat/cool it rapidly, but that'll be awesome in your grill.
Get a tabletop burner and put it on a very stable table. You should also have some other surfaces you can put hot pans on (sturdy racks with insulation beneath to protect the table). Seconding the Asian groceries-- they'll also have smaller cookware, appropriate for 1-person cooking as well. It's usually cheap in both senses of the word, but it'll last 2 months.
posted by Sunburnt at 2:27 PM on October 4, 2015
I don't know how people in America manage without electric kettles.
Well, I don't guess it's as universal as in the UK but I'd bet a fair number of US kitchens do have them at this point. I can buy them as cheap as $10 at almost any grocery or dollar store, or up to $130 at Bed Bath and Beyond or similar.
On-topic, they are a boatload faster at boiling water than the lower-powered varieties of freestanding burners (I routinely use my kettle to prep boiling water for the stove, like Alton Brown taught me) plus will free up a burner, and if OP is a coffee drinker I would strongly recommend an Aeropress and kettle for coffee, in large part because Aeropress cleanup is "eject puck of grounds into trash or compost bucket" and many other options will be hell to clean up without a proper sink and drain.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:35 PM on October 4, 2015
Well, I don't guess it's as universal as in the UK but I'd bet a fair number of US kitchens do have them at this point. I can buy them as cheap as $10 at almost any grocery or dollar store, or up to $130 at Bed Bath and Beyond or similar.
On-topic, they are a boatload faster at boiling water than the lower-powered varieties of freestanding burners (I routinely use my kettle to prep boiling water for the stove, like Alton Brown taught me) plus will free up a burner, and if OP is a coffee drinker I would strongly recommend an Aeropress and kettle for coffee, in large part because Aeropress cleanup is "eject puck of grounds into trash or compost bucket" and many other options will be hell to clean up without a proper sink and drain.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:35 PM on October 4, 2015
I got through my kitchen reno with a toaster oven and an electric skillet. Good luck to you!
posted by sarajane at 11:55 AM on October 5, 2015
posted by sarajane at 11:55 AM on October 5, 2015
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Just make sure you have a detatchable showerhead and a drying rack that drains really well. (It's actually even easier because you can hose the soap off of them all at once in one quick go.) Don't even try to wash them in your bathroom sink unless the faucet has A LOT of clearance. Otherwise you'll just piss yourself off.
If you get a rice cooker and/or a hot plate, your world will be annoying and hard but nothing will really have to change that much. Entire civilizations have eaten for millennia with nothing more than rice, sauces, and a heat source.
posted by phunniemee at 7:17 AM on October 3, 2015 [1 favorite]