12 days without oven and hob!

[LtheWife]

We're going to be without an oven or hob for at least twelve days. Thankfully I do have a slow cooker, microwave and steamer we can use but I normally only use the microwave for emergency chocolate cake in a mug defrosting, the steamer for veg and fish and the slow cooker for stew. I know I should be able to prepare a varied balanced diet with those three appliances but my mind is drawing a blank beyond beans on toast, steamed fish and veg, a couple of different stews and pulled pork. I'd love some more ideas so we can have a bit of variety, I should mention that we don't eat chicken or lamb and are happy to eat plenty of meat free meals.

Saturday night we had taco night - I slow roasted a joint of beef in the slow cooker and tore it to shreds with two forks. Then served with tortillas (40 secs in microwave), refried beans (1 min in microwave), shredded lettuce, shredded cheddar, guacamole, sour cream and salsa.

You can do sloppy joes in the slow cooker and serve on burger buns.

You can make rice in the microwave and then serve with stuff from the slow cooker: stew yes, also chilli con carne, curry, black beans and sausages, pork and kale stew...

Couscous doesn't need anything but a kettle.

1)Roast a joint or a chicken in the slow cooker, steam the veg. You will have to buy yorkshire puddings unless your microwave is a combi.

2. use left over meat for salad/sandwiches

3. Steak and kidney pudding cooked in the slow cooker, veg steamed or microwaved.

4)I believe you can do baked potatoes in the oven but I have not tried.

5)Do you have a toaster? Beans on toast, eggs on toast - break the eggs into buttered ramakins and prick the yolk with a cocktail stick to stop explosions.

6)Toaster bags for hot toasted ham and cheese sarnis.

7)sausages, packet of passatta, tin of butter beans in the slow cooker (I like to add some choriso) eat with crusty bread, you can also do it with pork rubs.

8. wrap chicken or fish in foil parcels with lime and chilli, steam with rice and veg

9. beef stew - beef, carrots, onions in the slow cooker

10. chicken in red wine - chicken thighs, red wine, some boiling water onion throw it all in the slow cooker. Just read you don't eat chicken - do this with lamb cubes

11. steam some rice and veg. Cut red peppers in half and fill with the rice and veg, to with cheese or breadcumbs or both and microwave for 5 mins

12. phone the take away

You could actually do pot roasts in the slow cooker with all the vegetables in a broth at the bottom and a lump of meat on top.

Do you have a freezer? If so you could pre-cook batches of pasta in olive oil or sauce to microwave as needed, or anything really. You can also get microwave frozen chips to go with slow-cooker meals or fish fillets, which cook beautifully in the microwave.

We've just had our kitchen done so I had to use my utility room as a kitchen. It has a sink and I had steamer, slow cooker, microwave, toaster and egg cooker.

Veg, meat, fish rice etc cooked in steamer.

Bolognaise, chilli etc done in slow cooker.

Jacket potato done in microwave.

Sandwiches etc...

And lots of eating out.

The mess was unbelievable so i tried to spend as much time out of the house as possible

Thank you for all the ideas! Ordinarily I'd batch cook meals for the freezer but we're moving house so I don't have time to prepare a freezer full of meals or the means to keep them frozen in transit. I'm hoping once we're actually in the new house stress levels will reduced, my mental capacity for meal planning will return and we'll be fine, but in the meantime I'm very grateful for the ideas.