If you don't have a cooker or a hob, what do you eat? (got a microwave!!!)

[mrspitt]

So, we're getting a new kitchen and will be without cooker/hob for goodness knows how long!
We are a family of 5 with fussy kids and a fussy dh, though he says he isn't.

Any ideas very much appreciated! My freezer is pretty small so making batches in advance is quite difficult.

So, if you've lived without a kitchen for a while, what did you do? Apart from the chippy or a takaway!!

Jacket Potatoes
Baked Beans
Tuna
Uncle Bens Microwave Rice
Scrambled Egg
Cous Cous (all you need is a kettle for this)
Ready Meals if desperate!

we had a lot of salmon, that goes well in a microwave

you can buy microwave cook books if you're feeling flush

I have just done a search for microwave recipes on the good food website - so a few here to start with

Lots of ready meals I'm afraid.

Have had no kitchen since first week in August (flood renovations) so I am really fed-up with takeaways. Pub meals are an option but can work out pricey.

I have resorted to a lot of frozen stuff I would normally say ..... well, let's not mention what I would say about them.

Aunt Bessie's do a decent range of things like frozen mash, stuffing, veggies etc. Get a ready roasted chicken and you can do a decent roast dinner.

Dolmio pasta pouches are not too bad and very fast. Just as well, because you would need a few for a family of 7! Or invest in a microwave pasta/rice cooker.

You can buy frozen rice, so maybe curries/chillis etc would be good stuff to freeze whilst you can.

Mange tout microwave really well if you want some greens. Rice noodles can be done by just pouring boiling water over them. Fillets of flat fish microwave well too, just grease a plate with some butter, put the fish on it, dot it with butter, season and squeeze a bit of lemon and then cover with clingfilm or another plate and micro. That said I think it kind of makes the micro stink of fish which would be not great if you are microwaving your porridge the next morning. Porridge microwaves really well too.

You can microwave a whole chicken. Cover in yogurt and curry powder so looks golden and cover in some kind of microwave cooking bag. You can also do rice easily plus pepper so can have stuffed peppers.

yes you don't need to resort to ready meals at all

You don't need special microwave rice - just ordinary rice with boiling water in to about an inch over level of rice. Cover in cling film and do for 61/2 to 7 mins. I always do my rice in the microwave

I always cook rice in the microwave btw.

Before children I had to cope for a month without an oven/hob. I had a microwave cookbook which I used a lot. We had lots of rice and pasta. Ratatouille was good in the mirowave also managed macaroni cheese with broccoli etc. Most veggies cook nicely in a microwave.

My mother always used to do chicken in the microwave. It comes out really tender.

last year we had no cooker (and no kitchen for that matter!) for 5 months just a microwave and bbq, things we did,

potato gratin - works well in the microwave, can add extras to it like bacon, mushrooms, tomato
veg/rice - use those frozen team in the bag ones
cous cous - we used to do chicken, red peppers, or tuna on the bbq to go with this, it was this time last year for us so we had the gas bbq right outside the back door to use
jacket potatoes - easy with a cold filling like tuna
scrambled eggs

get your tea time favours in now, organize playdates after school/nursery at your house so that when the time comes and you are stuck for tea you can call in the favour. we used to find it easier to feed ourselves later on after dc's were in bed, and also allocated a certain amount of the kitchen budget to take aways. i can't say it was easy, tbh it was awful , the longest 5 months of my life, the cooker and new units finally went in 3 weeks before xmas. we are very lucky to have good neighbours who helped out a lot, the invited us round at the weekends, cooked for the dc's during the week, and i remember one saturday when we were up to our elbows in dust from the re-wiring and the kitchen sink was also gone at this point, it got to 5pm and i was thinking what on earth am i going to feed the kids when a neighbour turned up at the door with piping hot lasagna, i nearly cried with relief.

good luck with it all

steam in a bag not team

just watch out for this though, when we had to move everything into the sitting room, ds's favourite trick was to microwave his toys

invest in steamer?
good for veg, fish

raw vegetable fruit cookery book
its very heatlhy