Looking at 4 weeks without a kitchen - in the lounge I will have the following-

[pepperrabbit]

A combination microwave
kettle
fridge/freezer
rice cooker
electric steamer (largely unused to date
Can you think of anything else that will make feeding 5 of us any easier??? I'm thinking of investing in one of those thermal plastic tube/jar things that purport to cook pasta...
I can wash up in the bathroom hopefully, laundry will have to go to my mum.
Any suggestions gratefully received

Watching this thread as I shall shortly be without a kitchen for two weeks.

Cook as much stuff as you can in advance and fill up the freezer with plastic boxes of stuff which can be microwaved.

I'm willing to bet if you asked around you will have friends who will have a George Foreman grill and a slow cooker knocking around which will widen the variety of things you can cook no end.

George Foreman type grill? It does smoke up the place but you could grill chicken strips 7 nights a week in my house and it would happily get eaten. That plus a few steamed veg in the microwave and you're sorted.

I have NO IDEA what a thermal plastic tuby thing is?? Intrigued!

Oh... and why aren't you getting a portable plug-in hob? That way you can fry and boil and do everything. here for £25.

I would ditch the rice cooker and the steamer if you're not using them. They're just gadgets... a hob is a thing of beauty and a wonder of modern living

patty cross posts, sorry... was actually suggesting she gets one! Not querying your idea

lots of take aways! :)

We were without a kitchen for a couple of weeks and microwaved precooked frozen meals. I really missed the hob and the sink.

It's a hassel at first but you get used to it and you've got your lovely new kitchen to look forward to! Happy camping

We did something similar for a few weeks a couple of years ago, although what we had was a camping stove with calor gas bottle, a kettle, a toaster and a kitchen sink being moved around to various parts of the building works with flexible plastic pipes.

It was all fine in the end. You just get used to cooking one-pot meals.

Tristar do a 650 watt camping cooker for £30/40, I use it most of the time instead of the big oven as loads cheaper to run. One of those and the 2 ring hob thing and you're sorted (apart from times when they turn the electrics off)

we used a 2 ring hob for 4 weeks and it was worse than useless. it took about an hour to cook pasta.

we had such fun. having a few kitchen bits and bobs plugged into the living room meant that if we tried to boil a kettle and use the microwave or the iron at the same time, the circuits blew. every single freaking time.

slow cooker was ok though.

and just get a really big washing up bowl to gather your used crockery in until you can schedule a bathroom trip (ours was through the kitchen so not accessible for swathes of time)

madwoman 'tis true. I should have mentioned that those hobs are rubbish at doing a big pot of boiling water for pasta, etc.

But they were good for omelettes and fried bacon & eggs... camping food basically!

ah, bacon.

How do you use a slow cooker if you have no hob to brown the meat?

I won't even have a 2 ring hob.

I have a;
microwave
sandwich toaster
kettle
barbecue (weather permitting)
fridge/freezer

We did this and suprisingly it was mostly ok - we double cooked for ages before hand and reheated in the microwave. the only real pain was no sink downstairs which was a particular bugger when our outside tap then froze up.

we have a remoska which isn't cheap but is great

If you have a toaster, then you could use those toasted sandwich bags (only cost a pound or so) - they are reusable and apparently you can even grill fish in them

I had mine in a family tent in the garden as my dad decided to replace the ceiling in the living room as well as rip out the kitchen walls - my dd2 was 3 weeks old and her sister was 2.5

I came in an found a man (who worked for my dad and was thin on brain)ripping down my living room ceiling and the shelves had not even been emptied and the curtains were still up..... I cried and cried and cried, and ate bbq and toast for a month!

Wow, so many replies! Thank you ladies.
I do have a slow cooker (slaps forehead for forgetting)
Nature The pasta thing is here could be a gimmick? (especially as it's reduced
The big washing up bowl is a great idea - maybe one of those trugs
I'll ask DH re the grill/hob thing - might be worth going for the bigger one like wynken suggests. He does most of the family cooking - I mostly just try to keep the DCs alive fed all week!
I've signed the 2 boys up for school dinners so they get a "hot" meal, but deep down I'm not convinced.

We're 5 weeks in to our kitchen refit, and looking at another 3 or 4

It might be worth trying to keep the main functional parts if your kitchen for as long as you can. I've moved all the food/pots/crockery etc out and the kitchen is a building site (bare, partly restored brick floor, just plastered the walls etc), but the cooker/hob, dishwasher, washing machine and sink are all still functional, just pulled out from walls and moved around as necessary.

The washing machine, dishwasher and sink taps and wastes are all using flexible tubes so that they can be moved around enough/a bit, and the cooker is on a long cable. I wouldn't let kids anywhere near it, but I assemble stuff in pans, then go into the building site and cook. Similar with washing/dishwasher.

You might not be able to do it, but it is worth thinking about