What were your temporary kitchen meal hacks during extension?!

[Renovationation91]

It's just hit me that the builders arrive in three weeks 😱

As in the title, what genius hacks, supermarket products, methods of cooking did you use in your makeshift kitchen?

I'll have microwave, small air fryer, slow cooker, single plug in hob, small fridge and freezer plus a one and four year old to feed....(And pregnant due in Sept because I just love doing everything at once 🫣)

I'm thinking of stocking the freezer with things that can be added to carbs easily (Bolognese, chili, soup, sausages, pasta sauce etc)

Any tips greatly appreciated, we can stay with family during the worst of it i.e. when the boiler is out of action but need to make do at home for as much as possible.

Please give me your tips and tell me it will be worth it in the end!!

All sensible ideas for cooking. Eggs/omelettes and beans always another good option as well as fajitas, tacos etc if the kids will eat those.

Good luck!

How could I forget the beans! Possibly my two year olds only source of fibre at the moment (meant to put two year old, not one, in the OP)

Jacket potatoes - not as nice microwaved as done in the oven obviously, but perfectly fine.

Stock up on disposable plates and cutlery …. Washing up is also going to be tricky, so minimize it

Start in microwave, finish in air fryer. Just as good as the oven.

How long for OP? I had older children and 6 weeks.
We did takeaway twice a week.
My instant pot was a lifesaver - easy risotto, soup, curry but also functions as an extra hob.

Make sure you keep your toaster out, we had pittas veg & hummus at least twice a week!

I second the paper plates, I was washing up in the bath - it was the hardest bit

We survived with a plug in 2 ring hob, microwave, George Foreman grill and slow cooker. With an air fryer as well I'd have thought you could cook most things you currently do?
As someone else said, it was the washing up that was a pain. We had our washing machine plumbed in in the garage, but I'd rather have had the dishwasher out there and taken my laundry to my parents/in-laws!

We set up a makeshift kitchen in the dining room.
Bottled drinking water. Fridge-freezer, kettle, microwave, toaster etc but the best bit was a double burner/grill Camping Gaz stove.
Washing up etc was done in a plastic bowl that fitted in the bathroom sink.

Worked really well for us.👍

We set up a mini kitchen in the lounge with:

• Air fryer
• Small plug in induction hob
• Table top oven that we bought early in lockdown when our oven died.
• Beer fridge

I hated every moment of that month long kitchen refurb, dust everywhere all the time.

When I was really starting to lose it DH would drag me to the pub just to get me out of the house.

Oh I forgot about the toaster, of course! And we have a toastie press too, the kids will eat cheese toasties.

It's a 4-5 month project....I'm not sure how much of that the kitchen will be out of action but at least a couple of months I expect!

Luckily we already have our laundry upstairs so there's one thing that wont be an issue

I’ve just done this. Keep your kettle and toaster in the living area. I batched cooked before. It was a life saver. We did treat ourselves to some M&S ready meals for a stand by. We ate a lot of jacket
potatoes and beans. We also had the occasional take out. It will be worth it

Do you have a bbq?

Slow cooker and lots of cook in sauce jars/packets. You can do jacket spuds in slow cooker too. Bbq any time weather is half decent.

Buy a table top oven. I got mine for £120 from Amazon. We are in the thick of it at the minute and I’ve just made a “Sunday roast” of sorts…chicken crown, stuffing and microwave veg.

Was just coming on to say bbq, when we had ours done we bbq nearly everything along with microwave slow cooker and airfryer. Also when we cleared our kitchen we put all the contents in plastic trays wrapped in bin bags in a corner of the garden so they didn't clutter up the house.( not food obviously) .

Rice cooker for so many things. I use it like a fast slow cooker for things like ready made goulash. A pint of water with a chicken stock cube in it and I boil chunks of chicken in it. I even warm up veetee ready made rice in it - I just crumble the rice apart into a bowl so it separates, put a bit of OJ in the rice cooker because it wants liquid, and stir it in and keep stirring now and then til it warms all the ready cooked rice through to hot. Just keep an eye on the button that automatically flips from cook to warm, you may have to keep pressing it down. Sounds lazy but I am in a rental with an extremely dysfunctional kitchen so have had to find ways to cope.

I have a Vonshef electric saucepan with lid (it's a skillet) that I use a lot. Pork loins, steak, salmon, heating up rice, frying eggs. I even cooked defrosted lumps of pre made mash potatoes in if the other day. It's massive - 6 litres. And far less messy to clean than my George Foremans.

I have an electric, plug in steamer for veg.

If you need instant quick meals but forgot to plan, gammon steaks will defrost in twenty minutes in warm water in their packets, and if you cut them along their natural fatty parts and put them in the air fryer at 210 for 12 minutes (plus a few pre heating), come out far better than grilled gammon steaks.

Finally, I picked up tupperware in Home Bargains last week, either of which can be used for soup, beans, peas, or even those frozen mash lumps I mentioned earlier (I tend to take them out the freezer 3 hours beforehand so they cook quicker). They are so much nicer to use than sodding around with cling film.

Will try to edit a picture in of tupperware, which cost under £2.50 for both.

We lived like this for 3 and a half years!!!

My advice. There are no hacks which are sustainable. You need to eat as normal.

Buy the biggest airfryer you can. Make sure your hobs a good one. IKEA plug in are the best cheap option.

You need to think about meals which only require one element to be air fryer. You do not want to cycling through the air fryer. Likewise hob.

So pasta hob, meatballs airfryer, sauce heat in pan with pasta.
Chicken Kiev airfryer, potato salad hob, salad side

My god was I excited to get an oven back. I think I did one tray meals for about 6 months after that 😂 haven’t used an airfryer since!

Three and a half years! You must have the patience of a saint, I hope you are reeaaaallly enjoying your new kitchen now :)

Great advice thank you - was going to upgrade the air fryer for the new kitchen but I'll do that in time for temp kitchen so we have a bigger one.

As someone else posted about air fryers, we have x2 6 litres ones and they have yet to let me down after 22 mths, Amazon, Schallen digital (don't be intimidated, I cook everything on the same setting).

£45 each.

Sod ninja and the like. I spent many, many hours looking at fake reviews before buying, these are the real deal.

Would recommend drying rapidly as ours have been through the DW lots and now have a bit of rust inside the drawers (which isn't harmful for you).

I had a two ring plug in induction hob. It was so useful when I lived somewhere that didn't have a job. If you live over in my part of the world you are welcome to borrow it for the project, but I also think they're only £70-£80 which while a lot of money is quite insignificant in kitchen terms. I reckon with that and a big airfryer you could basically cook as normal.

I lived on pre made salad in bowls and pasta bakes from the coop. Also toast and cereal. After a month I stopped using plates where I could and just ate out the packaging to save washing up in the bath! Was not that great at the time, but a distant memory now!

We had seven weeks without a kitchen. We barbecued a lot, and learned it's amazing what you can make in a microwave. Fresh pasta with various precooked meats and veggies thrown in and a bit of stock were a winner.
Washing up was a nightmare. We had to use the bath, which is two floors up from the living space.

Oh I forgot, we have a plug in camping fridge (with a normal plug - it comes with both) from Halfords that stores a LOT, particularly if you take the partitions out. Be warned it is a) quite noisy and b) cannot cope with underfloor heating at all.

It's been a lifesaver on quite a lot of occasions though. £100ish for a big one. Now is probably a good time to find a secondhand one.

This, however, we were lucky that the builders left the kitchen sink in situ so even when the external wall came down we still had a kitchen sink, sitting in the middle of the new kitchen extension with a waste pipe they fitted so we could still drain it. Mainly so they could also get cups of tea

That also meant our dishwasher was still attached to the water feed and waste pipe. When they finally removed the water feed and the sink unit they made sure that the new water feed pipe had a connector on to attach the dishwasher to and we drained it into a large Ikea Samla tub. That was emptied out every morning.

We just moved the dishwasher around in the space. We then used the disposable stuff because washing up becomes difficult at that point and it was only for a short period.

We also had a set of cheap Ikea mugs for the builders and I sharpied their names and what their drink of choice was on the mugs. So Gary, tea, weak, 2 sugars, splash of milk. That way when you deliver 4 drinks everyone knows which is theirs.

Have a print out of what the place is meant to look like after the building work is done to remind yourself why you are doing it. Concentrate on how far you have come rather than how much left there is to do. Good luck.

Saw these the other week and thought they would be good for washing up a messy bbq outside. Have had to wash up in a bath before and it is back breaking.

https://www.moleonline.com/perry-equestrian-no-7117-pink-flexi-fill-flexible-tub-42l-1285564

Those plug in jobs are useless. I used my rice cooker to boil potatoes and pasta as well as to cook rice. I had a big plug in frying pan/ with lid which is good, used for fried rice, stews, curries etc. I hardly used the hob as it just didn't work that well. Didn't have a microwave. Was about a month without kitchen!