Cheap meals using a microwave, grill and hob?

Alikay

Help! We've just moved house and the kitchen is horrific! We're due to have a new one fitted in about 3 weeks, but until then all I've got is a hob and my microwave. The microvave has got a grill in, but it's really only powerful enough for browning things.
Apart from spag bol/chilli type mince dishes and stir fries I'm having trouble thinking of meals to cook. Can anyone help please? My imagination has evaporated with all the decisions we've had to make about the kitchen and house, and there's not a lot of cash around ATM. Everything we touch round here seems to be broken, so we're just haemorraging money!
There's 5 of us with decent appetites and we eat pretty much everything except offal. I don't want to spend too much time on preparation either as the kitchen is so gaddamn nasty that I want to stay out of it as much as possible. Many thanks!

Becles

Have you got a slow cooker? If not they don't cost much and are a good investment. You can make casseroles, stews, roasts, soups and all sorts in it. Have a look at the mega index for recipe threads.

hjb123

I guess what I suggest may be a stir fry but I often do rice in the microwave - microwavable rice and stir any leftovers from the fridge into it once it has been cooked.

Cheesy toasties?
Jacket Potatoes with melted cheese and bacon?

Just thought of another one - chunky vegetable soup?
Baked Bean stew?

Nicki

Most casseroley type things can also be cooked on a hob on a low heat. Meat can be cooked on a griddle pan or a heavy based frying pan instead of in the oven or under the grill. Don't add extra fat, just get the pan really hot, put the meat in, then turn it down so that the meat doesn't burn on the outside before it is cooked through.

Look in the library or on internet for cookery books or recipies for students or those living in bedsits, as they often don't have ovens so recipies are to be done on top of stove.

If you give us some idea about the kind of things you would be making if you had an oven, we may be able to help with ideas about how to adapt them to do without an oven.

schiff

The slow cooker is an absolute must - the end result for taste is superb.

Buy a cheap cut of beef - brisket, stewing steak, etc. Cut into bite size pieces and squeeze dry with kitchen paper. Brown in a frying pan with olive oil. Tip into the pre-heated slow cooker. Add half a cup of water into which a vegetable stock cube has been dissolved.
Fry a chopped onion (and chopped garlic if you want to live a long life!) in the same frying pan. Tip into SC. Fry a batch of chopped mushrooms in the frying pan with more olive oil and tip into SC.
Add a dash of sea salt and freshly milled black pepper. Sprinkle into the SC a teaspoon of Ground Mixed Spice, obtainable from your local Indian/Pakistani grocery store. (I paid £1.29 for my 400g bag of GMS, which is about the same price as one of these tins of curry sauce that you tip into casseroles in their entirety. The bag of GMS lasts for ever {subject to use by date} and is fantastic value. It also tastes very authentic and smells wonderful!)

Stir the content of the SC around after a while. You shouldn't normally have to watch for the content drying out (that's the beauty of SCs) but if you are, add some more hot water. You will finish up with a delicious curry and it won't have cost you an arm and a leg. Word of warning: you will need to monitor the amount of GMS that you put in; go easy on it the first time and increase the dose according to your taste. The SC takes its time and you will have to take that into account. The meat will get progressively more and more tender and, if you leave it long enough, you will be able to cut it easily with a spoon!

Eat it with boring boiled rice or alternatively a mash of potatoes, carrots, turnip, swede, etc (boil the veg in salted water and mash with milk [or creme fraiche] and freshly milled black pepper. If you are having this mash with a less spicy main meal (steak or chops) you could add a teaspoon of horse radish sauce to it for a bit of 'bite'.

I was a bit sarky about boiled rice which is so bland and boring. If you want my recipe for yellow basmati rice just ask.

The recipe works just as well with chicken, turkey, pork loin, lamb (but that's expensive). Preferably off the bone as bulky things are sometimes difficult to fit in a SC. My bargain to end all bargains was a turkey leg - they are massive and you can normally get them at Tesc/Sains etc for 99p. I bought one reduced to 65p, spent half an hour slicing the meat off the bone and used it with the above recipe. It made about 5 portions! And I boiled up the bone to make stock for my rice!

HTH and bon appétit!

schiff

tigs78

I'll give you my recipe for Pesto Pasta...

Cook pasta on hob for around 10 minutes, stir in pesto!

So simple and so yummy:)

Alikay

Thanks for all your suggestions. I'm going to cadge a loan of a slowcooker and try a few things in it. I had been planning to use the oven to do one-pot casseroles and pasta bake type things as the sink is virtually unuseable (rusty, hanging off wall and just a trickle of water), so don't want to create too much washing up. I was hoping to cut down kitchen time while it's so bad even further by doing frozen pizzas, pies, chicken nuggets etc when I just couldn't face the state of the kitchen, so was pretty gutted when we discovered that the oven didn't work either!
Luckily its only for 3 weeks or so, and the weather's good so we can barbecue too, or have a picnic in the garden.
I'm really looking forward to cooking whatever I want when the new kitchen is fitted!

squeaky

This thread might help too:-

Cooking without a kitchen

There are one or two other similar ones about, I'll see if I can find them.

nearlyrich

My sympathies it's awful trying to get up the enthusiasm to cook in a nasty kitchen. I don't actually use my oven that much the grill is really weedy so I use a griddle on the hob and do most meat and fish on that.

It is possible to cook most things in a microwave, maybe get a specialist cookbook from the library...

Also you could get the other 4 to cook a day each week (if they are teens or adult) see what they can come up with, or if they are younger make it a game, they have to think up meals to cook without the oven within a set budget, dual purpose here it keeps them busy for a while in the school holidays.

At least it's only a temporary thing and you have a nice kitchen to look forward to soon.

Nicki

OK - can't help with heating up frozen pizzas but for the rest:

one-pot casseroles - just as easy to do on stove top or in slow cooker

pasta bake type things - cook pasta and sauce on stove top, combine in your dish and stick under the grill in microwave to brown

frozen pies - potato topped ones should be fine to heat up in microwave, and brown top under the grill. Pastry ones would probably be yuck though!

chicken nuggets - can be done in frying pan. You'll need a little fat but if you are concerned about this use a cooking spray and keep them moving

HTH

culpepper

You can cook pizza in a frying pan.Im sure there must be some pan pizza recipes out there.
When we did our kitchen I was in the same position.I did do chips using a deep fat fryer.Plate pizza in the microwave is okay but pan pizza gives a nicer crust.
You can cook chicken in the micro(stick it in a pyrex bowl and cover with clingfilm.I do mine that way all the time.Then you could do veg on the hob.
Chicken takes about 30 mins on high in mine.
Stew on the hob with some of the chicken and some veg .