Office Cookery

Looking for inspiration for tasty treats to eat for breakfast / lunch at work and have decided to embark on some experimental office cookery adventures.

What good stuff are you able to prepare in the ill equipped office kitchen, armed with no more than a kettle, a toaster and a microwave?

Obviously, pre-prepared microwave ready meals are available but that’s cheating.

What do you suggest?

Here’s yesterdays effort.

Office Eggs Benedict.

Our microwaves seem to have a lower power output than my legs. Cooking times need to be doubled at least. Effectively means the limits of workplace culinary masterpieces are tea and toast 🙁

Muffins should be halved and toasted.
wafer thin ham?.
shop bought hollandaise is rank.

apart from that, good effort sir! Ye got the eggs in the kettle yet? 8)

Good effort but lost 10 points for processed ham.

Oh…read it as office cockery.

*looks for glasses*

Muffins should be halved and toasted.

Considered that but fishing half a muffin out of the toaster proved problematic.

Just toasted whole ones instead.

wafer thin ham?.

Already had it in the fridge from a previous days sandwich. Waste not want not

shop bought hollandaise is rank.

Making my own in the tiny office kitchen was overkill, I thought.

I think boiling eggs in the kettle would be frowned upon in here. Considering trying the bowl of boiling water and lower the egg in and leaving it for 7 minutes technique.

I think boiling eggs in the kettle would be frowned upon in here

That’s half the fun, rush-egg roulette…

Already had it in trhe fridge from a previous days sandwich

Dear god!

lower the egg in and leaving it for 7 minutes technique

I tried that, doesn’t work.

I also tried putting the egg in water and microwaving it, that just explodes.

I’ve considered just taking my camping gas to work. Dunno if that’d be frowned upon/an insurance liability though.

I also tried putting the egg in water and microwaving it, that just explodes.

Microwave egg poacher. Amazeballs.

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/office-lunch-couscous-and#post-8789033

Left overs from home, microwave at work (not cooked rice that’s been left sitting around in the warm though).

What deadkenny says. Here in Sweden , virtually everyone brings in there ‘food boxes’ from home and eats them at lunch. They have quotas for the number of microwaves per head in office kitchens. This is mine:

My god it’s weird here

Joe, you’ll get a kettle fae asda for about a fiver, 2 eggs in it, fill with cold water, boil and leave for 6-7 mins. voila!

Perchy, where did you get the poacher from?

Perchy, where did you get the poacher from?

B&M – £1.49

Other chavvy discount shops are available.

It’s nothing but two clear plastic cups with a lid.

Works a treat though.
Spent years pissing about with pans and vinegar and swirling and clingfilm and all that other bollocks. Turns out the solution was much simpler.

Get your pet contractor to prepare breakfast for you? 😉

Mastering the art of cooking bacon in the microwave was a game changer.

Mastering the art of cooking bacon in the microwave was a game changer.

60p at work canteen for a bacon roll, £1 from vending machine if it’s out of hours, but it has DOUBLE BACON!…

Mastering the art of cooking bacon in the microwave was a game changer.

Share this bounteous knowledge that I might have bacon and eggs on the morrow.

Microwaved bacon is acceptable, it’s not crispy but it’s still bacon.

Anything cous-cous based.

Chicken cooked in a sauce (or miso + noodles) works quite well if you turn the power down to simmer it until cooked through.

Put a double layer of kitchen roll on a plate, arrange up to 4 rashers of bacon on top then add another layer of kitchen roll on top. Microwave on full for 30 secs bursts until you reach your required crispness, rearrange after each burst if desired. Mines takes 4x 30secs on one microwave and 4.5x 30 secs on the other. It gets as crispy as you need it to. While that’s cooking I mix up some eggs in a mug with a bit of butter in first for scrambled eggs and do them in 20 secs bursts giving them a stir each time until cooked.

Thanks km79 – will be buying some bacon today to give this a go.

Get your pet contractor to prepare breakfast for you?

What?

…and ruin my appetite for the pre-coke and hookers meal?

Microwave egg poacher. Amazeballs.

This is true, but don’t try it for the first time at work. Fairly likely to have a messy explosion or two before you master it 😀

I did this for a while, making 3 different meals a week using only a few fresh ingredients I’d bought that week or had in my store cupboard (box under my desk). Very boringly I kept a diary of the costs and meals made. Including store ingredients it worked out at around £3.50 per day. It was more of a technical exercise to see if I could do it but it worked out cheaper, more filling and far more tasty than the usual Marks and spencers sandwich and crisps.

For example

Fresh ingredients;
Stilton (150g)
Pears (x2)
Watercress (90g)
Panini (x4)

Meals made;
Pear and Stilton salad with croutons and a honey dressing
Honeyed pears bruschetta with blue cheese dressing
Stilton sandwich with watercress pesto

There’s a book by Rachel Maylor about making meals based on only having a kettle, toaster and microwave. linky

This is true, but don’t try it for the first time at work. Fairly likely to have a messy explosion or two before you master it

Don’t tell me you have no Greggs nearby?

Do you not just get a tandoori munchie box delivered for lunch?

I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed.

Of course I do…but it’s inadvisable to tackle a Munchy Box on an empty stomach. You need a good hearty breakfast first.

Greggs bacon and sausage it is then.

Just do what someone at our place did and bring their slow cooker in from home and leave a nice stew… stewing under his desk until lunch. Only got caught out when he rang someone in his team to ask them to give it a stir as he was in meetings all morning.

I’d admire him for it if it wasn’t for him being a complete nobber the rest of the time.

Given that this is STW, I feel sure that someone will soon be along to outdo you with tale of cooking their lunch every day in the self-constructed, wood-fired pizza oven they have by their desk in the woodsmans hut they use as an office at the bottom of the garden 😀

Given that decent microwaved poached eggs are now on the agenda, winter lunch of the gods is doable. Homemade Ham hough and lentil soup, 2 soft poached eggs afloat, and ridiculous amounts of black pepper. And buttered white warburtons super toastie to dip….

Ooft.

A few microwave egg poaching tips for nobeer….

Crack both eggs into a couple of tea cups first so you can put them in the poacher at the same time. The cooking time is so short that a couple of seconds can make the difference.

Use something to measure the water you use. I use a 30ml measuring spoon. Bought a whole set in Tesco for a quid. Use the same amount of water every time.
You want the only variable in the process to be the cooking time. The water gets a minute before the eggs are added then (for me) another 52 seconds. Took me a couple of goes to find the right time for our microwave.

They occasionally burp out a bit of water when they’re cooking but no explosions yet.

When they’re cooked you need to drain the water out. I then take the lid off the poacher, put a folded bit of kitchen roll on it and put it back on before turning the poacher upside down (holding the lid on obviously.) The eggs drop onto the kitchen roll which soaks up the excess water. Turn them back over and they slide out perfectly.

Just ordered an egg poacher for the microwave 🙂

Mrs Binners bought one of these… an electric egg boiler that cooks up to 7 eggs in a tiny amount of water in a few minutes. Oh, how I guffawed at the silly kitchen gadget that would never ever get used, and sit gathering dust at the back of a cupboard…

Turns out its been absolutely hammered, as we both use it all the time. It’s ace! 😳

Ooft.

Ouefed?

You could copy a former colleagues example..

He was rather obese and consequently had a heart attack.

Doctors advice included eating more fish

Microwaved kippers in an open plan office every day… it took about 20 seconds to go from ‘poor chaps had a heart attack, leave him be’ to ‘acceptable losses’

To poach an egg.
Break egg into soup bowl. Prick yolk cook on medium for 50 seconds.
No need for water.
All the egg , none of the mess.

Today’s perfect eggs on toast.

Egg whites still look raw, that would give me the boak.

To poach an egg.
Break egg into soup bowl. Prick yolk cook on medium for 50 seconds.
No need for water.

Errrr!

Went to our upstairs kitchen in our office the other morning and the oven was on, someone was baking a cherry clafoutis…!

Usually just jacket pots in the oven. Lots of people in the office with those toaster pockets to use in the toaster# we have in the mini kitchens/ tea stations.