Me and MrsD will soon spend about 3 weeks with no kitchen. We'll eat a lot of takeout and are cooking some stews to freeze and reheat later etc, but are there any microwave meals worth eating?
M&S, perhaps?
Is there one of these near to you? https://www.cookfood.net/
Generally taste more homemade than M&S but still, as with all, some dishes are better than others. E.g our kids rejected the kids meals from Cook, and probably with good reason. They were either too bland or peppery/spicy, e.g. the sausage stew... but other than that the meals have been good
I actually like a lot of this stuff
Oh, beaten to it by a few seconds.
This might be a daft suggestion but you could likely learn to cook in a microwave between now and then without it being utterly disastrous.
Most vegetables range from ok to very good cooked in the microwave, pasta rice etc are all easy. I wouldn't try steak.
I bought a wee plug in 2 ring electric job,bworked a treat when we bought our previous house and owner had taken kitchen with them.
Can you get a camping stove or two? Expands your kitchen-less cooking horizons massively (and I speak from experience)
Really rate the Thai versions of these...
Or you could just have beans on toast every day. Never gets old.
Father in-law is quite fussy but loves the Charlie Bingham meals from Sainsbury's. They look good and smell good, have never tried one though.
We're also a fan of M&S Thai Green curry, they used to have a bigger Thai selection but sadly reduce it seems. Not a fan of their curries but I think I just don't like microwave curry...
Baked potatoes work also, especially if it's a fancy microwave with a grill/oven setting for crisping skin.
I don't think anyone makes healthy, affordable and filling microwave meals.
If I was going without a kitchen for 3 weeks I'd live happily with just a multicooker set up outside with roast & airfry settings. Can do pretty much everything you can with hob, grill and oven and often better.
We keep a stock of these in the freezer: https://allplants.com/
Not the cheapest but you can normally find an offer online. Feel like they're quite healthy.
salmon cooks well in the microwave (don't overcook it), and veg and rice/potatoes also cook well.
if you have a combi version then jacket potatoes etc all pretty good.
Get a cheap plug in single or twin induction hob, then you can just crack on as before
EDIT - our local village shop has a load of the Cook range in the freezer, it looks excellent!
Not gonna lie, I eat vegetable chile out of a tin fairly often, I’m sure that could microwaved once dispensed from the tin. I also eat that microwave rice that comes in packets sometimes 😬
If your freezer is full could you borrow another couple for the duration?
Nothing wrong witha microwave as a method of cooking but warmed up home cooked food will be so much better than supermarket ready meals. Also, camping gas stove
I find a lot of supermarket microwave curries are pretty reasonable these days. Just check the ingredients list and if it's got lots of spices and not much mystery ingredients it will probably be grand.
The Charlie Bingham stuff is generally decent IMO. Yorkshire Provender soups aren't bad either.
I'm known as a foodie ponce by most people FWIW. 🙂
Co-op curries are pretty good IMO. Reasonable flavour and you can add some nice side dishes.
Tefal (and probably others) do a one ring induction plate. We picked one up for £50 at John Lewis for our holiday place while we do work and its great. Easily as good as the gas at home. One ring is enough for a one pot meal. Chile, curry, stew, etc. You can always add some microwave rice or veg. Also, having tried to buy one on ebay before hitting John Lewis, you'll easily get most of your money back if you sell it after
Not a fan of their curries but I think I just don’t like microwave curry…
Generally I rather dislike them too*, that said we had a lidl vegan sweet potato one on Saturday and it was pretty good.
*often as they insist on using "chicken" which is bloody awful microwaved regardless of what it's in or where the meal is from
Look What We Found pouches are pretty good - available in Booths and Waitrose so proper posh!
There's lots of good microwave meals now available. I buy the vegetarian healthy eating range from Sainsburys and find them good. The secret is to look at the ingredients and the traffic light labels. It's very easy to go high on the bad stuff (salt, fat, sugar) for the same type of meal.
Another tip for brocolli: 2 portions in a pyrex bowl and cover with clingfilm. Pour on 2-3cm of boiling water. Micro for 3 minutes. break the seal on the clingfilm but then reseal (this stops it getting squashed when the steam cools) and leave for 4 minutes. Perfectly cooked.
: 2 portions in a pyrex bowl and cover with clingfilm. Pour on 2-3cm of boiling water.
I'm not sure what this adds beyond scalding your toes?
FWIW I wouldn't put any water in with any veg in a microwave, preference though I suppose.
@binners, Loving your work here sir.
Fresh pasta is very easy to cook in a micro, boiling water, cover, a few minutes and drain.
you can do omelette in the microwave using a pyrex dish lid and whisk the eggs first
Having had no kitchen for a while we used a camping stove and it was very useful, for stuff like pasta and rice and the like - do a sh1tload of batch cooking of tomato sauce and freeze it into small portions now before the oven goes so you can defrost to make pasta/chilli etc.
I quite like the aldi one pot meals - mexican bean, african peanut curry and I think there is a thai red curry There are meat options but I focus on the veggie)
Well done to binners for keeping it real. The food snobbery on here is absolutely laughable!
Lidls do microwavable ribs - they're awesome. They do a meatballs thing as well, which is pretty decent.
There's also those soups you can get in cartons. Some of those are ok.
But you'll probably, due to lack of farting around with your range cooker and not using Le creuset pans for every meal, before you know it you'll be...
M&S Paella is excellent. Most of their meals are good. Mrs TiRed has eaten them as part of calorie counting.
Another vote for Cook. My mum lived off of them for about 3 months as most carers would not cook from scratch and were only happy to reheat in a microwave. We bought one of each of the one person dishes and used to supplement it with M&S microwave veg pouches as often as we could. Mum tried them all and only rejected one.
That said, I also agree with others that a simple camping stove could make life easier as could one of those combi microwave/grill/conventional ovens
The food snobbery on here is absolutely laughable!
Does that include all the Aldi and Lidl recommendations? Or my beans on toast one?
Camping stove and disposable BBQs will increase your options massively...
No just the snobby ones. Duh.
Not sure about those pies Binners,they look too much like sponge cakes 😉
No just the snobby ones. Duh.
Binners' options all look to be over priced junk, to me (apart from the Pukka). Who'd spend their pennies on a Pot Noodle branded noodle pot? Middle classed mugs. And Heinz beans! Sure conspicuous consumption decadence.
Is it wrong that binners is making my hungry?
When we did our kitchen we just ate takeaway, M&S/Sainsburys ready meals and occasionally went to the mils. Regarding the readyeals, some were better than others but none were horrible
Plug in single ring induction hob is what we used for cooking on when the kitchen was be made over!
Ikea use to sell them and occasionally Lidl/Aldi have them as a special buy.
Lidl and Aldi both do/did a decent microwave paella for two. Bit salty and oily, but OK for a treat.
Couldn't see them on my last visit but they had a fairly nice vegan curry for two in the same bit.
Bit pricey compared to my homemade curries, but I sometimes get them if they're 70% off or whatever.
I quite often do bacon in the microwave, it's nice - so bacon butties are still on the menu!
Ikea cheap plug in induction hob is a brilliant piece of kit. We used one for a year while everything in our kitchen was dying bit by bit. £35 well spent.
https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/tillreda-portable-induction-hob-1-zone-white-70493503/
Really disappointed binners hasn't posted a tin of all day breakfast tbh....
Or chicken in a can!
Get yourself a Ninja Foodi
@DezB Eating shite unhealthy ultra-processed food doesn't make you some kind of valiant salt-of-the-earth type, it just means you eat shite unhealthy ultra-processed food.
I don't mind doing that on occasion but it's bizarre to think it puts you on some kind of moral high ground.
We have a local butcher and a deli that does home cooked ready meals that are freezable.
But loads can be done in a microwave, but never bacon.
@Grum not sure what you're referring to. Thread is about someone wondering what easy microwave meals to eat for a few weeks.
All this talk and only mention of disposable bbq.
For the love of bbq-god standards have slipped here. BBQ, cast iron pan there is NOTHING you can't cook outdoors that you can indoors.
Obviously as this is STW you will also own a kettle BBQ, a Kamado of some form and a pizza oven right? If not, please revoke your membership of the forum and retuen your Audi keys to the desk on the way out.
(All said tongue in cheek, well vaguley at least, I have 2 of the 3 outdoor cooking devices).
i do indeed have a BBQ (don't even know what a Kamado is, unless you misspelled commode) - will be trying to use that where possible if June isn't as crummy, weather wise, as May has been!
Aldi and Lidl both have really good ranges of veggie microwave meals (some in the freezer, some in the chilled sections).
I spent 6 week's over lockdown living in a hotel with only a kettle and microwave and it was surprisingly OK.
You can also do baked potatoes if you want to feel like you cooked something.
Temptation was to eat crap though between meals which was a bigger problem, but that was mostly boredom.
https://www.cookfood.net is legit.
No nasty ingredients, preservatives or other junk like you will find in most supermarket meals. They are also still indie and a B-Corp for all those that care!
Asda is your friend. Vast array of microwavable veg with flavourings type options, eat with a ready made (cold) quiche, rotisserie counter hot chicken or similar and you can make quite a variety of meals without having to have something that’s an all in one plastic tray offering too many times.
The no cooker but isn’t as bad as the no sink bit IMO.
TBH most microwave curries and chillis are fine. Not always the healthiest but it's just a couple of weeks, do you really want to worry about a little extra fat or salt?
I've always got a couple of sainsburys taste the difference gammon hock or chicken dijon in the freezer for those times when you just can't be arsed.
Eating shite unhealthy ultra-processed food doesn’t make you some kind of valiant salt-of-the-earth type, it just means you eat shite unhealthy ultra-processed food.
It's amazing how bad "cooked by someone else and reheated by you" sounds when you call it "ultra processed".
Compared to the carcinogenic crispness of the BBQ option anyway!
I would have said Bighams; they've been recommended up there ^^^ but their focus now appears to be on oven ready.
amazing how bad “cooked by someone else and reheated by you” sounds
Tbh it's a fair comment as there's far more shite availible on the shelf than there is "cooked by someone else and reheated" as you so plesently put it
Can usually whittle out the worst stuff though by looking at the use by.
When we had no kitchen . Freezer was Fu of batch cooked meals . Microwave deployed to heat them and the BBQ and pizza oven were under cover in the garden for the use of.
We were 5 weeks without. Although I did put a sink in the shed before we started
It’s amazing how bad “cooked by someone else and reheated by you” sounds when you call it “ultra processed”.
Quite.
I've challenged this nonsense multiple times in threads before and am yet to have received a sensible explanation in reply. Peel a carrot, you've just processed it. Shove a chicken breast in the frying pan and you're processing it (and it's already been processed once, we reckon it fell out of mummy chicken already plucked and skinned and shrink-wrapped in plastic?). And good luck eating unprocessed raw chicken.
Now we have "ultra-processed"? What does that even mean, what's the difference between processed and ultra-processed other than hyperbole? How do you feel about hyper-processed? Mega-processed? It's meaningless scaremongering gibberish, you should be selling broadband and batteries.
If we want to worry about excessive salt or sugar or fat contents in pre-packaged meals then I can get behind that, these are valid concerns worthy of discussion. But why not just be honest and say that rather than hiding behind pseudoscience? You're gonna shit yourself when you hear about "chemicals," they're in everything!
When we had no kitchen . Freezer was Fu of batch cooked meals
's what I'd do. Start now. It's as easy to cook for six as it is for two given a big enough pan and sufficient chopping time. Come the new kitchen you can be stocked floor to ceiling with home-cooked ready meals ready to ding and go.
doris, if your current microwave is just a bog standard basic one you'll be limited to defrosting/reheating pre-cooked or buying whatever's available in your local food emporium.
Have you considered buying a 3-in-1 which is microwave, combi and grill?
Use it for the duration then sell it on.
Here's one... https://www.johnlewis.com/panasonic-nn-df386bbpq-freestanding-3-in-1-combination-microwave-oven-with-grill-black/p2839679
As others have said, get busy now with chopping/cooking/freezing - assuming you will have a freezer when you're kitchen-less.
If any of your local stores has a rotisserie counter, buy some chickens and make...stew, pasta-type dishes, risotto.
Use the carcasses to make soup.
Have you got a BBQ ?
Between a BBQ and a decent microwave you should be able to make pretty good meals.
Reminds me when I lived in Angola I had a microwave , a George foreman and a BBQ.
I quickly learned that you can BBQ most things.....including frozen chips if you really want some chips.
George foreman mostly did cheese toasties
Microwave mostly heated up things that had been bbqed
We did a long spell without a kitchen too, couple of months iirc. Microwave is ok, M&S stuff mainly but getting a two ring camping stove was a godsend. BBQ was used a bit but we were in winter so standing outside lost its appeal quickly.
I pretty much live on microwave meals (Tesco or M&S), depends what your tastes are really as far as recommendations go.
e.g. I like the M&S Hot Tikka Masala but don't like their Our Best Ever Tikka Masala as it has cardamom pods in it which are vile if you bite into one and I can't be arsed looking for them and fishing them out before eating :p
M&S Chicken Penang is really nice, the Tuscan Sausage Penne is a crap watery mess (imagine steamed finely ground sausage meat...)
All this talk and only mention of disposable bbq.
Quite. Got to be the most wasteful way of having a BBQ.
we had six months with temp kitchen, wife makes paella from scratch in mcirowave, and stew, no need to fry anything,her stew is the best I ahve ever had.
Microwave all the veg in oil/butter, then add meat and liquid and do on low (like 150w for about an hour) its on bbc good food.
The other thing was the air fryer. OMG awesome. You can go roast chicken and roast veg, its amazing.