tolerable microwave meals

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.