What to make when all you have is a rice cooker, waffle iron, pannini press and toaster oven?

K

kathleen

Well-known member
We are in the process of a total gut rehab of our kitchen. I am thrilled as I am getting probably the closest I will ever come to my dream kitchen. The downside, however, is that I am "cooking" as best as I can in the laundry room and all I have is a toaster oven, pannini press, waffle iron and rice cooker. Thinking of buying electric frying pan. Was hoping to grill but I ran out of propane and can't get the tank off and my DH is out of the country for one more week. It is very un-spring like and cold here so getting my kids (three preschoolers) to eat salad has been a tough sell. They want warm stuff. Any thoughts? We have four more weeks of this and, while I know soon I will be able to grill, getting through this next week of cold, rainy weather is going to be tough.

Thanks for any and all ideas.

Kathleen

 
Our panini maker is the most used appliance in our kitchen.

Besides the awesome sandwiches we grill chicken breasts, burgers and steak as well as veggies such as peppers, summer squash and asparagus.

It's fast, too, chicken breast filets are done in about 2 minutes.

Tonight I'm doing a flank steak & asparagus. The flank steak will be resting while the asparagus cooks.

 
Maybe challenge the kids to come up with "grilled sandwich" ideas....

then cut the finished product out with cookie cutters so they don't get bored.

 
Lol, husbands sure know when to make themselves scarce, don't they? Can you use the

toaster oven to heat/bake some already prepared items from your supermarket? I've seen stuffed chicken breasts and pork chops. I think you can buy already cooked pot roast, etc also. If it's just a week or so of meals to fill, would they eat the frozen mac and cheese and/or lasagne heated in the toaster oven? You can always put a salad along side. How about chicken pot pies? I know there's all sorts of interesting stuff in the frozen section now. I realize these items might not be to your taste but desperate times call for desperate measures.

You have my sympathy, it must be especially difficult with three that small. I sure hope you get the kitchen of your dreams.

 
Thanks for the ideas

I really like the idea of steaming stuff in the rice cooker. I wanted to make potato salad and was stumped on how to manage. That might be the answer. I also had not thought about using the press for cooking meat. Going to try that as well although will have to move it to a space that has better ventilation than my laundry room.

I have been trying to find frozen stuff that we can heat up in the toaster oven and have made several pizzas that way. I am trying not to feed my kids anything with HFCS so that makes the frozen stuff somewhat difficult. However, I agree we the desparate times comment.

In terms of my DH bailing I couldn't agree more. Even though this trip was planned for months, I still find the timing VERY suspicious and expect some incredible gifts when he returns.....

 
Kathleen, I have made potato salad with cold baked potatoes. It works quite well.

bake the potatoes in the toaster oven, then wrap in a towel and let them cool. the steaming of the towel wrap makes them moist and easier to peel and slice when cool.

 
OMG - can't believe you mentioned Flat Stanley - he's a legend around our office....

a coworker's grandaughter just read the book for a project and the librarian encouraged her to make a Flat Stanley and send him to visit some folks.

So they sent him to North Carolina and he went to a Civil War reinactment.

Then my coworker sent him to his vagabond brother that lives in San Juan. Who in turn took his time taking any pix and sending Flat Stanley back.

So the coworker did a missing persons poster. And then the coworker's daughter (lots of kids/stepkids, etc.) who is out of work and very talented did a missing persons milk carton mock up. Then she got WAY out there and found a pix of President George W Bush with his hands in precisely the right position and put him holding up Flat Stanley like he was playing paper dolls(PRICELESS!). Then she turned him into a cross dresser.

And then the little grandaughter saw the missing persons poster and got upset and started crying so they had to explain that he wasn't really missing, Meanwhile.....

The coworker calls his mom and tells her to call the brother in San Juan QUICKLY. So he walked outside with Flat Stanley and then realizes he's lost him and turns around just in time to see Flat Stanley lying in the road just as the trash guys come and run over him.

I think Flat Stanley has finally made it back to TN but he's had quite the adventure in the last six weeks or so..........

 
Don't be too hard on yourself......it won't hurt anyone if you heat some

canned soup in the rice cooker a couple of nights and make grilled cheese sandwiches in the pannini.

 
They also sell those butane burners for about $20. We have one tiny restaurant that operated

for years cooking on three or four of those butane burners...And in Thailand, that's all they had. A butane burner and a rice cooker. Nothing else.

 
It was a cheap thrill when I pulled out the camper stove after one hurricane.

It runs on little propane tanks and I hadn't cooked with gas in over 20 years. LOVED IT. Well, when I wasn't swatting away a gazillion mosquitoes.

 
You can use your rice cooker to cook other things.

I have made soups and stews in it. You can brown the meat and veggies by setting it on the cook setting. If I can find it, I have a link to some recipes using the rice cooker like an electric fry pan. You can definitely use it to heat up canned soup and such.

 
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