How to…eat healthily during a kitchen renovation

After nearly two years of waiting, the time had come for us to renovate our kitchen. Without a single moment of sadness, I was ready to tear off the multi-coloured tiles, paint, rip out the existing cupboards and embrace our stylish new kitchen.

Unsurprisingly, it’s never that easy or swift, regardless of the size of your kitchen, you’d be surprised how much most of us store in that room. All those ‘I may need that one-day’ flours, electric devices, cutlery, plates, mixers, food, the list is endless…

One of the most stressful parts is eating without a kitchen or limited cooking facilities, not all of us have the desire or budget to indulge in meals out or takeaways. The longer you’re without a kitchen the more creative you need to be, without impacting on good health.

Here’s how we’ve been coping:

Meal Prep

Never underestimate how useful meal prepping or batch cooking is, especially when you’ll be limited on time and facilities.

Here’s some of the food I made in advance:

Slow Cooking

Slow cookers are an extremely worthwhile and cost effective investment, whilst I mainly made stews, I found so many recipes on Pinterest for curries, fajitas, pulled pork and even cake! During these cold few weeks, I’ve really enjoyed tucking into a stew and there’s always enough for another meal, which is great for time-saving too.

Mini Electric Oven

My Brother very kindly lent us his ‘Mini Electric Oven‘ and I cannot you how thankful I was for this, okay I could only oven cook one thing at a time but at least I could cook. These are ideal for longer term renovations or even very small kitchens or student accommodation, especially as you can buy them for the same price as microwave.

Microwave Meals 

Ahhhh, Microwave meals have a bad reputation, don’t they? Well, Muscle food set out to change that, for the first time in many years I had a microwave meal and I was extremely impressed. They sent me lasagna with roasted vegetables to try, that was the first time I’d eaten that in years and I’d genuinely buy it again. Also generous chunks of chicken with oriental pad tai vegetables and noodles, again this was absolutely delicious.

I wouldn’t have brought a microwave meal previously because they are normally full of salt, additives and don’t actually taste that good. Putting that ‘tradition’ to one side, it has to be said that I really do think that these meals are a game charger with perfect macros, real ingredients and great taste.

You can view the whole selection Here

Using Cupboard Basics 

I know it’s hard to get excited about food from a tin, but foods such as tuna or mixed beans can be added to rice (from a packet, these are a great time saver) or couscous (which only needs hot water) to make a meal. Don’t forget about lentils or butter beans and chickpeas too, if you have a blender you can use this to make dips for vegetables, it’s all about being creative.

Buy from the hot counter 

Most supermarkets have a hot counter where you can buy pre-roasted chickens and so on, these are ideal for a few meals, whilst saving time and the requirement for an oven.

***

Tell me, what’s your speedy meal choice when you’re limited on time or cooking facilities?

Katie

x