Improvising

Wade and I have been a little turned upside down lately by the construction going on in our house. For those that don't know, we're onto phase 2 (the last) of our remodeling and we're currently in week 3 (yes, THREE) of not having a kitchen. Week 1 and 2 we used up gift cards we had from wedding gifts (we had saved them for this!) to eat out mostly. Although, We thoroughly enjoyed cheesecake factory, outback, stuzzi, and papa johns....eating out gets a little old (and expensive when you run out of gift cards). So, this week we're trying to be more organized and creative with our eating.

Last night we had lasagna de stouffer's, salada a la bag (bagged salad), our best friend sister schuberts roll, and fresh baked cookies for dessert! And...we cooked it all ourselves...at home! However do you do that when your kitchen looks like this did you ask?

 

 

And for those of you that are wondering...let me just throw in a couple quick "before" pictures for comparison.

Notice the wall has been taken out!!

 

Also notice, the kitchen is so small I can't even take a picture of it

Also see Formica*

 

*i'msure Formica used to be top of the line back in the day, but it's just not with our taste...see the broken drawer? Classy, eh?

 

 

 

When I bought the house, there was this super retro double oven that my roommate would call " the spaceship" because it looked like, well, a spaceship.

 

 

Imagine something kind of like this....I think ours was brown though. I didn't mind the space ship, except that it broke 2 weeks after moving in. Fortunately, the house came with a home warranty and they credited me towards a newer oven. But because I always had hopes in mind to remodel, for a long time we ended up with something that looked like this...

See the ugly bare wall above the stove??

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So back to dinner...how did we manage to cook everything without a stove or oven? Well, we used our friends ms. Microwave and mr. Egg!!

The lasagna we cooked in the microwave. It is better in the oven, but it was fine still.

Wade wanted rolls, so we fired up the egg and I suggested we try cookies on the egg as well!! Here's how:

1. Heat the egg up to steady temp between 300-350

 

2. This is the plate setter that turns the egg from a grill into more like an oven.

3. Per Wade's recommendation, use only Kroger brand break and bake cookies.

 

4. Put the cookies directly on the plate setter. In the future I may try using foil.

5. Have a drink on the patio with your wife and the dogs. Give the dogs some attention because they've been so couped up during the remodeling process.

 

6. About halfway through your drink *approximate* check the cookies. They should start to look like this. A few more minutes...

 

The final verdict...they were ok. Yeah, just ok. A little smokey tasting for my taste in a cookie. But it was fun to try!!!