Minor help needed/earthquake issue from motel

Hi Everyone

Could use your help.We are unfortunately are in the eastern side of town and still have no power, water or sewerage and a damaged house, but hopefully one we can return to.We are lucky enough to have a great insurance company and have managed to find a motel for the last week for myself, my man and two teenage kids.Unfortunately the place we are staying in only has a microwave and I have brought my slow cooker from home.Its silly compared to most but the day to day struggles of trying to feed the family a health meal is just one of the factors we face.

Normally we are not a family of takeaway and ready made meals and I am looking for ideas what I can cook not having any oven or elements.I really only use the microwave for defrosting and baked potatoes...lol...hopeless I know.

Does anyone have any ideas/receipes they could send my way on what I can feed them.

Thanks Cath

Oh forgot to mention there is a very small george forman grill, it looks like a sandwhich press.

use sammy press for toasty sammy's.
cook bacon & eggs on sammy press if it has a smmoth surface.
can even cook sausages & pancakes on it.
if not then cook any meat on it & use microwave for other things.
baked beans, can cook poached eggs in nuker, can cook veges in nuker also. only uses a small amount of water.& keep covered, use glad wrap if you have to.
maybe buy a rice cooker or a big sammy press from warehouse if you can......

Thanks Adrian, trying to feed the kids some vegs and try to gain some normality with a cooked meal at night..had to laugh, yes toasted sandwhiches have been the food of choice in the last week, though did manage to cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker.You gave me some ideas....so thanks.

try the crockpot hangi recipe. put your chicken, chops,leg lambor whatever in c/pot, then all your vegs, potato,carrot,kumera,parsnip,o-
nions around and some silverbeet on top, I pour 1/2 cup water, dash of worc sauce and leave to cook for 6hrs.
you could then put a packet of frozen vegs or cauli,brocoli in the mi/wave and make some instant gravy. hey presto, meal for the king.....type in crockpot hangi on left side and see more.

rice in the microwave: 1 cup rice, 2 cups of water, 12 minutes.
if you need more just multiply by ratio. Cooks beautifully in a 2litre pyrex jug or a bowl.

sweet corn on the cob in microwave - just cook in the husk - takes about 3 minutes for a full cob. No need even for clingfilm. Delicious.

Yep - I do rice this way.

The McCormicks slow cooker sachets are yummy, can get them at any supermarket, they are nice, I would just add all the veges too.. or you could always do your veges in the microwave. I also have a yummy pasta sauce recipe that came from an alison holst crockpot book ..maybe worth buying, there is all sorts in there! You could get that quick cook pasta that diamond make, am sure you can cook it in the microwave..

copied from here but i cannot remember whos it is

Crock pot Chocolate Self Saucing Pudding
100g butter, melted;
1/2 cup milk,
1 egg, 1 cup SR flour,
2tbsp cocoa,
1/2 cup caster sugar

TOPPING:
2 tbsp cocoa,
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar,
2 cups boiling water.

Combine butter, milk and egg. In a separate bowl sift flour and cocoa together and mix in sugar. Gradually add wet ingredients to dry and mix well. Spoon in slow cooker. Combine cocoa and brown sugar and sprinkle over top of pudding. Carefully pour boiling water over the mixture. Cover and cook on HIGH for 3.5 hours or LOW 5-6 hours.

NB I only cook mine for about 2.5 - 3 hours - you can usually tell when it's cooked. I never cook this pudding conventionally any more. Hope this is of some help to you.

For your cooked meal at night use the slow cooker for your meat, ie roast beef, chicken, chops, mince, good old stew, chicken pieces etc either buy those frozen vegs you steam in bags in the microwave or cookvegs as others have suggested. Easy weekend meal wrap cleaned potatoes in foil cook in slow cooker, or bake in M/Wave, split and heat some B/beans or use leftover mince in microwave pile on top with grated cheese or sour cream. try the search function on here recipes, slowcooker or crockpot, anytime and you might get a few ideas. Hope all goes well for you getting back into your home.

Try a meat loaf in the crockpot sitting on a thick bed of vegies - like sliced potatoes, pumpkin, carrot, kumara etc. The vegies cook slowly in the loaf juices and are very tasty. They won't look 'flash' but the flavour is delicious.They are always gobbled down in our house! You could do some green vegies in the microwave to go with it.

if there is an electric frypan in motel vegies can be cooked in that.I got caught out in a motel once thinking we would have elements and didnt so found the electric frypan with water in I was able to cook vegies - it is slow but certainly does the job.

perhaps purchasing a 2 element bench top cooker might help - more money I know but they not too expensive and will help you. Maybe your insurance might come to the party with that.

Thanks so much to everyone, I have some great ideas which will get me through another week and who knows from there.We only have the motel until Thursday and then we need to find somewhere else but the good news is we got power on at home this morning, so I can at least boil water and start cleaning up the mold from the fridge etc.Fingers crossed it won't take months for the water to be on like they have told us at our local meeting.Funny I can live with a chemical loo but I must be clean....so water my priority now...lolCath

Would you mind sharing the name of your insurance company please? It is great to hear they are looking after you.

I don't have any extra suggestions for you sorry but I do want to say Take care and know we are thinking of you in Christchurch.

if it was me, and you have the means, I would go and purchase an electric frying pan, and/or a rice cooker...

meat in the electric frying pan; carbs in the rice cooker, or potatoes in the microwave...
vege in the microwave...

I am with Tower through National Bank, though our main banking is not with them anymore.Tower have been really helpful.Will let you know at the end of the process what the total thing worked out like....but they have an assessor coming to our place Thursday to look at our driveways and fences, if only EQC could work so fast and then we would know about our house which is our main concern.However you couldn't pay me enough to work for EQC, imagine the stress they would be under and grumpy people they would be dealing with.Have to say when the power went on today, I would have nearly jumped the bones of the man who connected it....but then not really my man wouldn't like that much but boy would it have been a big hug and sloppy kiss....so many people working who will never get acknowledged and there really is no way to say thank you, but one can try where ever they can....so if anyone finds the man who connected my power....."pay it forward" and give him a big sloppy kiss...lol.
Cath

Hi Everyone

Could use your help.We are unfortunately are in the eastern side of town and still have no power, water or sewerage and a damaged house, but hopefully one we can return to.We are lucky enough to have a great insurance company and have managed to find a motel for the last week for myself, my man and two teenage kids.Unfortunately the place we are staying in only has a microwave and I have brought my slow cooker from home.Its silly compared to most but the day to day struggles of trying to feed the family a health meal is just one of the factors we face.

Normally we are not a family of takeaway and ready made meals and I am looking for ideas what I can cook not having any oven or elements.I really only use the microwave for defrosting and baked potatoes.lol.hopeless I know.

Does anyone have any ideas/receipes they could send my way on what I can feed them.

Thanks Cath

Thanks Adrian, trying to feed the kids some vegs and try to gain some normality with a cooked meal at night.had to laugh, yes toasted sandwhiches have been the food of choice in the last week, though did manage to cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker.You gave me some ideas.so thanks.

try the crockpot hangi recipe. put your chicken, chops,leg lambor whatever in c/pot, then all your vegs, potato,carrot,kumera,parsnip,o-
nions around and some silverbeet on top, I pour 1/2 cup water, dash of worc sauce and leave to cook for 6hrs.
you could then put a packet of frozen vegs or cauli,brocoli in the mi/wave and make some instant gravy. hey presto, meal for the king.type in crockpot hangi on left side and see more.

The McCormicks slow cooker sachets are yummy, can get them at any supermarket, they are nice, I would just add all the veges too. or you could always do your veges in the microwave. I also have a yummy pasta sauce recipe that came from an alison holst crockpot book .maybe worth buying, there is all sorts in there! You could get that quick cook pasta that diamond make, am sure you can cook it in the microwave.

Try a meat loaf in the crockpot sitting on a thick bed of vegies - like sliced potatoes, pumpkin, carrot, kumara etc. The vegies cook slowly in the loaf juices and are very tasty. They won't look 'flash' but the flavour is delicious.They are always gobbled down in our house! You could do some green vegies in the microwave to go with it.

Thanks so much to everyone, I have some great ideas which will get me through another week and who knows from there.We only have the motel until Thursday and then we need to find somewhere else but the good news is we got power on at home this morning, so I can at least boil water and start cleaning up the mold from the fridge etc.Fingers crossed it won't take months for the water to be on like they have told us at our local meeting.Funny I can live with a chemical loo but I must be clean.so water my priority now.lolCath