Kitchen Reno: Part 8 - A Hiccup

The ceiling, walls and floor of our new kitchen are done, and it's starting to take shape.

Unfortunately, the project has experienced a slight "hiccup".  Next week the cabinets are scheduled to be hung, but they're not complete yet.  Estimated completion time is about a week away.  Since pretty much everything that follows (countertop, backsplash, sink and appliance installation) depends on the cabinets being in place, the project will pretty much go on hold for a week, meaning the completion date will likely also be pushed out by another week.

That's another week of disruption and living with our auxiliary kitchen.  All things considered, Judy, and I have managed pretty well thus far.  I have to admit that we've given in to the temptation to eat out, bring home takeout and buy heat-and-serve meals that can be heated in the microwave or the air fryer more often than we should, but these are expensive alternatives, and not the healthiest of culinary choices.  

When cooking for ourselves, meal choices seem a bit limited, as most recipes require the use of an oven.  Using a slow cooker sounded like a good idea at the time.  "Just throw all the ingredients into the slow cooker, turn it on in the morning and dinner is ready and waiting at the end of the day," someone once told us.  The problem is that those ingredients that are just "thrown into the slow cooker" often require a fair bit of prep work, which is more tedious when done in our auxiliary kitchen than it would be in a real kitchen.  We used the slow cooker to make a nice chicken stew, and it came out pretty good, but it resulted in a lot of dirty dishes which then had to be carried downstairs to the laundry tub, hand-washed, and then carried back upstairs to be put away. While it does increase our culinary choices (we have a whole cookbook full of slow cooker recipes), a lot of them quite honestly feel like they involve more time and care than Judy or I are willing to expend.

Our air fryer is large enough to fit a small, ten-inch frozen pizza, which is enough to satisfy Judy and me, and it cooks that up to hot, crispy perfection in about 15 minutes.  It's also good for frying frozen french fries, but that requires the use of a rotating mesh basket which is a pain to clean afterwards. 

The electric induction hot plate is useful for boiling water and, thus, making hard or soft-boiled eggs as well as sauces and side dishes. Set a frying pan on top of it, and pan-fried foods become a possibility.  Our electric grille works for pan-fried foods as well.  One word of caution, however.  If you're going to pan-fry meats such as sausages or hamburger patties, be sure that your auxiliary kitchen is well-ventilated, as they tend to produce smoke.  In a regular kitchen, these foods are normally prepared on a stove top, which is generally located immediately beneath some sort of range hood which provides ventilation.  Assuming that your auxiliary kitchen isn't equipped with one of these, any smoke alarms within a two-meter radius are bound to wake the neighbors when you're frying meat!  Using a low heat setting helps to mitigate this risk.

All in all, however, the microwave oven is still the king of the auxiliary kitchen's cooking appliances.  Of course, there are also foods that don't require any sort of cooking or heating, such as salads, raw fruits and vegetables and submarine sandwiches, or just regular sandwiches, for that matter.

Special note: We refuse to order meal kits such as Hello Fresh. 

As you see, we're managing to get by, and an extra week is not all that long to wait, but Judy and I are naturally a bit disappointed with the delay.