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Cooking without an oven

AlpineAlpine Registered User regular
edited January 2008 in Help / Advice Forum
I'm living in residence, and I'm looking for some good recipes to cook up in my dorm room. We have a kitchen in our suite, but all it has is a stove - no oven.

I'm not very experienced in the kitchen - I'm really just doing this to spice up the daily meal schedule we have here, and to make myself less helpless when I'm living in a house next year - so the quicker and easier it is to make, the better.

I'm loaded with grocery store gift cards, so I'm able to go out and get any ingredients I'd need. I have a selection of pots and pans available, but I'd have to buy a skillet. How much does a mid-range skillet go for, or should I spring for a good one?

Alpine on

Posts

  • anonywhoanonywho Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Well I don't know how helpful this is, but I saw a video on Metacafe, showing you how to cook a turkey with a lamp and CD's, maybe you could use that as an oven.

    anonywho on
  • Synthetic OrangeSynthetic Orange Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    You can get an unfinished cast iron skillet for really cheap ($15 is the lowest I've seen), but you'd have to season the surface yourself.

    My favourite all-purpose cooking tool though is a rice cooker. Rice, stews, soups, porridge, does it all with minimal mess and care, and is an easy cleanup.

    Synthetic Orange on
  • EggyToastEggyToast Jersey CityRegistered User regular
    edited January 2008
    You can cook many, many foods on just a stove rangetop. I cook all the time and almost never use the oven. Sure, you can't cook stews and casseroles and breads, but those are also very time consuming things (which is why it makes sense that a communal kitchen would omit something like that).

    Any manner of stir fry things work, as do many italian style dishes. My typical "what you need" for cooking on a range are a pot and a skillet. The pot lets you boil water, the skillet lets you fry things. You don't have to use oil to fry, although you usually want to apply some sort of fat to a skillet so things don't stick (which can be omitted if you're cooking fatty things like meat).

    One thing that's really easy to make but looks (and tastes) pretty classy is to make up a quick italian thing.

    what you need:

    about 2 cups pasta
    2 regular sized boneless skinless chicken breasts
    cup of peas
    2 tomatoes, diced
    tomato sauce
    parmesan/romano cheese
    .5 tbsp olive oil

    (optional veggies (pick one if you want more veggies): 4 oz mushrooms, half or whole head of broccoli, quarter head of cauliflower, full jar of artichoke hearts/crowns, rinsed and diced)

    Boil water and do the noodles (you know how to do this, right?) while doing the rest of this stuff, should take about 10 minutes. Cube chicken breast, dice 2 tomatoes. Heat olive oil on med-hi heat, add chicken breast and a little salt -- stir until no pink, or only very light pink. Toss in optional veggies, stir for about a minute or so, add diced tomato. Stir about 2-3 minutes, your pasta should be done. Set skillet to med-low, drain pasta and toss into skillet. Add about 1 cup of pasta sauce on top of this whole mess, maybe a little more depending on how much you want it to be coated.

    Serve with some of the cheese stuff sprinkled on top.

    You can kick it up a notch by adding in garlic and a small amount of onion -- you cook these things prior to adding the chicken. When I say noodle, I mean a penne or spiral or something, not spaghetti or other "long" pasta. Something you stab w/ a fork, not spin w/ one.

    I came up with that recipe after seeing what those "Skillet Sensation" things were doing. There are many, many dishes that are just "heat up ingredients in the right order, add a sauce, voila."


    Since you're in college, you shouldn't spring for any really good kitchenware, as it's likely someone else may use it and/or wreck it. Not that you can't get nice things for people you know, but when you spend $80 on a pan you feel a little possessive about it.

    Finally, to get started, shop around at the grocery store just to see what everything is. There's tons of quick meal options in the frozen food aisles that are more than "put this in the microwave for 5 minutes, peel back film," but a lot of college people don't know about them because they've never really looked at the grocery store when they're with their parents.

    EggyToast on
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  • ÆthelredÆthelred Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    This isn't a recipe, but: you can fry burgers.

    That was my main meal when I was in the same situation as you.

    Æthelred on
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  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Get a cheap, 8-10" non-stick fry pan. Not the greatest pan in the world, but it's mighty handy for improv cooking, things like stir-fry, home fries, eggs, grilled cheese, etc etc.

    KalTorak on
  • Motzy5Motzy5 Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Well id say, first of all get out of Western and go to Waterloo.

    Once you have done that, set up a hottub in your buddies dorm room.
    If you have a good friend who's mom is a good cook and probably has alot of recipies or something, maybe ask him to ask his mom? And if he happens to live across the street from you, thats just a bonus

    Motzy5 on
  • BarrakkethBarrakketh Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    You can also consider a slow cooker. It isn't a replacement for an oven (you can't really bake things in it), but it can handle some of the same tasks quite well. For instance, pan sear a roast, and cook it in the slow cooker for a while with assorted veggies and potatoes. It also works very well for chili.

    Yum.

    The best part is that you don't really have to pay attention to the thing.

    Barrakketh on
    Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
  • Dark MoonDark Moon Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Though not directly related to your question, I will chirp in with what is hopefully helpful advice related to stocking this new kitchen of yours: Do not buy your kitchen supplies from a) an expensive consumer kitchen supply store or b) Walmart/etc. This is assuming you do not already have kitchen supplies - if you do, please disregard the rest of this post.

    Instead, you are going to go into your yellow pages and find a local restaurant supply wholesaler. You are then going to find their warehouse/showroom and purchase individual items at massive savings. A knife that is $150 at, say, The Happy Chef, is $50 and comes with a much more useful, textured plastic handle. Real stainless steel pans are $10 a piece, and you can buy restaurant style (big and bulky and forever-lasting) plates, utensils and glasses for under a dollar a pop. I hope this helps!

    Dark Moon on
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  • Nitsuj82Nitsuj82 Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    My suggestion? A Foreman grill. I used it for everything in college.For a skillet, I am a big fan of those pans with the vertical sidewalls (as opposed to the sloping ones). I find that they're more versatile. Also, get a lid for simmering.

    Don't be afraid to go buy a cookbook either. The Better Homes and Gardens one is a classic, and the ingredients are very easy to find (I know most people want to spring for something by a Food Network chef, but a lot of their ingredients are regional [can you buy squab at YOUR grocery store?!]).

    Nitsuj82 on
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  • BarrakkethBarrakketh Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Nitsuj82 wrote: »
    I know most people want to spring for something by a Food Network chef, but a lot of their ingredients are regional [can you buy squab at YOUR grocery store?!]).

    You clearly haven't read Alton's books. "I'm Just Here For The Food" isn't a cookbook, it is a book about cooking.

    It also happens to have recipes in it.

    Barrakketh on
    Rollers are red, chargers are blue....omae wa mou shindeiru
  • garroad_rangarroad_ran Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    A good 30-50% of my meals are what I like to call Rice'n'shit.

    Make some rice.
    Toss it in a frying pan.
    Find other random stuff around the kichen.
    Toss it in the frying pan.
    Eat up!

    garroad_ran on
  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited January 2008
    You know, I almost never use the oven. I mean granted, mine is shit, but there's really only so many things you can do with one anyway. You get far more mileage out of the cooktop. 1 small and 1 large saucepan, one frypan and a vege steamer are all you need really, and you can do anything from curries to pasta and stir fries. On the downside, I guess you miss out on grilled cheese.

    poor thing :(

    The Cat on
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  • Wyvern998Wyvern998 Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Wait a minute...

    you make your grilled cheeese in an oven?

    I am intrigued.

    Wyvern998 on
  • AridholAridhol Daddliest Catch Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    yeah wtf...

    Wouldn't that be an oven cheese sandwich?

    Aridhol on
  • The CatThe Cat Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited January 2008
    well, using the grill bit at the top of it. but no oven = no grill, I'd have thought.

    The Cat on
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  • SzechuanosaurusSzechuanosaurus Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited January 2008
    The Cat wrote: »
    well, using the grill bit at the top of it. but no oven = no grill, I'd have thought.

    You can get separate grill ovens, although from what I've heard it's a peculiarly British thing, at least in Europe (probably being as we're a nation of horrendously bad home cooks who tend to just fry and grill everything). Personally, I always opt for a large oven that can also grill if I need to.

    As for the OPs request, I second, third, fifth etc. stir frys. It's a great way to get a lot of good nutrition easily and cheaply when your at university. Top tip is that while fresh veg is best, frozen veg works surprisingly well in stir frys, especially green beans. Also just buy whatever meat you like best and/or is cheapest. A friend of mine at university used to just bulk buy Turkey breast because it was so cheap but the cheapest meats tend to vary from country to country.

    At it's most basic level, stir frying just involves frying up some ginger, garlic and spring onions in some oil, tossing in some diced meat, browning it, add a dash of soy sauce then throw in some chopped veg. But you can get a recipe book of chinese food and get more adventurous with it.

    Szechuanosaurus on
  • NorgothNorgoth cardiffRegistered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Most modern Microwaves function as traditional ovens too, though obviously using crazy space waves rather than fire. Though its obviously not as good as a proper oven, its sometimes usefull for basic dishes.

    Norgoth on
  • Nitsuj82Nitsuj82 Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Barrakketh wrote: »
    Nitsuj82 wrote: »
    I know most people want to spring for something by a Food Network chef, but a lot of their ingredients are regional [can you buy squab at YOUR grocery store?!]).

    You clearly haven't read Alton's books. "I'm Just Here For The Food" isn't a cookbook, it is a book about cooking.

    It also happens to have recipes in it.

    AB and I go way back. He is the exception, not the rule.

    I speak of Flay, Batali, et al.

    Nitsuj82 on
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  • EggyToastEggyToast Jersey CityRegistered User regular
    edited January 2008
    The Cat wrote: »
    well, using the grill bit at the top of it. but no oven = no grill, I'd have thought.

    put cheese in bread, butter the outside, put frypan on medium. Once hot, put bread in pan, sit for about 4-5 minutes, lift edge with a flipper. If it's golden, flip. Other side takes less time, so check in about 2-3 minutes.

    Ta da. My wife and I also do this with a slice or two of ham in it. Hot ham & cheese ftw. That's the "cheap" way of making grilled sandwiches.

    EggyToast on
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  • AndorienAndorien Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Just get a toaster oven, those things are awesome.

    Andorien on
  • ErandusErandus Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    A nice toaster oven can do a lot things that might surprise you. Mine goes up too 400F and can cook a small roast or some chicken breasts. You might want to look into one. They may evoke images of a fancy way to cook pop-tarts, but they really are honestly a mini-oven. They can do anything an oven can do, just on a smaller scale. Between that and a slow cooker/crock pot type device for stews, you can cook just about anything on your countertop.

    Otherwise, stir fry is really easy and pretty good for you. Just toss some chicken and veggies in a wok or pan on a little bit of olive oil.

    Pastas are generally easy on a stovetop.

    Erandus on
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  • MKRMKR Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Toaster ovens are the best.

    MKR on
  • AndorienAndorien Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    I prefer toaster oven over regular toasters even for toaster like things. Since your stuff lays flat, you can put all kinds of crap on it to be heated as well that would normally not stay on in a toaster.

    Everyone who has a toaster instead of a toaster oven fails at life.

    Andorien on
  • corcorigancorcorigan Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    You can't make jacket potatoes without an oven.

    What do you eat?!

    Also, you can get loads of student cookery books. They tend to be rather less pretentious and over-the-top than most cook books, so I'd go for them. Easy to make stuff that doesn't need six weeks and a $50k oven to cook? Yay!

    corcorigan on
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  • urahonkyurahonky Cynical Old Man Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Don't forget about the George Foreman grills. Those things saved my life at the beginning of college.

    urahonky on
  • tbloxhamtbloxham Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Honestly I only used my oven in the place I lived before for making frozen pizzas in terms of dinner foods. Everything else was done on the stovetop. Don't buy a cheap pan, buy a good pan and keep it in your room for your own use only. Heck, if you buy a good enough pan then it's practically indestructible anyway so you can keep it wherever you want. Cheap pans just mean more time washing up, burned stuff, and having to buy a new pan in a year. Get a good solid pan (I guess you Americans call them skillets), with some weight to it to hold onto heat, and you'll have it for life. The things you'll miss out on are baked desserts like Brownies and Pies, but I think a cheap toaster oven can do the job on those guys.

    tbloxham on
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  • DaenrisDaenris Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    tbloxham wrote: »
    The things you'll miss out on are baked desserts like Brownies and Pies, but I think a cheap toaster oven can do the job on those guys.

    Screw the toaster oven, just do them on the stove top :)

    http://www.y2kkitchen.com/html/brownies.html

    Note: I have not tried this recipe... it's just the first one I came across while looking for non-oven brownie recipes

    Daenris on
  • SolandraSolandra Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    The Cat wrote: »
    well, using the grill bit at the top of it. but no oven = no grill, I'd have thought.

    I do the same thing, but call it "cheese toast" or a "toasted cheese sandwich." Same principle, though.

    Solandra on
  • SolandraSolandra Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    If you get a no-stick pan, be sure you have non-metallic spoons and spatulas, etc. The metal type will scrape the non-stick coating off, and you don't really want to eat that.

    Solandra on
  • RokateRokate Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    BAM skillet brownies! No oven required. However, ovens are much better...

    http://www.y2kkitchen.com/html/brownies.html

    Rokate on
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  • DaenrisDaenris Registered User regular
    edited January 2008
    Rokate wrote: »
    BAM skillet brownies! No oven required. However, ovens are much better...

    http://www.y2kkitchen.com/html/brownies.html

    Dude... look up like 3 posts :P

    Daenris on
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