Not having a kitchen is a challenge. Everyone says, “It’s an adventure. It will be like camping.”

Well, yes and no. When you are camping you know how many days you will be cooking over fire, or grills, or whatever the real campers do.   

I always got disenchanted with the whole idea about the third day in, when I was ready for real food–you know, food with nutrients, food that is green and not brown and white.

But, I took on this river house adventure, thinking: “I have my George Foreman Grill, my crock pot, a microwave, and a propane grill.   

Reality: Haven’t gotten up to trying the GFG. I look at the size of my crockpot, and then at the size of my little pawn shop refrigerator, and I think I had better not make that much food with no where to store the leftovers. As it is, I have to move the ketchup in the door column to get to the coconut milk every morning for Hubby’s homemade granola, which I had the presence of mind to make while still at Bigelow.

I didn’t have an  outlet for the microwave until a couple of days ago. Most of the outlets had to be off, while wiring was being accomplished.

And propane grill? Well that’s a man job, and my man is dead tired from a full time job and this huge house project, and I don’t have the heart to add dinner to that task list.

   So I made a discovery. This little rice pot, which I seldom use, after realizing I could put a casserole of rice and water in the oven and not have to clean out sticky rice after the process, has become a great little pot.

I experimented one day, putting in the brown rice and water, and then adding frozen peas (which I have to use to make room in the tiny freezer), and a filet of wild salmon. Twenty minutes later I had a really tasty one-pot meal, all ready for serving. And, how did I clean it without hot water? I used the Chinese cooking trick of returning the sticky mess to the heat source with a little more water added to the pot, and presto, there it was, boiled rice easily scraped off the bottom of the pot.

We repeated this meal a couple of times. Then I tried oatmeal in the pot for a breakfast. Excellent. Almost like home. Added nuts and cinnamon and coconut milk. Got the sticky oats off the pan bottom same way as the rice.  

Tonight, I am really pushing the rice pot. I put in rice, water, a can of black beans, and a market pre-cooked meatball, broken up–and some cheese. We shall see. I will let you know tomorrow. Of course all of this would be better in a real kitchen. Stay tuned.

But, I am certainly grateful for the just right sized little pot, where a one-pot meal has been exactly what this happy camper needed.