Living Without a Proper Kitchen: Adventures in Microwave Cookery and Office Pantry-ing.

Living without a proper kitchen and it being winter therefore DARK by the time I get home and when I leave home, I'm not cooking much at my place.
I end up cooking at work.  We have a microwave.  So I'm learning to microwave cook.  I'm not a big fan of radiating food, but one works with what one has.  I tried to avoid it for a while but that meant the only hot meals I got some weeks were when I went to a restaurant.  That is not frugal and not terribly healthy.

I am buying organic/natural soups when possible to have a bit of a pantry stock rather than buying a meal at a time.  This is helping me get back on frugal track.

I have in the pantry (meaning a file drawer and a small portion of the work fridge) at the moment:

Almond milk (they are selling it at the Dollar Store right now...good brand, nonGMO, not sugary)
Cereal (don't normally eat this but it is organic, high fiber, no added sugar, and was 99cent for 8 servings at the Grocery Outlet)
Organic peanut butter
Natural almond butter
Chia fruit spread (like jam, but made with chia seeds instead of pectin, found on cheap sale)
Protein bars for emergency food needs
A few hazelnuts and almonds
Soup, canned and boxed, mostly organic
Salsa (mostly used as salad dressing and on eggs)
Eggs
Tuna
Miso paste
Coffee (pre-ground)
Tea bags and loose tea
Bananas
Rolled oats, organic
A few spices
Oil
Vinegar
Honey
Mustard (my homemade stock because I didn't want the jars to freeze/thaw at home)
Green chilies (because they make crappy soup edible)
Bread
Fake cheese (found on sale, a rare buy)

I just finished the salad greens or I'd have that too.
Also will bring in a few zevia sodas to battle the mid-afternoon sugar cravings as needed.

So it's a serious stock of food.  I could live in the office for a couple of weeks and not lose much weight given the calorie stores.

Some meals are cold sandwiches, cereal, etc.
Main sandwiches are pbj and tuna salad which I make with my mustard instead of mayonnaise (saves buying mayonnaise and tastes better anyway).
But, I like a hot meal.  Hence eggs.  You can make OK scrambled eggs with stuff in them in the microwave.  They are a bit rubbery, but edible especially with salsa on them. I'm going to try the 2-eggs-1-banana recipe that works in a frying pan.  With the cinnamon and nutmeg from the spice stash it should be edible.

Plenty of microwaved soups.  Boring but edible.  Better when I've got an avocado to slice into them.  Those are also good in the eggs and help correct the rubbery texture.

It's fairly simple eating but not bad at all.  Other than salads and greens, I end up not eating many veggies other than things like beet soup, squash soup, and the bits in chunky soups.  I think I should work on that.  Maybe add sweet potatoes.  Or mixed veggies with a can of diced organic tomatoes and call that soup or stew...if I threw in a can of tuna it would taste awful but be very healthy.

I'm also trying to brew water kefir in the office as I have no stable-temperature area at my house for fermenting.  We'll see.  It seems to be going slowly so I'm getting impatient.

Solar cooking in the summer was one type of "limiting factor" or "learning opportunity" so I'm looking at this the same way.
I've also cooked a bit on the wood stove I use for heat and the little butane burner.  More on that anon.