Grocery List For Kitchen Remodel

[gordeaux]

After months of planning, the demo starts today at 8am!! This will be a "down to the studs" remodel. Contractor says 6 weeks untl completion (riiight.) I'll have a crock pot, rice cooker, electric roaster (might buy an electric skillet) a microwave, a fridge and a freezer. Of course we'll be ordering out a lot, but what would you stock up on from the grocery store? We don't do many processed foods at all. Some things we do plan on eating a lot of:

Salad mix bags
7 layer dip
Tuna fish / and other cold sandwiches
grocery store roasted chickens
Cereal
made and froze a lasagna in individual servings
froze a pot of split pea soup too
beef or chicken crock pot stews

Looking for a few "Oh Yeah, should have thought of that!!" items.

[Kajikit]

We had our kitchen, both bathrooms and the laundry done at once. Needless to say, not a lot of cooking went on that month! Fortunately the contractors were both quick and efficient, and they were considerate enough to rotate the work so that we had at least one sink usable at all times. But I still didn't cook - there was too much construction debris everywhere. We ate cereal for breakfast, went out to get lunch in shifts (it was a blessing to get away from the noise and fuss for a few hours, but someone had to stay home each day for the workmen!), and had a pre-frozen meal for dinner. The only cooking implements that were of practical use were the microwave, an electric kettle, and the toaster.

[Darlinghurst]

Tequila ! lots and lots and lots of tequila !

(you think I'm joking ... but no ...)

I bought a "remodeler's dream" in 2005. It had no functional kitchen. I planned and saved desperately for a kitchen (and whole house remodel), which started last Thanksgiving (2007). When I was tantalisingly close to being done, my contractor was jailed ... causing a seven month delay with one working faucet in the entire house (not in the kitchen, of course), no kitchen electricity, gas or running water. Can't blame me for hitting the tequila pretty hard during that time.

During the summer, I relied on the outdoor grill mostly, and adapted it for all sorts of things. I could even turn out a pretty respectable loaf of bread on it, using a dutch oven. In the wintertime, I used a lot more partially prepared foods from stores like Trader Joes.

Now that the kitchen is complete, it is an absolute joy to cook in. I hope your project will proceed more smoothly, but with as satisfying results, as mine has.

[lgss]

At the height of our kitchen remodel we ate lots of hummus, chips, salsa, rice crackers, and dolmas. We had open-face pbj, with banana and juice for breakfast a lot. Trader Joe's sells some pre-cooked lentils. We also got some of the tetra-pack soups to which I added various things like frozen veggies.
I also made and froze some cookies, muffins, bread, corn bread, black beans and garbanzos.
Things like apples and trail mix work well as snacks.

We had fridge, freezer, and microwave only and very little prep space. We may actually get to eat in the kitchen again beginning this weekend. We're had most of the kitchen back for a while now, just doing the finishing touches.

[ipsedixit]

Just eat out.

It's a noble, but ultimately a Sysphisian, effort to cook during a kitchen remodel.

[lgss]

The challenges with this are:
if most of the budget is going toward the remodel...
if doing one's own remodel, getting cleaned up to go...
the possible need to be around while the various workers come and go...

[DiningDiva]

We did a kitchen remodel last year and it was down to the studs, no floor, no ceiling, no utilities in that space. Like you we thought we'd try and do some cooking at home using our gas grill and crock pot. We had the contractor move our old refrigerator onto the patio so we could use it until they installed the new one. If you're planning on cooking at home during your remodel you will probably have some leftovers, make sure you've got a plan (and containers!!!, don't pack up everything) for storing them appropriately. If you've got a crock pot full of beef stew make sure you know how you're going to store it if there's some left over.

The plan looked good on paper. Execution of the plan? Not so good. Do you have some place, like a laundry sink, to take care of clean up? We had kept out a couple of plates and some utensils, a couple of sharp knives, tongs, a turner and some serving spoons. Trying to do clean up in the bathroom sink or bath tub turned out to be a royal pain. The kitchen sink was too small and bath tub too awkward. I ended up on my knees a couple times trying to clean dishes in the bath tub, it was hard on my knees (I've had 3 knees surgeries) and somewhat messy. If you've got some other type of sink arrangement for clean up other than your bathroom, it may be easier for you to cook at home during your remodel. Clean-up was the one thing for which we hadn't really anticipated or made a really viable plan. We ended up going to plastic utensils and paper plates and bowls (i.e. like Chinet) and those worked well. We could just toss the plates and wash the plastic utensils and reuse them a few times.

Our remodel was supposed to be 8 weeks, it took 16. We ended up eating out or getting take-out to bring home 90% of the time. We were never so glad to get a kitchen back so we could eat "real" food. When you're forced to eat out almost every meal the allure wears off quickly. It wasn't so much the food as it was being able to get our time back. We lost about 2 - 2 1/2 hours each evening we went out because we had to drive to a restaurant, be seated, order, eat, drive home, and it always seemed to take way longer than it should have.

BTW, if you eat it, add Peanut Butter to your list. And good luck. In spite of the hassles we LOVE our new kitchen, gigantic improvement over what we had.

[gordeaux]

DD. - And others, of course, thanx.
I already know that realistically, we won't be cooking @ home that much at all. Sandwiches, and grocery store hot / ready foods will probably be our best bet. We have tons of plasticware, paper plates ready to go, and also have a big stand up tub in the laundry room. Kept plenty of tupper for leftovers as well. We set $ aside for the dining out, and live in a big city with plenty of great/cheap dives, diners, and all kinds of ethnic choices.

"When you're forced to eat out almost every meal the allure wears off quickly."
THIS was the reason for my post. Thank you for putting it into words for me. I cook dinner 5 times a week, and we're just not fast food ppl at all. Was just looking for some things that would be quick/easy things for the shopping list that I may have been overlooking in the midst of this chaos.

We bought this place about 5 yrs ago and have been saving up for this moment. The kitchen is currently 19X6, and full of avocado green metal cabinets, no dw, and the fridge and oven are from the early 70's. We have been using it for this long, and we both know that it will take time, but we also know that everything will be done correctly.

[Sherri]

Gordeaux, I've done both a kitchen remodel and cooked on a sailboat. As strange as it may sound, they have similarities - lack of space for prep and cleanup being a major one.

One pot anything that does not require a lot of prep is very helpful. Most of us think "oh, I'll just make sandwiches/burgers because they're easy". Ha! With limited counter space, assembling all the ingredients is a hassle. Lay out bread, mayo on one side, mustard on the other, meat & cheese, now the lettuce tomato etc. I count seven separate ingredients which must be assembled, opened, used and put away again -- all this for a sandwich?

For less work, a green chile pork stew or French country chicken is possible. The crockpot will be your friend, especially if you use paper and plastic utensils. Also, take advantage of what my SIL calls "Can-Can" cooking during this time.

Prepping more than a single meal at a time will also be helpful. If chopping onions, chop an extra so it is ready to go without the drama of doing it twice. I know it sounds silly but skinning and chopping an onion is a pain. I had to suck up my "food nobility" ideas because sometimes there's nothing better than a burrito and a beer!

I love that you sound so realistic about the upcoming job. Six weeks does sound very optimistic, but in the great scheme, you'll have a new kitchen at the end of however long it takes. Buy champagne!

[Niki in Dayton]

Five years ago, we too did a "down to the studs" kitchen remodel. My husband is a plumber, and because we had two baths, our solution for cleanup was to install a portable kitchen sink in the "guest" bath. DH hooked up a plastic sink (on legs), with a flexible sprayer thingy (techincal term :-) that connected the water. We had to scrape dishes really well though, since there was no garbage disposal, and really grotty things got soaked, then scraped outside.

Back to the OP's question: I agree with DiningDiva, you need to buy plastic utensils, paper plates (and bowls), cheap glad-ware type plastic containers, and lots of paper towels!

Good luck, and best wishes that you'll enjoy your new kitchen as much as I enjoy mine!

[rockycat]

Just finished a remodel last week (too late to do T-Day at home - envision "happy dance" here). The 2 most useful things we had? Coupons from our favorite Chinese take-out and pizza place.
We started with great intentions about good eating but I actually ended up putting on weight between the stress and the complete impracticality of actually cooking in a construction zone. Fridge sitting in the middle of the living room, toaster on the dining room table, every downstairs surface covered with boxes of pots, pans, and assorted kitchen detritus. I think my daughter took PB&J to school every day for a month because I couldn't find much else in all the mess.
Happy with the results? Yes, I am. Now, if I could just break the mu shu pork addiction...

Btw, get lots and lots of plastic silverware. You'll use more than you can imagine.

[dolores]

You can make chili in the crock pot? All the fixings for a Mexican meal would be my suggestion.

Tostitos lime tortilla chips and Paul Newman salsa are my new favorites.

Oh, and don't forget the margaritas!

[Cathy]

You have everything else that is in a kitchen to make meals except a stove. Get the electric fry pan (you don't eat eggs? It works like a fry pan and a pot.). If you have to, you could 'bake' in the roaster. Buy your usual stuff since you have a fridge and freezer.

Make sure there are knives, a cutting board and can opener. You'll be doing dishes in the bathroom sink or tub, so make sure you have a drying rack.

Otherwise there are no special foods you need to buy.

[Soop]

Aghh! hehe, I thought this would be for saucepans and stuff like that :)

Lets see... you could probably buy a nice whole ham and a lot of cheese for cheaper per lb than normal. With the cereal, you could get some granola that would serve just as well as a desert? Or to sprinkle on icecream ^__^

Not sure really...