We blew our budget through the atmosphere during our 12 days in New York City. Most of that was because we ate out every night in an expensive city. Then we were under budget on the island of Antigua because we used our kitchen and ate in 8 of the 10 nights. Next we arrived to our beautiful resort in Turks and Caicos. A generous room, with a fridge, sink, washer/dryer and microwave. So I got busy figuring out how to stay on budget with hotel microwave cooking.

Hotel Microwave Cooking

I have a microwave at home, but it is not a source for cooking for me. I use it only occasionally to reheat food, or cook frozen vegetables. I’ve never made an entire meal in a microwave. So I went to my favorite recipe source – Pinterest of course, for hotel microwave cooking ideas.

Here in Turks and Caicos everything is expensive. And we really try to stay within our budget, which is how we sustain long term travel. Groceries are expensive, but eating out is even more expensive. So our nine nights at the Royal West Indies Resort meant hotel microwave cooking more than half of those.

Breakfast

We always eat a bowl of fruit, spinach, quinoa, yogurt, and nuts for breakfast. But I had never cooked quinoa in the microwave before. But, yes you can. And the nice thing about quinoa is you can also make other great meals with it using pre-cooked chicken from the grocery store, beans and veg. It’s a wonderful staple that is part of my daily diet.

Quinoa in the Microwave

I never knew you could make hard boiled eggs in the microwave….what planet have I been on? This is revelation for me, because we each eat a hard boiled egg every morning with our breakfast bowl. Here’s how;

Hard Boiled Eggs in the Microwave

Tip – we found these turned out best only doing four at a time. We did six minutes so times might vary for each microwave.

And we also enjoyed microwave omelet;

Omelet in the Microwave

Tip – I didn’t have cooking spray but olive oil or butter works fine. I used a bowl not a mug and this is essentially scrambled eggs not an omelet. I added cheddar, spinach and green onion. I had heavy cream from the pasta the night before (see below) and used that instead of milk. I cooked the eggs a total of 4 min stirring every 30 sec. Microwave cooking time will vary.

Dinner

I made four dinners, two of them using the microwave.

Microwave Risotto

Tip – this was a bit messy, but ended up tasting great. It took longer than I thought it would.

I made a parmesan spinach version.

Creamy Tomato Rigatoni

Tip – the pasta took 15 min. A smaller pasta probably wouldn’t take as long. After 15 min our microwave overheated and we had to let it cool down before we could continue. I cooked onions and garlic in butter then added canned tomatoes and heavy cream to make it creamy as well as parmesan.

Without using the microwave we also had a very yummy Swiss cheese and turkey on Toast with a cucumber tomato salad as well as a salad with store bought cooked chicken and lots of other store bought yummy ingredients. You can also cook bacon in the microwave and make BLT’s.

Stay On Budget With Creative Cooking

We don’t travel like we are on vacation. We travel like we are living a regular day…it just so happens to be in an exotic location. And this is how we stay on budget, experience the local culture and feel a little tiny bit like a local. It’s what we set out to do more than six years ago when we started the Grand Adventure, and we have made it work. This is how we sustain long term travel – by cooking in our Airbnb and occasionally in our hotel. Thanks for reading my blog post Hotel Microwave Cooking. Watch for next Friday’s post all about the Royal West Indies Resort in Turks and Caicos.

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See last week’s post The Birds of Antigua.

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