fetchpriority=”high” decoding=”async” class=”alignleft size-full wp-image-162052″ src=”https://thinktasty1.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Boxes-filled-with-dishes.jpg” alt=”boxes-filled-with-dishes” width=”400″ height=”400″ srcset=”https://www.thinktasty.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Boxes-filled-with-dishes.jpg 400w, https://www.thinktasty.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Boxes-filled-with-dishes-150×150.jpg 150w, https://www.thinktasty.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Boxes-filled-with-dishes-300×300.jpg 300w, https://www.thinktasty.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Boxes-filled-with-dishes-170×170.jpg 170w” sizes=”(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px” />As I write this, I am slightly more than halfway through my month of living in a hotel. I have spent the last couple weeks trying to deny the fact that I didn’t have a kitchen, as you saw in last week’s recipes. I’ve found this kitchen-less existence to be challenging to my cooking and my way of living and thinking. See, for me, I like not only to work with food but also to think about it. While driving, I like to plan meals that I’ll make, ingredients I’ll buy, utensils that I’ll use.

Living in a hotel was challenging not only because I was limited to a microwave. It was limiting in the space of our suite. Where would one serve a dinner of soup? It gets a bit tricky. Plus, with less space, I try not to be in the hotel for overly long periods of awake time. It never felt like it would induce claustrophobia, but I didn’t want to find out if that could happen.

As you read this, I am two days away from moving into my new home. I’m sure I’ll be excited and ready to set up all of my rooms. I know that unpacking will take time, as will figuring out the layout of my new kitchen. It will be a slightly smaller kitchen, but it also will be a blank slate. There will be decisions- which appliance goes where, how to organize my spices, and many other thoughts for this room alone.

Although it may take a few days to get the dust settled, it will be exciting to know that even as I unpack I’ll be able to cook so many more things than I could in the hotel. Something as simple as cooking an egg white omelet will once again be an option. It truly can be the littlest things that are exciting.

While I spend this week packing up the hotel and unpacking in our new home, you will have the second set of recipes from my hotel cooking experiment. Once again I have two recipes that can be made with only access to a microwave. One makes a fine appetizer or accoutrement for a main dish; the other is a fine ending to a meal. Although I’m hoping not to be limited to microwave-only cooking in the near future, it was a challenge accepted and, I believe, completed successfully.