(warm) lunch/dinner ideas in a studio?

Hunclemarco

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Joined
May 30, 2008
Messages
2,180
Hello all

I'm looking for ideas for warm lunches/dinners prepared in a deluxe studio. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks! :thumbsup2

Ps. we'll be feeding for 4 people
 
I've heard of people bringing their own small size George Foreman grills and cooking steaks. Based on my college experience, I can tell you that a Rib Eye steak will actually cook very nicely on a GF grill. About 3 minutes on each side for medium rare.

This is assuming you're getting groceries delivered or you have a car, of course.

For my last studio stay, I was going to buy Sourdough bread bowls and cans of Progresso Clam Chowder to make our own soup bowls (but we got too lazy). I've done it at home and its super easy and a very fun meal.
 
I think one of your the biggest hurdles is going to be to have the right containers / utensils available to use in the micowave - stuff you'd have to bring from home as the studios are not supplied with anything "real". Are you driving?

There are plenty of pretty decent frozen meals that can be prepared in the microwave (Bertolli, PF Changs etc) but you'd need to bring a large bowl of some sort to heat them in as they're packaged in large bags that are not microwaveable. You'll also want to be sure to have some larger thick paper plates on hand I would think...

You could get some of those pre-cooked Perdue chicken strips and warm those in the microwave - then you could use them to make a chicken caesar salad or you could get tortillas and shredded cheese and use them with the chicken strips to make quesadillas in the microwave. I personally use the toaster a lot. You could make toast and tuna salad and make "tuna melts". I have also used the pre-cooked bacon several times - you could make BLT's or Club sandwiches.

How about baked potatoes?! There are also a lot of soups now that come in microwave containers. So you could do a combo with soup and a salad or sandwich.

Nachos are another option. You could get a jar of salsa, tortilla chips & shredded cheese...I've been known to use items from a salad bar for condiments for nachos. If you're grocery shopping down there you might find a store that has a salad bar. You could pick up some chopped lettuce, pre-chopped tomatoes, olives, sour cream, jalapenos etc without having to buy individual packages of each (other than a bag of cheese)...just get what you'd need for one meal from the salad bar. Maybe somebody can tell you which grocery store has a salad bar?!

The San Giorgio brand of pasta now has "Pasta Portions" which are a quick cook pasta. They are individually sized portions of pasta (like Rotini) that comes in a boil-in-bag so you don't need a strainer.:thumbsup2 (I picked up some of these for quick meals for my son who's a swimmer & goes thru a lot of carbs.) They take only 3 min. to boil on the stove but they also have microwave directions - I have not tried making them in the microwave but the box says to use 2 cups of water in a 1 quart bowl and microwave for 5 minutes. Then you could just heat up a jar of your fav. pasta sauce whether it's a marinara or pesto or alfredo. OH, here's a thought...you could use those Perdue chicken strips I mentioned before & make pasta with Alfredo sauce and chicken.

For studio breakfasts I have also made poached eggs and the pre-cooked bacon in the microwave and then toasted English Muffins (+ added a slice of cheese) to make breakfast sandwiches.

Good luck - I'm sure others will chime in with other ideas.

Personally, I think your biggest challenge about planning any of this is the lack of counter space in many of the studios. There is not always very much room to work with. Some are bigger than others. The kitchenettes at Kidani Village are a joke while the ones at HHI are HUGE and the ones at say Boardwalk Villas or Wildnerness Lodge are sized somewhere in-between.
 
Thank you for the suggestions. We were originally going to use the dining plan, but with TIW, we figured that would be the better way to go. Then in budgeting, i just figured about $15 per person for lunch, but then went that step further and thought of bringing some groceries in. We generally plan on lots of drinks and snacks, but haven't done much in a way of meals in the studios. When we stayed in 2 bedroom units, we always had breakfast and leftovers at the resort. I'm sure we'll still go out for lunch from time to time, and many times we make our lunch the main meal of the day, and then small dinner or snack our way through the rest of the day. In looking over the menu's i see that getting a Pizza would be reasonable too.

We just got a 2nd Owners Locker planned for our next visit, so i'm sure we'll probably add a slow cooker and/or GF to it as well. (Oh, Thanks again for our first OL referral Annie :))

Looking forward to other suggestions :thumbsup2
 

Our biggest problem with eating in a Studio has always been having a place to eat comfortably.

We usually only do quick breakfasts or we make sandwiches to bring down to the pool area to eat.

We usually stay at Jambo if we need to stay in a studio and use the restaurants more than when we stay in a larger room.

Be careful ordering frozen foods. Most of the studio Refrigerators don't have much of a freezer.
 
Hot dogs and chips? Or Tyson "grilled and ready" chicken with a Steamfresh bag of pasta and veggies
 











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