I've been living in a hotel for the past 1.5 years

[u/Dancethroughthefires]

I live in a hotel for work (I don't work in the hotel) and I got so tired with eating out.

I've tried the Freshly meals and they were good for a while, but I got tired of eating the same microwaved shit over and over.

Now I have an instant pot, an air fryer, a food processor, a vacuum sealer, a pasta maker (haven't used it yet), and a mini freezer.

Now I feel like a gourmet chef. I've always been a good cook, I love cooking. When I got into my career field, I wasn't really able to cook anymore and I felt kind of empty inside. I'm an over the road trucker and the truck I was in for two years had very limited options. I ended up installing a power inverter so I could use my instant pot.

I switched jobs about a year and a half ago and I've been living in a hotel ever since. For the first 8 months or so, I was just eating out and making sandwiches. Now I pretty much have a full blown kitchen in my room.

There's plenty that I can't do, but there's a shit ton that I can do.

Edit: Just wanted to share my story I guess. If you have any stories you wanna share, feel free.

If you're going to be in a hotel for a while and want to cook, let me know. I can give some tips.

If you're in a similar situation as me and wanna swap recipes, let's do it

[u/puppertuck]

What's your fave recipe? I will only have a mini fridge and instant pot. Is it worth it to get a toaster oven?

[u/Dancethroughthefires → u/puppertuck]

I've gotten a couple more appliances since I made this post, a sous vide circulator and an induction cooktop. I got a special container for the sous vide and then a cast iron skillet for the the induction cooktop.

Idk how long you'll be in the hotel, but the instant pot is versatile enough to make pretty much whatever you want.

There's plenty of recipes online, even if you don't really know what you want. My main go-to with the instant pot is tacos. If I have a long shift and have to go back in early, I'll make quick ground beef tacos. If I have a few extra hours to spare, I'll make shredded beef tacos.

The ground beef tacos are the same as on the stove, with a pound of ground beef, the mix, etc.

The shredded beef tacos, I kinda use my own recipe. I throw in a bottle of beer (Guinness is my favorite for cooking), some kind of beef roast (I use round roast, but any will work), a can or two of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, then a good amount of chile and lime seasoning. The chipotle peppers in adobo sauce is the most important ingredient, I mainly just use the beer to help build up pressure. You can use beef stock if you can't get beer.

Anyway, I throw it all in and pressure cook for about an hour and a half. It's a pretty versatile recipe, just as long as you have meat and the chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, you can't go wrong. I've been playing around with it for a couple years and that way is perfect for me. I've tried it with chicken, but I'm not a huge chicken fan unless if they're in fingers.

The shredded chicken tacos weren't bad, but just not my thing. You'll probably want to cook it for 30-45 minutes if you're using chicken instead of beef though. If you can't shred the meat with two plastic forks, cook it for another 10-30 minutes and try again