If you live in a cramped dorm room or a studio apartment with a pseudo-kitchen, you can still cook yourself elaborate, gourmet meals — as long as you have a coffee maker.
According to NPR, you can make yourself a perfectly legitimate dinner this way. For example: poach some salmon with garlic, ginger and soy in the carafe, and then steam some broccoli cauliflower in the basket above.
The chefs over at Chow say you can also cook up oatmeal, hardboiled eggs or grilled cheese, all using your coffeepot. But why stop there? Chow also suggests crafting some chocolate fondue for dessert. The Swedish blog Kaffekokarkokboken (yes, that’s its real name) has come up with recipes for pumpkin soup, chutney and cinnamon buns — again, all made entirely in what you once thought was just a rinky-dink, one-note appliance. Shame on you.
Okay, so a freshman living in a dorm probably wouldn’t make any of this stuff, but apparently this method has actually been useful to soldiers with limited cooking resources. NPR’s The Salt explains:
“My nephew came home from Afghanistan complaining about the food in the mess hall,” says Jody Anderson, a retired photographer in southern Oregon. “But the soldiers were allowed only to have coffee makers in their rooms.”
So Anderson started developing recipes for the coffee maker, including ones for mac ‘n’ cheese, short ribs and chicken soup.
“I put all my recipes in a little book and sent it over to the boys in Afghanistan,” she tells The Salt.
So there you have it. Coffeemaker cooking is indeed a thing — at least for our troops stationed overseas. If you decide to try this at home, though, just be careful you don’t end up like Andy on Parks and Rec:
