Re-heating food with just a kettle - possible?

[JQ]

Is there a way of heating homemade pre-cooked pasta dishes in an office environment with just an electric kettle for heat?

I'm getting really bored of sandwiches, salad and cold pasta at lunchtime and would like to reduce my bread intake. Previously we had a microwave in the office which enabled me to heat up pasta dishes brought in from home. The microwave has now been removed and will not be returning. Is there perhaps a device into which you pour boiling water which then heats food in a seperate container? I realise it won't be piping hot but even lukewarm would be better than cold pasta. Google has not proved helpful and I guess I could try to rig something up myself but I'd rather just buy something off the shelf.

Also would it actually work? Or would the water cool too quickly to provide a useful heat source once out of the kettle and in contact with receptacle holding cold pasta?

[JQ]

Nyphur said:

http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/hi-gear-portable-gas-c...

I do a fair bit of camping and have a variety of cooking devices but I think they'd last 2 minutes before the Health and Safety Nazi (sorry Office Manager) went nuts. Naked flames are definitely out of the question.

I'll certainly have a look at the kettles, but I suspect I may need rig something up myself, as bringing my own kettle in may also cause H&S issues. Dragons Den here I come, I'll be a millionaire next year Rodney!

Anyone any thoughts on whether it would actually work, ie produce enough heat?

[JQ]

condor said:

I used to have a travel kettle that you could use to heat up soups etc.

You could always buy a food thermos flask.

Why has the microwave gone? - can't you just buy a replacement and use that?

Would a Thermos keep pasta hot enough, probably looking a 6hrs from micowave at home to lunchtime. Soups tend to go into a Thermos at boiling point, I can't imagine pasta would be anywhere near as hot, but I could be totally wrong. Anyone used one?

Microwave went because of misuse (users not cleaning it) but mainly because we moved offices and our new kitchen is now in an open area adjacent to our reception - the powers that be are not keen on people heating up Kippers 5 mins before a client walks in, fair enough really. Hence why doing anything that appears to be "cooking" such as using a stove or having my own kettle will likely be frowned upon. I figured pouring hot water into a small device to warm up pasta would go by un-noticed.

[JQ]

dienamic said:

http://www.gizmag.com/trekmates-flameless-stove/23... or buy a food flask

That is bloody brilliant, so my idea was not as stupid as I first thought it was. However, I'm not sure I could live with £1.30 per meal for the fuel sticks, being the tightwad that I am.

I'll give the vaccuum sealing a go in the first instance, as that would also enable the freezing of large quantities of individual meals which can be defrosted whilst in work and then stuck in the kettle at lunchtime.

Cheers for the help.

[JQ]

Well after some further googling, it does appear someone has invented an actual device for heating food at your desk, but it's only available in the States. The Ebay seller refuses to even respond to emails from overseas customers. I'll do some further Googling and see if I can get one sent over:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Crock-Pot-SCCPLC200-R-20...

[JQ]

duckers26 said:

What about the pasta pots? Bit like pot noodle where you rehydrate with boiling water. No idea what they taste like!

The Bombay Badboy tastes delicious, but as I'm doing this for a combination of cost saving and healthy living, I suspect the nutritional content of a Pot Noodle will be pretty poor in comparison to a home made Pasta Arabiata, made with fresh ingredients and wholewheat pasta, so that's not a long term solution.

[JQ]

Pete Franklin said:

Put the pasta in a ziplock bag and spread it out so it is no more than 1inch thick, get as much air out by either sucking the opening or submerging the bag in water, being careful not to get water in the opening. Put the bag in a large tupperwear container and put in about a litre of boiling water. the pasta should be warm enough in about 20mins. This is about the time it takes to bring something of that thickness back up to temp~60dc in sv cooking and I recon the final temp should be about 60dc assuming half the volume of food to boiling water. Too many variables to know for sure though.

As we have both ziplock bags and a tupperware collection with which we could probably move house, this sounds like a possible cheap solution.

I'll give it a go next week and report back with my findings.