Hotel Room Cooking

My husband and I are looking into a weekend trip to Berlin (probably no Milan- too many hidden costs and no good hotels). We think we found a great hotel for an average of $55 (43 euros) a night, but if we want to get breakfast it's a whole 18 Euros ($23.50)! I saw even worse in Stockholm. Not only is this a ridiculous amount to spend on breakfast when you don't know what it is before hand, but I don't really eat breakfast. I'm just not hungry first things. (I read some where ages ago that you can still get the benefits of breakfast if you eat something at 10 instead of immediately after you wake up.)

Basic supplies:

• Your hotel will probably supply you with simple flat- and silver ware if you ask at the front desk.
• It can take a bit of looking, but you can find small boxed of shelf stable milk- like juice boxes complete with a straw- for coffee or to have at night with cookies! 
• Eggs are nearly always refrigerated in the US, but they're just stacked in the aisle in the grocery stores here. If you're going to be staying somewhere for a few days it's probably find to buy a small carton and leave it out. 
• If you don't have baggage restrictions (like you're driving or taking a train) bring an electric kettle with you. Some hotels in Europe will supply one in the room along with or instead of a coffee maker, so you might want to call or email ahead to see if they can give you one otherwise.
• if you want to get super fancy, and you don't have to save on space or weight, bring garlic powder and another spice or two with you. (We'd probably bring ginger and cayenne). Obviously, you don't want to bring a whole spice rack backpacking through Europe, but a bit of garlic can go a long way.

Creative Cooking

• You can boil eggs in an electric kettle. You can also soft boil hem by letting the hot water from a coffee maker drip over it. This is a great way to make breakfast without having to pay for the whole buffet. If you have access to an electric kettle and brought some packets of mayonnaise and mustard, etc from a fastfood joint with you, you can even make deviled eggs, like this one I made today in an old electric kettle:

Wow! Perfect!

I just used mayonnaise and mustard for these, and tried to use as few dishes as possible. Normally I'd add minced onion, garlic and a few other things. These came out quite good, although I used too much mustard and not enough mayonnaise

• Tortellini with spinach and English muffins - using a hot lamp and a kettle (this might be a little more cost effective if you make it for two or more people):  
• If you buy some partially prepared food with a sauce in a pouch, you may be able to heat it up by putting it in a bowl filled with hot water to warm it up - no use cooking pasta with a kettle if you have to add cold sauce to it! 
• Rumor has it you can use the hotplate/warmer on the coffee pot 
• to heat up a cup of soup
• make pancakes on! and if you can make pancakes, you can make crepes! Things just got even fancier!
• grilled cheese

I'm hesitant about these, since I think the result would taste like coffee. Then again, I know you clean coffee makers by running water mixed with vinegar through them and they can recover from that.

• Steam Vegetables in the basket of the coffee maker. You'll have to run it through a few times.
• Make Ramen or Pasta in the carafe

Finally, I've seen a lot of recommendations for making grilled cheese with an iron by ironing the sandwich between two pieces of foil, but this seems unnecessarily dangerous, and if you're traveling with your kids it might be a bad example.