Moved MPSIMS --> Cafe Society.
I got along for two years on a toaster oven and an electric skillet. Did you know you can bake bread in a skillet?
When I was about 15, I cooked for three people for an entire year in an electric skillet because our stove was broken and my father was too depressed to get it fixed. We didn’t have a microwave. I made pasta, cake, baked potatoes, and [del]anger[/del] casseroles. And, as Lanzy says, bread.
Ah, this brings back memories. In my first apartment, the summer after my sophomore year of college, I had a hotplate. They’re great for cooking grilled cheese and pretty much anything out of a can, though they can take forever to heat up a large pot of water.
I lived for three years in an apartment without a full-sized stove. I had a two-burner countertop unit, a decent-sized microwave, and a large toaster oven (big enough to roast a small chicken in, or a full-sized pie).
The only time I got frustrated was when I’d attempt to cook a full meal, because I had such limited equipment and needed to make sure my menu didn’t require more than I had (like, three things on the stovetop at once, or two things in the oven). I couldn’t do a roast chicken AND roast potatoes, because the oven didn’t have the capacity for both… and something like pasta and sauce would use up my entire burner quota, so boiling anything else was out of the question. Also, I couldn’t use the microwave and the toaster oven at the same time, because the entire kitchen ran on a single circuit, and too many appliances at once would blow a fuse. That kitchen was a great lesson in project management. 
Basically, it’s do-able, but it gets really frustrating if you’re a big-time baker, or if you regularly make big dinners for more than two people.
When I’m away doing a show, I’m in either an apartment, a hotel, a homestay or sometimes an ‘actor house’, depending entirely on the company and the city. As a result, over the last 27 years, I think I’ve cooked for myself in just about every arrangement that’s possible. You adapt your cooking and grocery buying to whatever you have to cook it in. A thing I like doing is having a cast pot-luck dinner after we’ve opened the show so that everyone can show off their flexibility and inventiveness. Sort of like “Iron Chef - the campus dorm version”.
If you don’t have a microwave, you can make soup out of all your leftovers. If you only have two burners, you make a lot more dishes that are one-pot ‘stews’. If you only have a toaster oven, you can still do lots of things au gratin. Out of all the possibilities, the one I like the least is the arrangement where all I have is a microwave - I’m old fashioned, I know, but I prefer to see and hear exactly what’s going on with something that I’m boiling rather than depending on the timer.
Stoves and ovens are handy, but not essential. (Mind you, one of the great pleasures after being in a makeshift kitchen for 4 weeks is coming home where everything is laid out the way I want it.)
All we had in China for the past year was a hotplate and a microwave. My wife and I used it but we didn’t really thrive with it (spaghetti, grilled cheese, etc.). Plus, we had to plan out any elaborate meals ahead of time with only one burner.
We splurged this year and bought an oven from IKEA (WAY over priced, but cheap for China) and love it. We made Christmas cookies, cheesecake, brownies, baked pastas and casseroles. Without a doubt, we are oven loving Americans living in the land that doesn’t know what an oven is.
Need? No
Want desperately? For us, Yes.
We lived for fourteen months with just two gas burners. We’re both pretty serious cooks, and I must say we produced some amazing food with just those two burners. I think the thing I recall least expecting to work was when I baked a quiche in a frying pan.
Back in my university days, I lived in a motel room with a small kitchenette.
It had the neatest setup, with a unit that had a fridge in the bottom, a sink on top, and to the left of it on the same countertop, two burners. No oven, and I didn’t even bother with a microwave.
It was limiting, but as I lived alone at the time, I could do bacon and eggs, chili, spaghetti, and stir fries easily. I had a really big pot that I could deep-fry in, so that wasn’t a problem either. The only other appliances I had was a coffeemaker and a toaster. Sure, it was limiting, but nothing I couldn’t work around, but it did mean no roasting.
Thankfully, I drove home every weekend (~120 miles north), so it didn’t become a major problem.
My mother made thanksgiving turkey in the microwave (whole bird!) throughout my childhood. Took about an hour.
Probably why I hated turkey growing up, but it can be done.
My oven died right before Thanksgiving this year, and I couldn’t get a repairman to come in time. I bought one of those countertop “NuWave” (infrared + convection) ovens. It was the single best turkey (actually a turkey breast) I’ve ever made. For $85 I got a machine which can do up to a 14 pound turkey,a nd much better than my oven ever did.
Poultry comes out so juicy it’s almost off-putting, like having turkey-flavored Prime Rib in your mouth. I tried to do ana ctual Prime Rib roast and that didn’t work so well. It came out Pittsburgh style (aka Black and Blue), but that may be user error.
It’s not good for baking, as the heat comes from the top and so things don’t rise well. But yeah, you’d miss out on very little if you had that plus a hot plate and microwave. And it breaks down fairly small for storage when not in use.
Haven’t ever turned the stoves on in any of my last 6 abodes over many years. Eat out a lot. Use microwave and toaster at home.
Actually, this would be a good time to mention the late James Barber. My sister Elspeth saved my life in University when she gave me his cookbooks “Ginger Tea Makes Friends” and “Fear of Frying”. His entire philosophy of cuisine was centered around two ideas - ‘it didn’t matter if you were missing an ingredient - substitute’ and that ‘you could cook entire meals in a nice large fry pan’. I danced for joy the day I discovered that his website was back up as a memorial tribute.
Grilled cheese, no. But bacon? I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t tried it myself, but, surprisingly, the microwave does a damned good job with bacon, if you like really crispy bacon. (I make mine on a pan, though, as it’s much easier to do a lot of bacon and I have to keep my cast-iron up and well-seasoned, and what better way to do it than frying bacon.)
Speaking of alternative kitchen setups, I’ll share some stories from Cameroon.
Where I lived, everyone cooked over fire- usually balancing their pots over three rocks. Everyone from the market ladies to the mayor cooked like this. Even restaurants cooked in open fires. The few people who could invest in gas were terrified of it. So wood (and sometimes charcoal) ruled the day. The teachers at my school were always complaining about the rising prices of firewood.
I learned the value of this method when my school hosted a party. On the day of the party, the men went off to play soccer while the women (including me) prepared a meal for about a hundred people. I showed up on time and found all of the women of our school along with an assortment of daughters, servants and probably random people sent by the male teachers. Pots were not a problem- in north Cameroon pots are the traditional wedding present. People would receive literally hundreds of pots, which would be displayed proudly (often the china cabinet was a household’s only piece of furniture) for the rest of her life.
Everyone got to work. It’s like everyone knew exactly what to do- chickens were killed, tomatoes got sliced, plantains got fried. The women knew exactly how to prepare such a huge feast with no stress We all just laughed, sang and gossiped the whole time. I’d seen it before- Cameroonian women could whip up a meal for thirty people without thinking twice. Since I never masted the method of cutting vegetables in my hand without a cutting board, I was assigned to make the hard dry yellow cake you always find at a Cameroonian feast. I think I had to mix up ten of them. My arms hurt for days.
When it came time to cook, the just set up a dozen fires around the yard. A normal backyard had suddenly become a mass scale industrial kitchen. It amazed me that they could even bake cakes over an open fire- and indeed would never think of doing it any other way.
Cameroonians like to celebrate, so we had quite a few of these parties during my time there. Sitting there chatting with my friends, breathing the wood smoke, and getting stuff done will remain on of my cherished memories of my time there, and I have enormous respect for the strength and industry of these woman.
My junior year of college, still in the dorm, they stopped making us buy a meal plan. I cooked for two years using just a double hot plate and a toaster oven - this was years before consumer microwaves. Didn’t make a turkey, but we did make duck once. I got to be a very excellent meatloaf cook. So you definitely can do it.
No you do not need a stove.
I just *need *to be able to boil water. My first year and a half of college most of my dinners came out of a 1 quart hot pot. Not a crockpot, just a 1 quart thing you plugged into the wall to boil water in it.
That said, I certainly prefer to have access to a more completely equipped kitchen.
Having owned almost every heating appliance known to mankind in my possession over my life, you can get most of your cooking done. The exceptions are:
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[li]Pastries[/li][li]Keeping the other dishes warm while you finish your entrees.[/li][/ul]
A convection oven might work, but it would take up space that I assume you need.
You might make me do some testing to see if I could live without mine…Wait, you can’t…I broil lobster tails and steaks with it…
This person needs an oven. I used mine last night to bake some pork chops in tomato sauce with green peppers, onions, red pepper flakes and other seasonings. Yumm. I make roasts all the time, and often throw in some potatoes to bake. There’s no other way to get that nice baked potato skin that I know of. I suppose I could work around an oven using all sorts of countertop appliances and such but why when an oven is available.