My toaster oven IRL is a very busy oven. In fact it's busier than the large one underneath the stove. It toasts my bagels in the morning, it's used to cook salmon filet in the evening, and we even baked a small pizza in it. I've never had anything burn in it.

You must understand my surprise when the toaster oven in The Sims 1 was almost a guaranteed Sim-flesh BBQ for dinner! Which is why I never really invested into those toaster ovens and just bought my Sims a microwave to cook food in.

For more use-able surfaces in a small area use Merola's end table and counter dressers. Along with the small fridge, a counter/dresser (will not work with sink, but other items do work) and also the corner counter I think from Marylou and/or Numenor on MTS. The corner counter can have an appliance set on angle and is accessible to sim use. The end table dressers can be used beside beds and does not block access like a dresser would. You can also place a lamp or whatever on them. There is the Fret No More bookcase, empty, with 12 slots that can hold other objects when there is no other space to add a radio, phone or any other needed or deco objects.

You don't have to have a food source in an apartment at all. I've made little tiny single room apartments with vending machines in the common area, or over a restaurant using MogHughson's hack for that. It's a little more expensive to survive, but the sort of just starting out broke recent high school grad who rents them can usually get Mom or Dad to gift him a plate of leftovers when he's invited over for dinner.

But usually I use Targa's hacked mini-fridge here: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=252826 and a microwave.

What kind of apartment is it ScaryRob? I've seen lots of good ideas, but they don't work with every type of set up.

My hostel uses a cafeteria and a patched shinytime cooktop which spawns a cafeteria worker so they eat the same food they would get at a uni dorm. Most of the rooms only have room for a mini fridge and some not even that. The smallest room there has a bed and that's it! Costs $61.

So is this for single sims, well of sims? Poor sims? Families? My units with the 3 tile kitchens are for families while my hostel is more for the poor and single although I did get a family of four in the largest room and they shared the double bed for a season until they could afford something a little better. In my other small unit apartment I squuezed four kids into one of the tiny bedrooms using two bunk beds.

Honestly it's actually cheaper ordering takeaway for 7 days or using a buffet, it's like over 500 simoleons to fill up your fridge and it lasts like 7 sim days :\ lol while chinese has like 8 servings and it's only 30 bucks and when the other food goes off on the buffet table you still have gelatin that lasts a couple days before it goes off.That chinese feed the family twice just put it in your sims inventory after they have all taken some or only take it out for them to take some out when they are hungry then put it back in so it doesn't go off.I don't cheat any more like i used to so i've just come to realize when i'm not giving them simoleons all the time how much stuff is.

That's why nearly all my sims garden. Once you have bought a compost bin, garden plot and a few lady bird houses you are good to go. Compost everything so fertilizer is free and then you have a source of food, fun and money. Grow egg plants and other juicer combinations and it will also give other benefits like free skills.

I will try this but i have a hard time even growing 2 tomato plants lol i can't always be keeping an eye on them and not pull off the weeds even after a sim hour or 2 and they start going down hill, it's difficult.

There is also the option to go fishing on a community lot and grill fish. This gives the fresh food effect and is more filling. You also don't need cooking skills for the fish. Fish stored in inventory doesn't go bad. If there is a grill on the apartment lot, they could live off the fish meals. Most community lots have a decent grill replacing those cheap hunger 1 grills.

You need cooking points for higher-value fish. Once when experimenting I had the Travellers staying at the campground and they had fish out the wazoo, because that pond there is way overstocked, but they had no bass, which is the one you can cook with no cooking points at all. So they could only grill hot dogs with an inventory bursting with fish. It was very sad.

I may do that if i can't get gardening right, they stand a better chance when i fertilize them but they aren't exaclty the healthiest tomatoes, i can manage fruit trees though so i may just get them to live off juice and fish.

Depending on what the lot looks like, you could perhaps add a cheap grill in the outdoor community area (if there is one). Hot dogs, at least, don't require counter space to be prepared. Not sure about hamburgers, ribs, or fresh fish, since they can be prepared straight away on a community lot with just a grill, but at home sims will use a counter for the prep...

Or, skip the microwave and use the top of the fridge as counter space. Cereal, lunch sandwiches, and chef salads.

Compost or fertilizer I don't think matters, but I prefer compost as it's free and it's natural. Fertilizer will cost them $10 per plant. I know they are pixels but still...
lady bug house, one per about 5 plants. Again you can spray but I prefer organic and it keeps them from getting sick from the bugs.
Then plant your tomatoes in summer for best results. It doesn't matter if they are bland for stocking the fridge, quality only matters for the juicer if you want the benefits. So long as you harvest them before they are dead. The more your sims garden the better they will get. Kids love to pull those weeds and water it's a great fun builder.

You can stock the fridge with tree fruits as well and use them in normal cooking. I'm not exactly sure how an orange magically changes into mac n cheese but in sim world it does

Getting gold gardening badge doesn't take that long, so eventually you can just talk your plants happy. I also find plants get more benefits from being tended if the sim has a gold badge. No idea if that's true or just me interpreting what I want to see, but it seems to hold up in my game.

I personally go with many plots, rather than few. Takes longer each time you have to water/tend, but you get more in the end and build the badge faster.

Using the juicer works for me in small tiny apartments. I have a Community Garden that is ready to harvest every time my apartment sims visit it. My Apartment sims live off the pepper punch, it boosts their energy as well as their hunger and an added bonus it takes less time to drink juice than eat a meal. When my apartment sims are having guest for dinner they take a trip to the deli, fish market, or the sub shop, all of which have prepared meals for sale.

Can you talk to your plants with a gold gardening badge? I thought that was a Plantsim ability.

It's a plantsim ability because plantsims have gold gardening badges. You can talk an apple tree from sickly to thriving in an afternoon.

Which btw is really useful when winter comes.
Even if you don't have a greenhouse late veggies can be yummy if your Sims talk to them every now and then :D

Damn. I thought it was a unique Plantsim ability. Do Plantsims have any innate abilities except for the ability to blow pollen in people's faces?

No, they do not Wiki is phrased rather poorly, and does make it sound like the talking is an ability of being a PlantSim, rather than a side-effect of getting an automatic gold.

The ability to spawn plantbabies.

Yeah, but I wanted them to have more naturey abilities. I thought that talking to plants was part of a Plantsim's power and that not just any sim could learn it.

Well, certainly any Sim could learn the gardening skill up to that point, but it would take a lot of time and effort. If you got a PlantSim on the other hand (Which comes from using too much bug killer or a cheat if that's how you play...) there would be very little effort involved.

However, I do like the idea of having a few dormitory style residences available to my Sims, seeing as I am currently in college and living in a dormitory type setting right now. Then again, I also have played uni-bound Sims living in apartment style dorms (where each apartment was like a regular apartment and they had no room mates. Hmm. I need to look at what type of mods are available to make it more realistic...

I think there's a few things, like turkeys, that cannot be cooked in it though.