My recommendation on short notice would be to get a couple Mr. Buddy/Mr. Big Buddy heaters. You can get days of use out of one if you buy an adapter and a propane bottle for a gas grill. Says on the box they are indoor safe, just be careful where you place them because they get very hot. This will probably be more effective than a space heater run off a generator.
As for eating well get a camp stove. You can also run this off a big propane bottle with the same adapter used for the Mr. Buddy heater. You can use the camp stove to make side dishes. You'll also want an outdoor grill. Webber charcoal grills work great and you can do both hot and low and slow cooks with the right technique. Since you have a generator you could also consider an inexpensive pellet grill. This will require electricity, but not much. You can use this type of grill like an oven, and it is much easier to manage compared to charcoal. With this setup, you can make anything. Pizza, chicken, roast, and ribs all come to mine. I'm smoking a chuck roast on my pellet grill in the snow right now.
Thinking long term, I've been thinking of the same thing with the low temps and heavy snow we got in the PNW this week. My house is also all electric. I have a heat pump and electric aux furnace. Heat pump is slow start/solar ready and has been doing fine with temps in the teens. It only needs 30 amps to run. I looked into whole house generators and I'd need an enormous propane tank to run it for just a couple of days. Having the heat pump available year round is appealing. Has anyone gone with a smaller generator to just run their heat pump?
If you're dealing with actual cold, you do definitely need some secondary source of heat, ideally one where the fuel can sit around for long periods of time (propane, wood stove, etc). Running a generator just to dump the electricity into a resistive heater is a bit poverty-living ridiculous, and indicates addressing heat should be the primary concern rather than worrying about boring food.
Whether portable propane heaters are considered "safe" to run indoors depends on what state/country you are in, so make of that what you will. Personally I'd rather not add the additional variable of carbon monoxide to what is already an emergency situation, but perhaps a few CO detectors would alleviate that concern.
True, but a heatpump can heat and cool. Power outages can happen in the summer as well. During heatwaves the local power company actually cuts service to some to prevent wild fires. Losing power during a heat dome is what I'm thinking of.
My winter plan is to supplement heat with a fireplace insert, but I haven't gotten that far yet.
That's fair... If you have a secondary area using a mini split, might be a good option to huddle in over cooking an entire home... Not against a generator, just thinking efficiency.
I used to keep a portable AC that had a slot for window venting when I lived in a place in Phoenix where the power used to go out in the summer a few times each year.
As for eating well get a camp stove. You can also run this off a big propane bottle with the same adapter used for the Mr. Buddy heater. You can use the camp stove to make side dishes. You'll also want an outdoor grill. Webber charcoal grills work great and you can do both hot and low and slow cooks with the right technique. Since you have a generator you could also consider an inexpensive pellet grill. This will require electricity, but not much. You can use this type of grill like an oven, and it is much easier to manage compared to charcoal. With this setup, you can make anything. Pizza, chicken, roast, and ribs all come to mine. I'm smoking a chuck roast on my pellet grill in the snow right now.
Thinking long term, I've been thinking of the same thing with the low temps and heavy snow we got in the PNW this week. My house is also all electric. I have a heat pump and electric aux furnace. Heat pump is slow start/solar ready and has been doing fine with temps in the teens. It only needs 30 amps to run. I looked into whole house generators and I'd need an enormous propane tank to run it for just a couple of days. Having the heat pump available year round is appealing. Has anyone gone with a smaller generator to just run their heat pump?