294277 Wed Oct 01 15:45:47 -0700 2003 30 27 General Chowhounding Topics 0 1613445 A recent post about popcorn raised the issue. What do you use your microwave for? I go a little beyond the heating coffee and popcorn, but still pretty limited: 1. Defrosting Meat 2. Defrosting frozen pizza (then into toaster oven) 3. Defrosting frozen bagels -- again, just until cold, then into toaster oven. 4. Heating up soup 5. Melting Butter (this is a big plus -- but cover bowl with paper towel). 6. Steaming corn. Wed Oct 01 15:45:47 -0700 2003 0 sbp 1 1613449 - Softening cream cheese for cheesecakes - Softening ice cream - Heating up side courses - Heating up stuffing for turkey before inserting it into the cavity -- a Cook's Magazine recommended approach for food safety related issues. I'm buying a larger microwave with carousel which will allow reheating dishes sized 9x14, so I could reheat a lasagna. My search for large is because the last microwave was such a dinky thing only a dinner plate could fit. Regards, Cathy Wed Oct 01 16:36:36 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Cathy2 1 1613450 Making oatmeal. Oats, milk, 1:20, breakfast. Wed Oct 01 16:36:38 -0700 2003 1613445 0 kjhart 2 1613467 Me, too. So much easier and faster than cooking it on the stove. Wed Oct 01 18:25:55 -0700 2003 1613450 0 Emily 3 1613692 I agree. Without the microwave, I'd never eat oatmeal! Fri Oct 03 14:09:13 -0700 2003 1613467 0 AshelyC 1 1613452 Well ... everything. It is especially good for reviving stale bread and baked goods. Wed Oct 01 16:47:57 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Stanley Stephan 1 1613453 Exploding marshmallow peeps, birth control. Wed Oct 01 16:49:06 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Malorcus 1 1613454 Nothing. I don't have one. While my wife would like to get one, I have so far held firm against it. I really don't see the point. As the replies here seem to indicate, you can't do any real cooking with them. Defrosting things rapidly in nuker seems to me like a bad idea. I've tried it, and the center stays frozen. Keep going and you will start cooking the outside while the center still stays frozen. You can reheat or stuff with them, but you can reheat things in a regular oven also, or on the stove, without making them all mushy the way microwaves do. I'm particularly amazed by people who say they reheat coffee in a microwave. Now what true chowhound drinks reheated coffee? Anyone else out there with me? Do you have domestic pressure to get one, and if so, how are you doing holding out? Wed Oct 01 16:58:36 -0700 2003 1613445 0 bigskulls 2 1613457 I've been microwave-less for about three years. I don't miss it. In fact, I eat better as a result. Wed Oct 01 17:09:54 -0700 2003 1613454 0 nja 2 1613459 I'm a holdout also. I had a roommate that had one so I had access for 6 months or so and I used it to reheat food. It was good because you didn't have to dirty a pan but when I moved out on my own I didn't really see any need. The only thing that a microwave can do that you can't do otherwise is defrost foods. But if you plan ahead you won't need it. Wed Oct 01 17:13:31 -0700 2003 1613454 0 swingline 2 1613460 I believe you when you say that you don't have a micro. All the arguments you use against it just prove you don't know how to use it. When used correctly you won't have the cited problems. You only run into those kind of situations on the type of micro that was put out years ago when you had little or no control over the power settings. Todays micro is a whole new machine. Wed Oct 01 17:14:40 -0700 2003 1613454 0 ocdreamr 3 1613464 I agree. Specifically, my new microwave defrosts extremely evenly, a big improvement from my old one. Of course, I could just plan ahead, but like that will ever happen. Wed Oct 01 17:54:56 -0700 2003 1613460 0 Jujubee 2 1613484 I don't have one at home, but do have one at the office, and feel that's exactly as it should be. We don't have a real kitchen at work, but I do have one at home, hence no need for a mw 'coz I can heat stuff on the stovetop or in the oven. I would say it's worth getting one if you have a real freezer, for defrosting alone a mw can be very useful. Mine is the size of a shoebox, and I store mainly ice cream and good butter in it. So won't be getting a nuker anytime soon. Wed Oct 01 20:11:52 -0700 2003 1613454 0 Katerina 1 1613456 Baking potatoes - all kinds melting chocolat - no chance of water getting in to sieze up chocolat only way to reheat, rice, potatoes & noodles without them becoming over cooked used to cook a whole chicken in it with veggies that would get raves, haven't made it lately because I don't cook meals that big any more. Heat up tortillas so they don't dry out And most importantly I use it to heat up my rice filled heating pad!! Wed Oct 01 17:09:11 -0700 2003 1613445 0 ocdreamr 1 1613463 Warming cold wine from the fridge or cellar, warming frozen chocolate chip cookies, drying small pet animals after bathing... Wed Oct 01 17:43:53 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Tom Hall 1 1613465 no one believes me, but i swear you can make really good scrambled eggs in the microwave! use a pyrex bowl, just pop them in for a couple of minutes, stop once in the middle to stir/break them up, and voila. i guess they are more steamed than "scrambled"...but they're yummy. Wed Oct 01 18:03:33 -0700 2003 1613445 0 felicia d. 1 1613473 Cooking vegetables. Artichokes cooked in the 'wave are the best. Trim them, rinse in water, shake off excess, wrap each in plastic wrap and nuke them about 5 mins. They steam in their own juice and are much more flavorful. When I'm in a hurry I will cook potatoes half way in the 'vave and then finish them off in the oven for crsipy skins and dry fluffy potatoes. If you cook them all the way in the microwave they are soggy because they just have been steamed. I also defrost and reheat. Mine gets used daily. Polenta made in the 'wave is simple and very good. If you can get your hands on a copy of Barbara Kafka's Microwave Gourmet you will find many terrific dishes that can be made in the micorwave. Wed Oct 01 19:06:26 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Candace 1 1613474 Had a good look at Barbara Kafka's Microwave Cookbook when it came out, but couldn't really see changing how I choose to normally cook and didn't trust that all microwaves were the same as to how long and how high to cook. But, do use microwave to melt chocolate, heat up leftovers, thaw homemade frozen soups, melt butter, boil water (to add to beans on a long simmer that need moistening), feel it is convenient but not necessary for my way of cooking. Wed Oct 01 19:06:49 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Coyote 1 1613475 frozen chicken pot pies... 10 minutes in the microwave vs 1 hour in the oven... Wed Oct 01 19:08:33 -0700 2003 1613445 0 jesse 1 1613478 Cooking vegetables. They retain their color beautifully. But the method is very important. 1. I use a covered dish (Pyrex, Corning-Ware) so as to retain the steam. 2. Cook at high power for a while, then (important) let the food rest for several minutes so it continues to steam. May need another minute or more on high power, or longer at lower power for dense vegetables. 3. Do not add water. Vegetables contain enough water on their own. Here are some specifics for my 600-watt oven(YMMV): One pound of prewashed (organic) baby spinach (Earthbound brand, comes in a bag from Safeway, $4.50): 5 minutes on high, rest for several minutes, shake the bowl around (without opening it) then 1 more minute, then rest for a few minutes. Dress with salt/pepper/oil/vinegar, or puree with some stock and milk for soup. Incredible bright jade-green color. In plum season, we are given bags of ripe plums. I wash and dry them, put them in a covered container with a bit of sugar [no water]. Microwave for 10 minutes on full power (for several pounds of fruit). Let rest for five minutes at least (covered). The plums split and the pits can be easily removed. Then I freeze the resulting compote (often we eat a lot of it immediately -- good on goat-milk yogurt for example). The color is brilliant -- like jewels. Works well for rhubarb, and for cranberry sauce too. No water + short cooking time = intense flavor and color. Wed Oct 01 19:22:22 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Joel Teller 1 1613482 Anything I want to heat or re-heat becuase I don't have a kitchen. Of course I really don't know how to cook anything except for boiling water so it's not much of a limitation for me. It was a wonderful addition to my life when I finally got my microwave a few years ago, because I no longer had to descend two flights of stairs and head out to the house two doors down at 3am on a freezing January night to utilize the kitchen available to me when I wanted to cook some water. Wed Oct 01 19:49:50 -0700 2003 1613445 0 hilldweller 1 1613486 Reheating take-out food easily on a paper plate, which is perfect for heating up one portion without messing up some bowls. Frozen dinners (I like Amy's or Morningstar Farms sometimes). Melting chocolate and/or butter for baking. I like to warm slices of cake in there because I like warm, soft cake. Steaming vegetables. I like my ice cream a little soft and have no patience, so I warm it in there a bit. I have a new microwave and am still getting used to it, and lately I've been eating some boiling hot ice cream. Am working on the problem. Wed Oct 01 20:38:18 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Clarissa 1 1613487 Microwave a lemon before you use it and you will get twice as much juice out of it. I usually give it about 30 seconds, and let it sit a bit. This also works for oranges and grapefruit; you get an unbelievable amount of juice after they are nuked. There was an article in the NY Times last year disputing this, but the author used limes, which don't work as well. I learned this back in 1987 from a TV show called Microwaves Are For Cooking. I also learned that you can leave a large spoon in what you are microwaving, and open the door and stir occasionally. Just don't use thin metal like wire. This is good when reheating. Salmon is great in the microwave. Just add a very small amount of liquid to the dish, cover with waxed paper, and cook a few minutes, until it's the doneness you prefer. It's similar to poached. Great for rice, also. I do it for one minute with no liquid, just a small amount of olive oil or butter to coat the kernels. Then I add the liquid - broth, water, whatever - and put it on 5 minutes at full power and 18 minutes at half power. For one cup rice, I use 2 and 1/2 cups liquid. You don't need to stir it; it comes out perfect. Wed Oct 01 20:45:38 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Sylvia G 1 1613492 The mike is indispensible if you have kids of a certain age in the house. We have a 10- and a 12-year old, both going through growth spurts, both eating us out of house and home on a daily basis. It's horrifying, except that with a microwave (which they somehow comprehend innately) they can happily cook and feed themselves anything they might find lying around. I happily lived without one (the mike, but kids, too) for 13 years, but now I confess to using one for cooking large winter squash, quickly, and -- as another poster mentioned -- melting butter and chocolate for baking. Wed Oct 01 22:06:28 -0700 2003 1613445 0 GG Mora 1 1613494 I recently purchased a Samsung Toast&Bake Microwave Oven. It combines a conventional oven with a fully capable Microwave (1000 Watts). It allowed us to get rid of the countertop toaster-oven and replace with a normal pop-up toaster, while still allowing the kids to cook their boboli pizza and nachos. The microwave portion is every bit as good as our previous Sanyo. It has a turntable and all the appropriate modes. Defrost works very well, popcorn, potatoes, all the standard Microwave stuff. The oven also works very well. The kid's boboli comes out delicious. It's larger than a standard toaster/oven - even more than a DeLonghi. I was most interested in the combined cook mode (called speed cook), and have been playing with it. There are three speed-cook modes, but unfortunately, their manual doesn't get into any detail. Modes 1 and 2 invoke the lower heating element (they fold down from the side) while third mode keeps the lower elements off (if you're nuking/baking something in a bowl, for example). There must be a difference in the first 2 modes - probably having to do with the power equivalence of the Microwave and temp of the baking elements, since all you get to do is set the time. I've been fooling with things that are hard to get right in just a nuker or just an oven - like heating up cold knishes. To get the center hot, you want to nuke it, but to get the outside crisp, you want to bake it - so I tried the SC mode (1 and 2) for both my square potato ones and the tasty meat ones from Joan and Ed's in Natick, MA. SC Mode 2 for 6 minutes works great for the square potato ones. The shell isn't dried out, but neither is it softened up. The insides are steaming hot - put a whole in them with a knife, squirt in the mustard, and yum. The meat ones have been a little harder to adjust. I'll get it soon. And yet - the question remains... What is a microwave, even one with a conventional oven, good for? Heating knishes? I feel like the guy with the most powerful PC on the block looking for the killer app. Link: http://www.chefscatalog.com/store/catalog/prod.jhtml?itemId=cprod3100030&parentId=cat000144&masterId=cat000130&grandMasterId=cat000129&cmCat=&index=12&showCrumb=true Wed Oct 01 22:18:17 -0700 2003 1613445 0 applehome 1 1613496 I was first introduced to the microwave when my grandmother was very proud that she could make a heated turkey sandwich in it. Her son, my first dad, had married for the second time to a woman that then worked for a utility company in Sacramento, California, in their Home Economics department. They did test cooking all day. (??? how wierd was that for me to think about our tax dollars at that early age of 10?) Anyway, when I stayed there, I saw more microwave cooking than I had seen microwaves. I was still into learning Home Eco from home into the 7th grade and learning the scientific strategies and measurements of the whole cooking process. The four meals my mom knew how to make pretty much filled our bellies when I was growing up and were made in the regular oven or stovetop. I don't think she got a microwave until I'd graduated from high school and she moved to a new house. Yet, I still experiment every once in a while. [parchment] Paper wrapped dishes are pretty cool in the micro. I hear you can also make a bread pudding. I have a microwave cookbook that has pictures and about 350 pages, but have only followed a few of the recipes. Mostly, I just experiement with fusing liquids with flavors into chicken or fish, reheating, defrosting, pop corn, sauces, steaming vegetables, et al. like chowhounds mentioned herein. I made yams steeped in spice tea and was very pleased with the resulting flavor and texture, color, calories, and fat content. Yet, getting it passed the Thanksgiving crew was, well, . . . .suggested anyway. Adding butter was good. Then, vanilla powder, in later days. In about 1997, I was at my first Dad's (divorced again, but cohabitating) and had some french bread from the night before. I cut it too thick or drenched it too much in egg when making breakfast, so thinking the fact that a microwave will cook from the inside out theory helped me in saving the dish to cook thoroughly without burning or toughening. I zapped it for a couple of minutes and then used the stovetop to complete cooking it in a buttered pan. Add a little cream cheese between two slices, top with some gooseberry jam and it was a pretty good breakfast for a dad who loves to eat pie for breakfast. Saw this, thought it was interesting: "Think back to Raytheon's introduction of the microwave oven in the 1960s. People everywhere were mystified by the new machine's ability to cook meals so quickly. Raytheon spokeswoman Betty Crocker was supposedly asked if the microwave would enable poor cooks to create gourmet meals. Crocker replied that the microwave would enable poor cooks to ruin a meal in the quarter of the time it took to ruin it before." (from, http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801,80787,00.html ) Whatever. Que sera. Frankly, I don't spend the time or the money to learn how to make complee gourmet meals in the microwave every day. Does anyone? Wed Oct 01 22:35:10 -0700 2003 1613445 0 kc girl 1 1613644 What I find is that I rarely use full power any more. Microwaves' special gift is in defrosting and reheatin at low power. It makes a huge difference. Fri Oct 03 05:55:40 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Karl S. 1 1613690 Many of the same things that other posters have mentioned, I also: 1. melt butter, and no it does not explode if you know the proper time to set it 2. heat water for bread baking, which requires exact temperatures. Fri Oct 03 13:49:55 -0700 2003 1613445 0 MAG 1 1613727 1. My morning oatmeal 2. Defrosting meat 3. Melting butter (oh, yeah.) 4. Reheating anything, but I agree with the post-toaster oven necessity. Fri Oct 03 18:39:40 -0700 2003 1613445 0 ksmbd 1 1613825 My sweetie puts used kitchen sponges in it and zaps the microbes. Mon Oct 06 10:46:15 -0700 2003 1613445 0 Sharuf 2 1613832 I've read repeatedly that it's important to sanitize sponges (and towels) regularly becuase they're perfect environments for growing and spreading bacteria. This page about disease prevention recommends microwaving or boiling sponges or saturating them in bleach. (I've also read that running the sponges through the dishwasher works.) Link: http://efnep.ucdavis.edu/FoodSafety.htm Mon Oct 06 12:05:56 -0700 2003 1613825 0 hilldweller