Cooking Your Foods

I

imp

Senior Member
A huge movement commercially back in the '80s was aimed at selling microwave ovens to virtually everyone. Today, nearly everyone likely has one. Back during those '80s, my wife & I learned some most amazing things about microwaving foods.

Do you as a microwave-user actually cook foods, or is it used to primarily heat stuff up?

If a number of folks respond to this question, I will get an idea of how to explain the amazing things I mentioned above. Thanks for reading! imp
 

I hardly ever use my microwave any more for some reason -- only on the rare occasion to heat something up a bit, but it is handy when I need it.
 
Use it almost every day but I've never actually COOKED/BAKED anything in it. Mostly for heating/reheating stuff.
Sometimes do the bagged popcorn thing.
 
I do most of my cooking in a Secura Halogen Cooker. It's quick, energy efficient and very easy clean up. Whole meals can be done at the same time.
secura-turbo.stuccu.com/
 
So far, no one actually cooks. What are you missing? Until one tastes a turkey prepared in a microwave oven, one will never believe the difference, for example, white turkey meat juicy and tasty, unlike that of my Mother's oven-baked turkey whose white meat had to be swallowed with liquid, so dry was it! A turkey of around 12c lbs. will microwave-up to perfection in about 70 to 90 minutes. My wife usually wraps the drumsticks "sticking out" with aluminum foil, as they tend to overcook. Yes, foil is allowable for such use, no arcing will occur! imp
 
We never cook in the microwave, just use it for heating things up. We've made some tender and juicy turkeys in our regular oven, been decades since I ate dry white meat or anything like that.
 
After one becomes aware of the possibilities.....my wife took a job while we were both unemployed during the Reagan Recession, in Phoenix, with a new company opening stores dedicated to selling only microwaves and their accessories. She was to become the "Cook-teacher" running free cooking classes for any who cared to attend. Soon, she was "wowing" even the skeptics, baking cakes, roasts, and such. From then on, we rarely used our conventional oven. Cooktop, of course, remained the "mainstay". More info later, I'm hungry! imp
 
We bake potatoes in the microwave but other than that we use it for heating food up. We don't eat turkey.
 
Like Baked potatoes?

Try this! Take an average-sized potato, any kind, sweet included, lay it flat and stab a table fork into it's side 4 or 5 times about 1/2 inch deep along the length, turn it over, and repeat. Place it on a microwave-safe plate, like Corning Ware, stick it in your Micro, give it 2 minutes on "high", turn the potato over, being careful, it's hot!, give it 2 minutes more, yank it out, cut it up, you have a perfect baked potato in what, 1/10 the time of conventional baking? imp
 
My wife often got jeers at the classes. "Sure, it's easy for you, it doesn't work for me".

Her reply? I learned how reading the owner's manual. You can, too! imp
 
CHECK THIS OUT! Take a microwavable bowl, small, break an egg into it, no fat, no grease, just an egg, like below:

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Now take a fork, stir it to mix, like for French toast.
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Place the bowl (no fork) in your microwave, set at HIGH for 20 seconds. Take out of oven, stir with fork, it will look then like this:
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Put back in oven, run for 25 seconds longer. Take it out, stir the scrambles, and you will have a PERFECT scrambled egg in 45 seconds! No mess, no frying, no FAT or GREASE. Easy clean-up. Try it! imp
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imp said:
Try this! Take an average-sized potato, any kind, sweet included, lay it flat and stab a table fork into it's side 4 or 5 times about 1/2 inch deep along the length, turn it over, and repeat. Place it on a microwave-safe plate, like Corning Ware, stick it in your Micro, give it 2 minutes on "high", turn the potato over, being careful, it's hot!, give it 2 minutes more, yank it out, cut it up, you have a perfect baked potato in what, 1/10 the time of conventional baking? imp
Click to expand...

Well, yeah....no offense, but this isn't new. I forgot to mention that I've baked potatoes in the microwave for over 25 yrs, as have most people I know. But, they're also good from the oven especially if using the oven for other things.
 
I confess to being one of the herd, I bake potatoes in the MW but otherwise it's used for heating only. I find it toughens many things even just heating. I have used a browning pan for grilled cheese, works great.
 
Looks pretty good! My being "attached" to microwave cooking lies in the fact that it's fast, uses less energy per unit of heat produced, AND does not heat up the kitchen like a conventional oven or cookstove.

Still, the "king" of microwaves is the micro-convection oven, those being usually pretty foreign to most folks.

My wife took a look at my eggs post, and suggested I do a chocolate cake! Most of her ladies taking the classes were astounded to see that. Yum, if someone twists my arm, I'll by golly do one! :) imp
 
The Halogen Cooker that is shown on the patio table is actually faster than the microwave and will brown meats with out having to turn the meat over. A fan circulates heat up to 525F ensuring even cooking. It uses less energy than the Microwave as well and you can watch the food cooking without having to open a oven door. Does a marvelous job of cooking eggs and bacon at the same time. I use the Halogen daily and have it sitting on my kitchen counter and move it to the patio when I want to eat outside. It's better and easier than bar b que.
 
I received my first microwave back in 1972, and it was mainly used for heating thing up. Then when we bought our home, it became my only way to cook, except for the BBQ pit, for three years, until we were able to put in gas, and upgrade the electric wiring. I got to where I could cook just about anything. Although I never did any baking in a microwave. But, my favorite cooking method is my 1942 Chambers gas stove. It has what I call the first crock pot, it is a deep well in the back that I love to fill with anything you can imagine to be cook by just the pilot light over night.
 

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Ina, thank you much for that! I just asked my wife: in Missouri, in 2000, we picked up a 1942 Frigidaire Electric Range, which had the deep well pot in the back just like your gas stove! All the burners still worked, as well as the oven. We got it for $35! The old farmhouse we bought had a gas stove, propane tank, which I promptly got rid of. imp
 
~Lenore said:
I have a convection/microwave and I use it a lot.
Specially during the summer.
Click to expand...

Good for you! We bought a small Sharp micro/convect new, about 2 years ago, and my wife continued to yearn for their larger model, but too expensive. Year and a half ago, she spotted one on Craigslist, guy selling stuff out of his garage, moving, did not really know what he had. $35! Having sold microwaves for a living, and teaching cooking classes, she was amazed she had never seen one like this: it was old, but like new appearance-wise, big, and the door opened downwards, like the oven of a kitchen stove. Here's a few pics of it:


new_sh10.jpg



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I never use the microwave for cooking except for oatmeal, Cream of Wheat, popcorn and occasionally bacon or rice..

Food just doesn't taste good me, especially "baked" potatoes, which aren't baked at all, just steamed. Getting potatoes soft doesn't mean they taste good.

Its hard to believe a steamed turkey would taste better than a properly roasted turkey in an oven. I don't discount that, its just hard to believe. How can you get any gravy from it?

Lon's halogen cooker sounds intriguing. I've seen those on infommercials for years. I LOVE Ina's stove!

Now thoroughly confused about convection/microwave and halogens altogether, I will begin some further research.
 
"Now thoroughly confused about convection/microwave and halogens altogether, I will begin some further research."

Do not be confused, please. A simple explanation exists. A standard oven, a box full of heated air, cooks foods from their outside-in. That is why the outside may possibly be over-done, while the inside is under-done, that being an extreme case.


The "convection" oven is basically no different, except that many have heating devices exposed inside, one can see the glowing coils, or very hot halogen lamp. They get the heat to the food more quickly than does the hot air within a common stove's oven (or range, whichever term you prefer).


The microwave oven uses high-frequency radio waves, a form of "radiation", yes, but quite different from X-rays and their brethren. "Microwaves" are the energy source originally used the first time during WW-II, then it was called "RADAR". Indeed, the very first microwave ovens sold to the public were called RadarRanges. Microwave energy penetrates completely through most foods, causing heating from within the food, rather than from without. That fact accounts for the rapidity with which foods get hot in them. A potato microwave-baked is done in 3 to 5 minutes, compared to perhaps an hour in a common oven. Using the potato as an example, if you personally dislike microwaved potato, try some other foods, an apple, perhaps, core out the center top portion, not all the way through, place a dollop of butter or oleo, topped with some sugar & cinnamon: delicious after only a few minutes time.


The "microwave-convection" oven, usually written "micro-convection" oven, has the ability of both microwaving and convection cooking, either separately, or combined at the same time. A micro-convection oven allows quick browning of foods which usually brown little or slowly on microwave only; such combined usage is usually termed "MIX" on the unit itself, meaning microwaving and conventionally heating via hot air.


Speaking of which, am I not full of that commodity? I simply champion microwave cooking! imp
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