The Microwave Appreciation Society

[ina]

Brilliant for porridge

Nah sorry OJ, I agree with Ina, microwave porridge is all bitty and raw.
THE best way to make porridge is bring to the boil the night before and then plonk on the dying wood burner. Next morning reheat and you have the smoothest porridge you ever tasted. Revamped haybox method.

Another version of that - bring to boil in the morning (without previous soaking) and fill into thermos flask. Perfect porridge for lunch.

Sorry - I think we are getting away from the microwave appreciation...

[Crastney]

my in laws only ever use a MW to heat up the dinner plates!

[Zech]

Reheating the pudding that I steamed for hours on Christmas day then didn't fancy eating because I'd had so much main course. That's got to be more efficient in the electric box, hasn't it? It only took a few minutes.

[doofaloofa]

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/h ... ven.96192/

Got to love forums

[Green Aura]

Did anyone else want to beat their head against the wall after reading doofa's link? Physicists, eh!

Just kidding, I'm sure it keeps them from doing real damage like inventing hydrogen bombs and the like.

Our new microwave (kindly bought by my mother for Christmas) is a bit of a revelation - I hadn't realised just how cr4p our old one was. I rarely use it -I'm most definitely the person who only uses it for last minute defrosting. We hadn't planned dinner last night and got some cooked rice, some belly pork strips and a tub of homemade sweet and sour sauce (all frozen) and were eating dinner about half an hour later and that included a spell on the stove top.

Our old microwave would have taken that long just to defrost the solid brick of sauce!

Did you find your Christmas pudding got a bit chewy, zech? I know it isn't a major problem and it's definitely preferable to a steam-filled kitchen, especially as ours is also our living room, but it's one of the things that rather puts me off exploring cooking more things with the microwave.

[ina]

Did anyone else want to beat their head against the wall after reading doofa's link? Physicists, eh!

Actually, I thought it was quite interesting... And I'm not a physicist. But I'm one of those weird people who actually enjoy statistics, too. Anything with numbers, really...

[Green Aura]

I found it quite interesting too, ina, but I'm guessing it was for a totally different reason.

[diggernotdreamer]

Does anyone use a pressure cooker, just wondering??

[Odsox]

We use a canner fairly regularly.
In fact it was last used Christmas Eve to bottle 7 litre jars of stock.
Beats filling the freezer.

[Green Aura]

I use my pressure cooker quite often, mainly for cooking a batch of beans for freezing. I'd love a canner, but I must admit they terrify me.

[diggernotdreamer]

I keep looking at those American canners, I do a lot of bottled tomatoes and I think it would be more cost effective for me to get one. I use the pressure cooker nearly every day, thinking about the christmas pudding, I can cook one from raw in an hour or if it is large 2 hours, which is better than having saucepans boiling for most of the day, reheat a pudding in about 15 - 20 minutes Potatoes cooked depending on type between 8 and 12 minutes, take them out and the rest of the veg is done in 3-4 minutes. Give me a pressure cooker any day over a microwave............... although sterlising soil hmmmmm might have to get one in that case and we do need a mail box too

[Green Aura]

I never thought about pressure cooking the Christmas pudding! I bet it's much better than zapping it.

Sorry dnd, I'm sure your cooking skills are way beyond my aunt's, but I still have nightmares about her pressure cooked veg.

She was such an awful cook - I'm sure that's why it took me so long to use a pressure cooker.

[diggernotdreamer]

I can remember as a young child, the pressure cooker sitting on the stove with that wobbly weight on the top and my dad shouting, don't go into the kitchen the pressure cooker is on, they were pretty dangerous in them days, there was the time it blew it's weight off and stew was fired up to the ceiling, the kitchen was a right mess. In the old days it was the law to put veg on for about 12 hours, I think they thought you would get worms or something if it wasn't thoroughly cooked. A lot of us are probably still mentally scarred by overcooked veg and pipey liver

[ina]

Sorry dnd, I'm sure your cooking skills are way beyond my aunt's, but I still have nightmares about her pressure cooked veg.

As long as you don't try and cook pasta in it... Fellow students of mine did that once. A long time ago, and yes, of course they were male . Not recommended!

I used to use mine quite a lot when I had more to cook. I think the only veg I would use it for is beetroot, though.

[diggernotdreamer]

I use it to cook all my veg, the basket keeps the stuff out of the water and the veg are steamed to perfection very quickly, people are always amazed when they come round at the speed everything is done, I make sure I put on the timer, it doesn't take much to make it all go badly wrong and you end up with Aunties mushy veg