melting crystallized honey
Agree about the broccoli and any cruciferous!
2 Likes
Actual cooking: poaching eggs, steaming vegetables, parboiling potatoes for hash browns and/or other fried potato dishes
Prep cooking: softening butter, defrosting all the random ingredients I store in the freezer, heating tortillas and pita for wraps/sandwiches
Reheating: a substantial share of our cooking gets stored in single-serve portions in the freezer, which we then thaw out and heat for dinner; we also love leftovers
4 Likes
2 Likes
I donât like using the MWO for anything, but I will grudgingly use it for:
softening butter
reheating coffee
parcooking mushrooms
panic-steaming extra vegetable sides
softening whole squash
warming syrups/clarifying honey
Iâm in the camp that believes that foods with any real thermal mass donât belong in MWOs.
3 Likes
Itâs an essential part of my life.
1 Like
Interested. Could you briefly share your technique?
I often roast vegetables. But we didnât have a microwave until a few years ago, so the appliance hasnât gotten much use here.
To get more juice out of a lemon or lime (microwave about 30 secs, or less. )
But be very careful, though, or youâll spend some time cleaning the microwave thoroughly.
5 Likes
Peeling garlic, interesting. Never heard or tried that before.
Defrosting small containers of chicken stock, gravy, sauces to use in whatever Iâm cooking that night
Reheating previous dinner items in a single container
Melting butter for whatever I need it for
Cooking COTC
Softening citrus to get more juice (brief 10 second blasts)
Reheating coffee or hot chocolate if I havenât drunk it fast enough
Disinfecting sponges
Making a single chocolate pudding in a mug (this actually works out quite well!) when I need a chocolate fix.
2 Likes
- Heating water for tea
- Warming leftovers (if meat/fish, gently at low âpowerâ setting(1))
- Corn cobs - cook in Pyrex, covered with plastic wrap and just about 2 tbs water in bottom
- Ditto above but replace with just about any type of halved squash, cut face down (may want to finish upright in broiler if you want S&P, cheeses, or cinnamon/brown sugar/butter).
- I used to âsteamâ cook any number of veggies (broc/sprout/carrot/green been) but now prefer to just use the steamer stovetop.
(1) Iâve mentioned this before, but you can reheat even a big slab of meat, like 1-2 pounds of medium rare standing rib roast, faster in the microwave on âpowerâ level 1 than in the oven, and with no drying or overcooking. Same for medium rare fish steaks like thick tuna or swordfish.
On level 1, itâs only emitting microwaves for a few seconds, then has many seconds (18 or 20, havenât counted in a while) when it is not emitting microwaves. This gives time for that little bit of surface heat generated, to dissipate and penetrate before the next âonâ period hits. So youâre not getting the surface of the flesh up to water vaporizing temps.
I donât remember the exact time, but I think it was about 18 minutes. Leftover 2-inch bone-in ribeye went from fridge temp to about 125°F, without additional cooking or drying. The surface felt only a small bit warmer then the center, but I didnât have a good way to measure at the surface.
As I mentioned the other time I posted these photos, the post-reheat photo (second one below) may actually look more pink than pre-reheat, but thatâs just an artifact of the lighting. To my eye they appeared identical.
4 Likes
Totally forgot about the Sponge Sanitizing! I do that a couple of times a Week.
I also use it to drive some of the Water out of Hash Browns before the go in the Skillet.
1 Like
Iâm obviously not using my microwave enoughâŚ
1 Like
In addition to everything already mentioned, I cook those Knorr Rice Sides in the microwave. 12 minutes and I have a starch to go with dinner.
2 Likes
I forgot to list a few others I do that have been mentioned and one that hasnât. Already mentioned: sponge, par cooking potatoes, etc. Not mentioned: It has been a good while, but a couple of times I have cooked very thick chops or steaks over charcoal, set them aside to rest, plated the vegetables, etc. and cut into the chops or steaks and found them raw, beyond al saignante, and knew dinner guests would not enjoy them (personally I would have eaten them, but ai prefer a conventional rare). I nuked them a bit, easily got them to MR, and did not seem to dry them out. Mischief managed and no cooled vegetables or potatoes .
PS. When you ask guests how they like their steaks or chops done and they say, âhowever youâre having yours,â they donât mean it. They mean they hope you like yours medium and are embarrassed to say so. So when they pull that, I default to MR.
4 Likes
YES! YES! and YES!! My Pasta âboat thingyâ (that goes in the microwave) is my âgo toâ item for making a quick dinner if my day got away from me.
It has saved me on more than one occasion.
2 Likes
Cooking frozen vegetables.
I like rare, wife likes well done. Give her portion 30 seconds and we are both happy.
Reheating stew.
Roasting raw peanuts.
1 Like
I forgot about that, too. Although my wife now prefers me to do it in a lidded pan on the stove - she thinks it leaves a bit of an odor in the microwave.
Other things I forgot - par-cooking baby potatoes and whole mushrooms to speed along recipes where Iâm using them or adding them later into a cooking period, like a fairly long cooked stew.
1 Like
This is why, for me, the microwave is an essential part of my life (as I mentioned up above).
Itâs like white-out tape before, yâknow, computers took over the world.
4 Likes
Even single use tools quickly become essential if you rely on them. I peel garlic by rolling it in a flexible tube, probably silicone. I only use a fish poacher to poach fish. I used to use my microwave to heat milk which I would froth with an Aerolatte (another single use tool) and mix with a couple of shots of La Llave from the Bialetti. It was a true necessity.
Artichokes!
Minutes to deliciousness.
3 Likes
