Microwave cookery. Do you?

edited August 2008 in Chit chat
I have never cooked anything in a microwave. That is, I've never used seperate ingredients to make something, such as a flan, or a cake, or what have you.

I've only ever used it to heat things up.

thinking about it, I use it pretty much to heat up left overs, or warm baked beans up.
Post edited by thx1138 on

Comments

  • edited August 2008
    Aside from microwave ready-meals, two large baking potatoes at 20 mins on High is about as far as I get, together with an additional minute or two to melt cheese on top at the end.

    Those microwaveable pouchs of rice are *very* useful.
  • edited August 2008
    Only once - for a month when we had a new kitchen installed. We bought loads of frozen microwave dinners and they were revolting. I will never, ever eat a microwave meal again.

    The only things we use the microwave for now is heating up milk for the kids and teas/coffess if they've gone a bit cold.
  • edited August 2008
    i use it for soup etc. apparently it uses 70% less energy than a conventional cooker when used like this.
  • edited August 2008
    Some things gone incredibly odd if you microwave them, like a cheese and onion pasty from the garage.

    I'm still waiting for the report to come out that any one who has used a microwave to heat up some food and didn't wait a full minute before consuming it is going to die from some horrific internal radiated illness.
  • edited August 2008
    Have never cooked anything in the microwave. Went through a period of steaming vegetables in there but that's an Aussie thing and that's long gone. Apart from that it's just heating up leftovers on the rare occasion that I leave anything and making my tea warm again.
    They're a bit crap really. I remember all the hype about being able to make a lovely golden roast chicken in the microwave. LIES! Microwaves don't work like that.
  • edited August 2008
    I'm still waiting for the report to come out that any one who has used a microwave to heat up some food and didn't wait a full minute before consuming it is going to die from some horrific internal radiated illness.

    That's just to let the heat conduct a bit around the food. When it's straight out of the microwave usually you have hot and cold spots, so some parts of the food will be like napalm and other bits will be stone cold. Leaving it for a minute just allows the hot spots to cool, and the cold spots to heat up.
  • edited August 2008
    I used to eat a lot of microwave meals, have a few of the steam ones nowadays.

    But normally use it to heat things up, normally baked beans for breakfast or often a curry/chinese to warm up the next day.

    I know theres the whole hoopla of how bad reheated curry is etc but i think i'm old enough to take the 'risk' !
  • edited August 2008
    I take microwave crud to work to eat, or just buy something off the shelves on my break. I eat quite a bit of micro mush. Not that I'm proud of that though, I do love El Montery Red Chilli Burritos though, and Jose Ole Chicken Chimichangas and soft tacos mmmmmmm, full of minced cat.

    As for cooking things from scratch my aunt used to serve us up some beautiful pink chicken if we ever went to hers for sunday (she went through a phase of mic-ing everything, when she got her cooking TV, bloody huge thing it was 70's surplus without a doubt). My best mate used to make meringues in the mic, used to be interesting to watch them go round, they kind of inflated, but he did it more than once, quite often on a saturday afternoon, so they must have ended up edible?
    Every night is curry night!
  • edited August 2008
    my gf melted some chocs in the microwave so she could spread it on something. she put it on for a minute and it turned black and set on fire.
  • edited August 2008
    psj3809 wrote: »
    But normally use it to heat things up, normally baked beans for breakfast or often a curry/chinese to warm up the next day.

    I find reheating a curry in the microwave is fine, but I dunno about Chinese, though... Whenever I've tried reheating one the next day it's always ended up tasting rank!!

    But nah, never use my microwave for actual cooking, just reheating.
  • edited August 2008
    I'd be vary wary about re-heating Chinese in a micro. I'd probably bin the rice too!

    The rest, I'd add a couple of bits from the cupboard, and fry it all up in a wok.
  • RNDRND
    edited August 2008
    I used to live out of the microwave when I was on my own. Fish, potatos, chicken, etc, the things that never had microwave instructions but turned out ok nonetheless.
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  • edited August 2008
    last week my microwave decided it wants to randomly go through all of it's different functions whenever I turn it on, going beep beep beep....no idea what that's about, think its some kind of delayed millenium bug thing maybe.
    don't use it much anyway, just reheating like most other people. had an iceland microwave meal "prawns in chilli sauce" once, the prawns were rock hard when it was done. had to throw it all away
  • edited August 2008
    RND wrote: »
    I used to live out of the microwave when I was on my own. Fish, potatos, chicken, etc, the things that never had microwave instructions but turned out ok nonetheless.

    i think instructions for those sorts of things should be in your microwave manual.
  • edited August 2008
    another thing about microwaves: ones that claim to have a 'grill' function. I've owned 2 of these and with both of them you'd have more chance of grilling something by sticking it in the fridge tbh.
  • edited August 2008
    I've got an ace microwave. It's got a fan assisted oven and grill built into it. I've cooked 3 course dinners for 5 people in it before. (With the assistance of a steamer and hobs)

    In fact, my main oven blew up and I didn't bother to replace it for 2 years as the microwave and hobs were enough.
    My test signature
  • edited August 2008
    def chris wrote: »
    another thing about microwaves: ones that claim to have a 'grill' function. I've owned 2 of these and with both of them you'd have more chance of grilling something by sticking it in the fridge tbh.

    Mine's got one of them. I remember trying to grill a burger in it when I first got it, just to see what happened. Not a lot happened... it was taking forever, so I stuck it under the proper grill instead.
  • edited August 2008
    GreenCard wrote: »
    I find reheating a curry in the microwave is fine, but I dunno about Chinese, though... Whenever I've tried reheating one the next day it's always ended up tasting rank!!

    But nah, never use my microwave for actual cooking, just reheating.

    I've always found that curries reheated if they're hot curries, gain even more of a kick. Still not as good as reheating your own homemade arse burner in a pan the next day though :D

    As for chinese food I found it tastes OK reheated but the majority of chinese food seems to seperate from the sauce, so you end up with the sauce on the bottom of your plate (and really watery for some reason), and an island of food. Swimming in a noodle and rice infested moat.

    mile wrote:
    my gf melted some chocs in the microwave so she could spread it on something. she put it on for a minute and it turned black and set on fire.

    See kiddo there's your answer, she is the one for you, since you're a bit of a dab hand in the kitchen. As obviously she can't cook for shit :p
    Every night is curry night!
  • edited August 2008
    rarely use 'em, except in work to re-heat curries either from aldi's, or an indian just up the road from me in chapel street, (rather yummy tofu ones there too).....
    steamed veg goes rather well in a microwave (well, veg steams well in there), as do spuds.....bung 'em in before finishing them off in an oven, it halfs the cooking time

    just ensure to put your items on the outside edge of the rotating plate, microwaves use a single point of emission of energy into the cavity, this bounces off the walls and creates a standing wave, i.e. hot spots and cold spots, where the magnetron emissions are bounced off the walls (think of a laser bouncing off two mirrors, you get a fixed pattern if you hold the laser steady)..........

    finally, i'll add, it IS safe to put metal in a microwave, only certain shapes though, AND you must ensure that the metal doesn't touch the chassis of the microwave......it's one of them old wives tales that protects people really!!

    oh, i'll add finally, I don't own a microwave (still), nearly two years in here in Oz and i've managed without one!!....though i've still got a box of macaroni cheese i bought on the day I landed that i'm going to hand down the generations of ikkle woodyatt's :-)
  • edited August 2008
    See kiddo there's your answer, she is the one for you, since you're a bit of a dab hand in the kitchen. As obviously she can't cook for shit :p

    It's not nice of you to call Milesy sh** :cry:
  • edited August 2008
    I sometimes entice the cockroaches inside and nuke em. Trying to see how much radiation they can take. I don't eat them afterwards, but I might as well since they are prolly crawling over most the food anyway.
    I stole it off a space ship.
  • zx1zx1
    edited August 2008
    My brother told me to try cooking bacon in the microwave. He said it would taste better and wouldn't be as greasy as when fried so i gave it a try and it was disgusting - it was like eating rubber. Won't be doing that again.
    I do some things in the m/wave such as the frozen 'chicken breast in gravy' things which are okay but i tend to use the oven more. It takes longer but dosen't dry things out the same. But when you're living on your own and work long hours (me) you tend to use the microwave more. When i get home from work i can't be arsed starting from scratch so sometimes i will shove something in the microwave. I tend to go for the 'low fat' stuff which is sometimes not bad.
    The trouble with tribbles is.......
  • edited August 2008
    Bacon and sausages are vile out of the microwave, I find it much easier just to get my wife to cook my meals.
    I wanna tell you a story 'bout a woman I know...
  • edited August 2008
    karingal wrote: »
    Bacon and sausages are vile out of the microwave, I find it much easier just to get my wife to cook my meals.

    Yeah I do that as well :lol:

    Although if my wife is out, or I have a night off work I usually have to fend for myself, then it's oven chips or microwave burritos :D

    The only thing I enjoy making from scratch these days is curry.
    Every night is curry night!
  • edited August 2008
    When I'm on my own I find the easiest cooking utensil is the telephone then I can have Indian, Chinese or Pizza.
    I wanna tell you a story 'bout a woman I know...
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