My first experience with a microwave was in the smarty pants pull-out program of my elementary school. There was a new one in the teacher's lounge, and our little group tried a recipe for fortune cookies made in the microwave. I don't remember how they tasted - I have a vague recollection that they were inedible - but I remember the teacher making us stand all the way across the room while it was nuking the little disks of batter. I thought that it may explode or cook us where we stood, and was a little afraid of the radioactive food that came out.
We got a microwave in the late 70's, I believe, and it was HUGE. A large melamine bowl on top held fruit occasionally but usually contained a cat, napping in that warm and protected spot. Vegetables went in frozen or tepid from a can and came out steaming. It was a very large appliance for warming a mug of water.
When Grandma would serve a meal, her plate would be made up last and almost always take a trip through the microwave - she liked her food piping hot, and "zapped it" until it was steaming. She also taught me to warm up Twizzlers for a few seconds in the hot box.
Combination convection oven-microwave oven units confuse me. Is it a microwave or not? Can I keep that metal rack inside or does it need to be taken out? Will things brown or what?
The Pampered Chef has several microwave cake recipes that steam a cake in something like 12 minutes. They also have a wonderful deep dish baker that will cook dozens of delicious recipes with a decidedly mid western flair, theoretically getting dinner on the table in 30 minutes or less. I didn't try the main dishes, but I liked the microwave cakes, and I do have the deep dish baker. I also have a recipe for a microwave brownie in a mug that is ready in one and one half minutes. It sounds great and I'd love to make it immediately, but...
I didn't realize how much I used our microwave until it sort of kinda exploded and I had to deposit it on the patio for a few days until we could take it to an ecycling facility. I would warm up a lot of Stella's food and the same mug of coffee several times over every day. It defrosted a pound of ground beef rapidly with the touch of one button. I could tell it how many potatoes or slices of cold pizza were in there and press go, and it would take care of business. I could add one minute any time I wanted to. RIP awesome microwave. The counter looks bare and weird without you there. You served us faithfully, your radio waves and multi-directional carousel faithfully agitating water molecules for almost six years. I didn't appreciate the black smoke coming from all your vents in the end, though. Microwaves are such dramatic appliances.
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