Some say that microwave cooking where you do more than just heat some frozen thingy and eat it quickly is more a science than an art. I think that mostly people say things like that because the microwave’s control panel intimidates them just a bit. Things like setting power levels and exact cooking times overwhelm some. Fortunately, it doesn’t have to be like that.
Microwave cooking, like most other kinds, is a lot more forgiving that you might expect. For one thing power levels are subjective. 100% power in your oven might only be about 50% or 75% in somebody else’s. That’s why I seldom bother with changing the power levels. Instead, I’ll tinker with the cooking times until the consistency, texture and overall appearance and smell of the food is what I’m looking for.
For that reason when a recipe calls for a given power level and time, I’ll pass it on that way with the understanding that no two ovens are exactly the same. Even if they’re the same make & model that were bought on the same day from the same store there will be differences. Therefore microwave recipes need to be adapted to your particular oven and taste.
Steam about 2 cups of Broccoli florets for about two minutes, then Moisten 2 cups of Stuffing mix. Combine broccoli & stuffing and set it aside for a moment.
Put four chicken breasts in a baking dish and sprinkle with a bit of black pepper. Top each piece of chicken with a slice of swiss cheese and a slice of ham. Follow that with the stuffing mix.
Cover the baking dish and and microwave on medium-high (70%) for about 15 minutes, rotating dish three times (it’s a lot better if you have one of those units that constantly turns the dish.
When it’s done, uncover it and top it with a can of chicken gravy, microwave on high for another minute or two to heat the gravy and you’re good to go.
Hard Boiled eggs are not only a great snack and side dish on their own, they are also useful in many recipes. I was recently asked, “can you hard boil eggs in the microwave?”. I honestly didn’t think it was possible to do this.
When faced with a question like this that just won’t go away, it’s time to put on the headphones with some Beethoven playing and spend some time searching. After searching a while I found that yes, you can actually hard boil eggs with a microwave oven.
There’s two ways to go. One is by using a microwaveable egg cooker that you can find at Amazon and most kitchen appliance stores and following the directions that come with it. The other way do microwave hard boiled eggs involves a few easy steps.
Start by coating a microwave safe container with a non-stick spray.
Then gently crack the eggs and pour them into the container. Be careful to keep the yolk intact.
Next cover the container with a paper towel and cook for 45 to 90 seconds.
If the eggs aren’t done, put them back in for 15 seconds at a time until they’re done.
Some of the traffic that comes to Tinfoil Chef is from search engines. What I find interesting is looking at the search terms that they used because it’s interesting to see what kind of search terms are returning results for Tinfoil Chef. Among the more interesting ones recently was two recent visitors came here from google after using ‘cooking with tinfoil in microwave’ as their search terms.
It’s pretty easy to see why google would connect ‘cooking’, ‘tinfoil’, and ‘microwave’ with this site given the name and subject matter of this blog. But it occurred to me that it’d be a good idea to do a post about Cooking With Tinfoil In Microwave Oven.
There’s really only one thing to say about it… “Don’t Do it!“. For one reason, the kind of feedback generated is very bad for the microwave transmitter that is the heart of the oven. Too much operating like that would very likely burn it out completely.
If you’d like any further evidence of why you should never put any kind of metal or foil in a microwave oven, check out the following YouTube Video that somebody did which demonstrates what happens when you do it.
Please note that this demonstration was only with aluminum foil. Had there been food or any flammable material in there it probably would have caught fire, running the risk of not only destroying the oven, but also of spreading to the rest of the house.
Something that you don’t see in many kitchens these days is the classic waffle iron… I’m not talking about a little bitty modern plastic thing that makes waffles for a while and then falls apart because of how cheap it’s made. I am referring to those great big heavy monsters that felt like it weighed as much as ‘57 Chevy grilles.
Those things would, once heated up, make great waffles better than any toaster pastry thingy that sometimes tastes as good as the box it comes in. For one thing, you knew that if the waffle iron was heated up, there was going to be a LOT of waffles because nobody fired up one of those things just to make one or two.
No, that involved making up a gallon or more of batter and waffles being made until it was gone. Then everybody got a stack of them just like a stack of pancakes. Add in some butter and / or maple syrup and THAT was a breakfast of champions.
From the subject of this one you’d think I was talking about an exhaust fan that doesn’t wear out however the real issue is the fact that nothings getting exhausted at all. You know the setup… a hood over a stove top that has a fan built into it. The big problem that I’ve always had with that sort of thing is that I’ve never seen one (in a home setup) where the exhaust fans actually functioned like air cleaners.
Instead when you turn it on it starts pulling grease and smoke filled air away from the stove top and whatever is doing the smoking…. only to spew it back out into the room with most of the smoke and grease intact.
This is because all it does is move the air through a grease trap… which most people don’t even realize is there in the first place and therefore never replace or clean it… and back into the room. To my way of thinking, running it through a grease trap is ok.. IF the thing is built so that Joe User can see it and know it’s there and needs cleaning. The main thing however is to expel that smoke and grease filled air to the outside.
Really, it’s kinda stupid to be recirculating it back into the room anyway.
The reason I use the microwave oven is not just because it’s fast, although that’s a good one. It’s also because when cooking in the microwave there is a lot less grease involved. What grease there is can usually be minimized. For example with bacon, you can cook it on paper towels that will absorb a lot of the grease. There’s also a microwave bacon cooker that does a great job of cooking bacon while removing most of the grease. ( I don’t have the url handy for the site but it’s a good one. I’ll post it in a day or two when I’ve time to find it.)
Another advantage is that you don’t have to use cooking sprays and such which means that there’s less chemicals involved and that’s pretty much always a good thing. When you take all this together you end up with the food tasting better and healthier.
On the other hand, while a microwave oven can be a VERY handy thing to have, it’s important to not become so restricted to doing everything with it that you neglect all of the great stuff you can do in the rest of the kitchen with more traditional methods. I know this one to be true because I spent a good long time doing almost all of my cooking with the microwave and then when I had to do things differently it took me a while to shift gears
Since I make regular, even sorta heavy use of the coffee maker, I need to actively do something to clean it once in a while. This isn’t just a matter of cleaning the outside of it and the filter basket & carafe. This is a cleaning of the insides from the water tank all the way through the system.
Why? Because unless you use distilled water, you’re going to have mineral deposits of one kind or another depending on your local water supply. Over time this buildup in the tubing and heating elements will slow the coffee maker down, causing it to take longer to make a pot of coffee. Eventually things will get so blocked up that the machine can be considered junk and need to be replaced.
The cure? Vinegar.
Take the filter out and replace the basket. Then fill the carafe with about four cups of plai vinegar and pour that into the water tank just like you were making a pot of coffee. Turn the pot on and wait about a minute or so to let it heat up and then turn it off.
Allow this heated vinegar to sit for about ten to fifteen minutes and then turn the pot back on and let it cook out the vinegar. When the machine is done with the vinegar, let it cool and then run at least three full carafes of water through it (also without grounds of course) to clear out the vinegar.
You should notice the coffee maker taking less time to brew a pot. I generally try to remember to do this one every couple of weeks or so. Also, you can repeat this a couple of times in order to clear out heavy deposits.
One of the things that I’m SO glad to have in our kitchen is a programmable coffee maker. You load it up with water and coffee grounds in the filter basket and then, just like setting an alarm clock you program it for the time you want it to start brewing.
I set it to start brewing about twenty minutes before my alarm clock is set to go off so that it’s finished and all ready to pour. I’ve had plenty of the garden variety “turn it on manually” type, and If that’s what’s available I’ll use it without hesitation but that programmable unit is worth it’s weight in plutonium.
There’s a surprising variety of coffee making tools and machines around depending on what variation of the universal morning elixir you prefer. From espresso machines to cappuccino makers, coffee grinders for those who prefer the purity of buying the whole beans and having the freshest possible grounds to use. How about percolators? I remember way back when, my mother used one and a bunch of years ago my brother and I had this really great 45 cup pot that would make enough in one batch to keep both of us in coffee for an entire day.
Over the years we’ve changed a bunch of our old habits. A lot of things that we used to eat we never have anymore, or when we do have them, we make them differently. For example, anything with grease in it can be a real problem these days.
Time was it wouldn’t be a problem at all to have a burger with the juices dripping out of it and then use the fries to sop up some of the juices that dripped out of it. Then we started moving away from the greasy foods and next thing you know, our tastes changed. Now if we have a burger we really want to cook it in such a way as to allow the grease to drain out of it so that we don’t have to eat as much grease.
Chicken is another thing that’s changed. Time was when something like fried chicken wasn’t a problem at all. Now I doubt I could eat it. There are times now when just the sight of grease cooling and congealing is enough to make me queasy.
That’s one of the reasons we started using ground turkey instead of ground beef in a lot of dishes. When you cook up ground turkey there is little to no grease involved and most of what does render out of it is actually water from when it was packed and frozen. (we buy it in frozen one pound rolls)
Ok, actual burgers made with turkey just aren’t the same, but in most other dishes, using turkey instead of ground beef not only won’t hurt it a bit, it’ll probably improve it. Even those Hamburger Helper type box dinner things work just as well with ground turkey as they do with ground beef.
The best part of it is that the turkey is cheaper. I don’t even know the price of ground beef anymore these days but I think that around here it’s $2.50 to $3.00 or more a pound.. and that’s not even the better, leaner varieties. Ground turkey on the other hand, we usually get it for like 89 cents a pound. Just on price alone there is no contest, the bird wins feathers down.
This isn’t REALLY a bomb of course, it’s food. I’m also going to say that this is not really a great idea and I haven’t done it in years… anyway.. A long time ago in a kitchen far away. ok, it wasn’t a kitchen. It was a one room apartment wannabe that had, as it’s one culinary grace a small refrigerator in the corner with a similarly small microwave oven on top of it.
I destroyed prepared a lot of food in that thing while I was there and that’s when I discovered the “hot dog bomb” by accident. I had a frozen package of hot dogs and couldn’t wait for them to thaw normally so I figured I would just put the whole package in the micro and let technology do the work for me.
Well, I started it going by giving the timer a twist and promptly got distracted with something else and forgot about it. Suddenly I hear a pop, almost loud enough to be a small “boom” coming from the micro. I jumped up, shut it off and opened it to see what was destroyed.
To my surprise If found that the frozen package of hot dogs had not only thawed, but they had in fact cooked through and produced enough steam to burst the plastic package they came in. For several years after that this became my preferred way to heat hot dogs.
I had it worked out that on an average oven it took about two and a half minutes or so if thawed and three and a half to four if frozen.
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