Sunday evening

Sounds like you had a pleasant day, Shelagh. We did, too. Right now I'm holding my my Mickster and trying to type. We've had a good day, too.

I took my knitting with me in the car and knitted between shopping stops today. We drove to a toy store on the other side of town to buy Noah a gift for his 3rd birthday, which will be this Thursday. I'm working on a vest for myself to wear to a meeting this Friday. I'm meeting with the head honcho in a department that I work with, as well as the head sports coach at my job, this Friday, and I want to knit myself something new to wear. I hope to get it done in time! Big needles and 3 strands of yarn held together--hope I can get it done by Wednesday night.

oh, and I love turkey!

lisa

It was milder here too, yesterday. On Saturday we had blue skies and we decided that if the dry held until Sunday we'd go out and move some soft fruit bushes and begin building a fruit cage. But it rained again, and how! There are flood warnings all over UK although we're safe because we live on a hill - but the ground is still waterlogged :-( Through the night and this morning the rain was so hard that even our paths were under 2" of water.

...

We did have a good day, we bought a microwave/grill/convection/conventional oven. I've never had a microwave before and never wanted one but the other functions could save fuel by not using our much larger cooker. Nevertheless I tried cooking rye grains in it yesterday, it might be interesting to experiment ... :-) I know our family will be more than a little surprised!

Mary

microwave/grill/convection/conventional

Nevertheless

I didn't have a microwave for years and resisted buying one (long time ago). I ended up buying one similar to yours.

I love the microwave for defrosting, and especially for cooking vegetables. The veggies retain their bright colours and I cook them til they're just barely fork tender, maybe even slightly still crisp. Beats boiling them to death in a pot. I've "baked" many a lovely main dish as well as cookies and cakes in that thing, and I agree with you, I think it does save on power.

Shelagh

Over time I've got into the habit of simply taking things out of the freezer well before I want them. No power needed :-)

My vegetables are cooked as you describe - but in a pan with a small amount of water over a high heat for a short time. I doubt they could be improved on.

I rarely bake cookies or cakes and when I do make biscuits (cookies) I make lots, in the fan assisted oven. I think it would be more time-consuming to use the microwave.

But tonight I tried making dumplings in the pot roasted beef in a casserole in the microwave.

I obviously need to acquire a good instruction book. The dumplings were OK, cooked but rather 'sad'. Everyone ate them with relish but I was disappointed, I just played around with controls, not knowing what I was doing :-( Being too ambitious I suppose.

The instructions which came with the cooker were just about interpreting the very many buttons and combination of buttons. there was nothing about cooking real food.

I don't understand it ... :-(

Does Life have to be so complicated?

Of course it does, if we use complicated machinery :-(((((((((((((

But thanks for your encouragement!

Mary

I baked the stuff using the "oven" part, not the microwave part. Same machine, different controls. I don't even think baking works in the microwave - it doesn't brown anything.

Shelagh

Hi thee to thine free public library! When I bought my first microwave oven - after the prices had dropped considerably AND I had gone through one and a half Florida summers with only window air conditioners - I went off to the library to see what I could find.

I brought home one hefty tome which had a lot of text and not many illustrations, and at first I was disappointed because it had only a few recipes, tucked away at the back. However, as I got into it, I realised that it was actually a treatise on the theory and practice of microwave cooking, and the few recipes were simply to illustrate the method.

This knowledge, plus the appliance, changed my life. Mind you, there are things which simply do not work well, dumplings being one of them. I always do dumplings on top of the (gas) stove,and pot roast in the oven, the pressure cooker or the slow cooker. Don't even think of trying cakes and biscuits, but, on the other hand, you can make a "steamed" pudding in five to nine minutes!!! (I can send you recipes if you like). The microwave is also fantastic for boiling milk, it NEVER burns, although it will boil over if you do not put it in a very large container and/or watch it carefully. I also fire up the regular oven for bread.

I could go on, but I'll stop here. Post back or e-mail off list if you want any more info.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Sorry, I meant in the 'small oven' - the conventional part. it would be fine for small amounts of cookies but not the number I do.

Have you any ideas for a good book to explain the use of a microwave? Cooking times, suitable dishes etc. I guess there will be very many to choose from but some might be better than others :-(

Thanks,

Mary

This is my microwave "bible" that I've used for nigh on twenty years Mary.

I use the book that came with mine. It has lots of great pictures and explanations as well as recipes. It sounds like your machine only came with a manual.

But I think mine is different from yours. Mine looks like a micro- wave, but a little bigger. I have mine sitting on a cart. I also have the larger stove top/oven, but rarely use the oven. Since there's just the two of us, I don't bake that often because we're trying to watch our weight. I pretty much make everything in the smaller machine. It's a microwave, convection, conventional machine.

Shelagh

Here it is Tuesday, and I am just getting around to replying to this. Does that tell you how my life has been? LOL I am working on the breast cancer socks, and have completed 36 rows on the Diamond Fantasy Shawl. THe shawl is definitely NOT mindless knitting, and the socks also require some concentration. But they are shaping up nicely. It has been cold in MOntreal, but compared to poor Keith in Wabush. this is balmy. Plus they have been losing the power for brief periods of time for the past two days - not fun! In fact, he has started talking (again!) about getting a generator. I like turley at any time of the year. In fact, when I go home in February, I hope to cook one. Yum!

Higs, Katherine

I love the microwave! Mind you, it will never totally replace my conventional oven/stove top, but it is so handy for many things. I rarely cook bacon any other way now, and there are a number of other things I use it for as well. It is alwo great for quickly heating leftovers.

Higs, Katherine

Mary

It did :-(

I rarely bake sweet things - except for Spouse's comfort food to go with his

11am coffee. He's as thin as a lath. I don't eat them. But I bake all our bread either in the big oven or the stone oven outside. I don't think I'd even try bread in the new gadget! It's not worth making one loaf at a time.

But some meals, just for three (two old folk with smaller appetites and one

20 yr old) don't use the whole capacity of the big oven and therefore waste energy, that's why I wanted a smaller one.

I love my big oven, don't get me wrong, but I'm very concerned about our carbon footprint.

Mary

Ah - why didn't I think of that!

Probably because it's raining continuously and grey and cold and I only go out to post letters!

...

That sounds like the sort of tome I'd like.

We went for a meal at No 3 son's, he has a huge conventional oven and uses his microwave too. I took the last Christmas pudding and he said he'd heat it in his microwave, at which I curled my lip.

It was the best pudding of the batch - including those I heated myself, steaming for two hours. I'm still learning :-)

Thank you, I probably shall. The server has been up and down for the last few days, it might be connected with the flooding we've had. If it continues my on-line activity will be patchy but I shan't forget!

Thanks,

Mary

...

I love the microwave! Mind you, it will never totally replace my conventional oven/stove top, but it is so handy for many things. I rarely cook bacon any other way now, and there are a number of other things I use it for as well. It is alwo great for quickly heating leftovers.

Bacon? Never thought of that ... so much to learn ...

head swimming ...

Mary

Mary

I think you'll be pleased with it Mary. It takes you through the basics of using a microwave, how it works, gives loads of helpful hints and tips and even has a section on how to adapt traditional recipes for the microwave.

My sort of cooking is rather like my knitting! I'll read the recipe, maybe try it out once or just go straight ahead and "adjust" it to what is wanted. This book actually encourages you to do that and was a great confidence booster when I didn't know what I was letting myself in for LOL.

On the fuel saving part, I actually monitored my bills for the first year and the saving over conventional was £120 in that year. As that was about

1980 something that was quite a saving back then.

I have always used the conventional oven for cakes and biscuits.

I always do my bacon in the mike. But it's quite different from doing it in the stovetop.

Use a dinner plate with at least a double layer of paper towels, lay your strips of bacon on the towels, then a double layer of towels on top of the bacon. Cook til the desired doneness, and use the paper towels to mop up the grease. Be careful, the towels will be HOT!

Because I love my bacon totally CRISP, some- times the bacon sticks to the towels. I watch for that and peel it off before it sticks.

If I'm doing 4 or 5 slices of bacon, I cook it on high for at least 5 minutes, checking on it while it cooks.

Shelagh

OTOH, we do the bacon on a plastic (or nylon, or somethihg) rack made especially for the purpose. Lay the bacon on the rack, then set the rack on a microwave safe dinner plate. When the bacon is done, we pour the fat off into a jar kept for the purpose, then use it as needed. NOTHING is wasted in my kitchen.

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.