What is your Favorite Microwave Recipe?

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KAYLINDA

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I cook lots of things in the old nuker....pie fillings, candies, sauces...what is your favorite thing (besides warming coffee, heating water or melting butter?) lol.
 
I cant bring myself to use the microwave other than to thaw or reheat things.....I just dont think it would cook things properly...oh i know you can do lots with them, its just me being a chicken
 
lol.. I was going to say I love it to boil water...

I don't really make anything in my microwave. I just use
it to warm things up.
 
When my husband and I were building our home and greenhouses, we didn't have a stove for 6 months, so we got by with the Weber grill, electric skillet, crock pot and microwave. I learned how to do all sorts of things in the microwave, and still use it a lot for:
*cooking ground meat for recipes
*sweating out onions and other vegies...just put chopped vegies in glass bowl with lipid of your choice
*making spaghetti sauce
*casseroles
*steaming vegies

Here's one of my favorite microwave recipes...a soup I like to make for my lunches:

Cabbage Soup:

1 medium cabbage, cut into wedges and cored
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, diced
2-3 tbls olive oil
salt & pepper
1 can low-fat chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes (Italian Style is nice) with juice
handfull of baby carrots
1 can speckled or plain butter beans, drained & rinsed

Halve the cabbage wedges, and put into the largest round bowl that will fit in your nuke. Add onion, garlic, olive oil, S&P and chicken broth, and cook at 10 minute intervals, stirring between, until cabbage is wilted. Add remaining ingredients and nuke untill all is tender. Adjust seasoning...
it will take quite a bit.
Top each bowl with a slice of Velveeta Lite if you like...this soup is so low calorie that you can afford it.
If you want to make it heartier, add some slices of Kielbasa or smoked sausage along with the cabbage.
 
I use it to reheat leftovers, at which it is fantastic, to thaw certain frozen items like spinach, and to cook certain vegetables between seasons: by that I mean I love roasted vegetables but in the summer I don't use the oven, so if I'm not grilling, I may do some vegies in the nuker which does asparagus beautifully for example. How's that for a run on sentence, eh?
 
I have to admit, I predominantly use my micro-wave for heating hot dogs, warming bread, re-heating soups, etc. But I've also used it to make great brownies, a few cakes, etc. I've also use it to steam both sweet and regular potatoes (works incredibly for that), steam vegetables such as the cruciferous types, i.e. cabbage, cauliflour, brocoli, and also root veggies such as onions, carrots, rutabegas, etc.

I love it for making popcorn too.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North
 
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melting butter. cooking frozen meals and defrosting spaghetti sauce. but i don't really like microwaves.
 
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Snack cake. It is great because you don't need oil.

Prepare a box cake mix as directed, but omit oil. Carefully pour into large Tupperware Stack Cooker dish with cone placed in the center--spray the bottom with PAM (I haven't tried this in any other kind of dish yet, but it may work ok). Distribute canned fruit pie filling or drained fruit over the top of the batter (it will sink as it cooks). Cook on HIGH for 13 minutes (Don't give in to temptation to check it early--cook for 13 minutes). This is so good you won't believe it!

:) Barbara
 
microwave cooking

bhari bhindi [font=Verdana, Arial]Preparation Time : 10-15 min approx
Cooking Time : 10-15 min
Serves / Makes :
[/font][font=Verdana, Arial] [/font][font=Verdana, Arial]Ingredients[/font][font=Verdana, Arial]3 tsp each coriander and cumin pwd
2 and half tsh amchoor or to taste
salt
red chilli pwd to taste
half tsp garam masala
1 sliced onion
400 gm ladies finger[small]

[/font] [font=Verdana, Arial]Method[/font][font=Verdana, Arial]mix all together the ingredients for the stuffing accept onion.
make a small slit along each lady finger
put in a little bit of stuffing.
in a glass microwave safe dish,heat 1 tbsp oil at 100%power for 2 min.
put inthe onions.
microwave at 100% for 4-5 min
drop in the vegetables and microwave at 100% power,uncoveredfor a 4 min,stirring twice......
[/font]
 
I use the microwave a lot - I cook for a large group, and sometimes it seems like I don't have enough space on the stove-top, so I make use of the microwave. I have large, 700 watt oven.
Cheese sauce: In a large corning measuring bowl, melt butter, wisk in flour, whisk in cold milk - don't leave lumps. Heat, covered with a paper towl, on high 2 minutes, stir, keep heating until sauce thickens. Add Cheese & season. This is good over cooked cauliflower/broccoli.
Rice: In 2 qt microwavable bowl (I use corning ware), 4 cups water, 2 cups rice (not instant! Carolina white rice works really well), salt, cook on high for 17 minutes. Rice comes out perfectly. If it looks as though water hasn't all been absorbed, just wait a bit - it will continue to cook after you take it out.
Vegetables - mainly carrots and peas - are cooked, covered, in bowls that are nice enough double as serving dishes - this saves on washing up. I use the Corning's French white, which comes with a glass lid. Peas take about 3-5 minutes on high, same with carrots.
I've done cakes (BTW previous cake recipe post looks very good, but 13 minutes seems a bit long). If you don't have anything to cook the batter in, just put it in a bowl - but before pouring the batter in, invert a tea cup in the middle of t he bowl. MIL's "Madeira" cake recipe works will in the microwave, but it literally cooks for no more than 5 minutes. I cook for 1 minute then turn the bowl, then another minute, turn the bowl...till done. I don't do this often, but in a pinch, I use this as a the cake for trifle, since it doesn't turn that golden brown colour. Or top with strawberries and whipped cream.
Fish - place two pieces (1 1/2 lbs (about)) of hake or scrod or tilapia in a shallow bowl, surrounded by a sauce, which you would make first - then cover and cook for about 8 minutes on high - what could be quicer?:
Sauce - (can also be made in micro), melt butter, add flour, 1 tblsp. Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, thyme, some Colman's powdered mustard (1 tsp.), add chopped onion, garlic, chopped tomatoes, sliced fresh mushrooms. Cook for about 3 minutes, then add fish & cook for about 8 minutes.
I needed to soak dried fruit in sherry once, but forgot - just popped the fruit into a bowl and covered with sherry and cooked four 1 minute or two - fruit became infused with sherry.
Husband pre-cooks chicken breasts in bbq sauce before grilling them.
If you want to get a lot of juice out of an orange or lemon, stick it on a plate in the microwave for 25 seconds - when you cut the fruit lots of juice will squirt out.
Sandyj
 
I only use it to heat up frozen peas and make scrambled eggs - oh and to zap a microwave 'ready meal' if I'm working late and can't be bothered to prepare a whole meal when I come in!
 
Sandyj said:
I've done cakes (BTW previous cake recipe post looks very good, but 13 minutes seems a bit long).
13 minutes is actually just right. If it didn't have fruit in it, maybe it would need less time.

:) Barbara
 
The only thing I really cook in the microwave is hotdogs and popcorn.

Oh.....but warning. I bought a little bag (like microwave popcorn) of porkrinds. Ok.....thats what I thought too. How in the world ..... microwave porkrinds......hmmmmm I was intriged. Well they were only like 25cents at Wally World at the check out counter. Don't do it.......stay away for the microwave porkrinds. We were at a friends house the other night and I took them with us to play cards. Well they stunk when I opened the bag but my friend is like, "Oh yea....give me one of those"! The look on her face was priceless.........I still about pee my pants thinking about it. She couldn't spit it out fast enough. And the stinch it put in her house was awful. A babies poppy diaper smelt better........and thats no joke. She was like "Thats joke food isn't it? This is a joke isn't it"? She thought it was like that gum you chew and it turns your teeth a color. Finally after about 10 minutes of laughing our butts off she finally believed me that these were on the up and up.
 
If my microwave died, I'd have to give up cooking!

One of my family's favorites is a chicken recipe from www.eatchicken.com:

Ranch Microwave Chicken

8 chicken thighs
(either with or without bones, but skin them first)
1 t. salt, divided
1/2 t. pepper, divided
1 t. paprika, divided
2 T. margarine, divided
1 cup ranch dressing

In shallow round microwave baking dish, arrange thighs around the outside. Sprinkle with half the salt, pepper,
and paprika. Dot chicken with 1 T. margarine. Microwave, uncovered, on HIGH for 10 minutes. Turn chicken over, reversing outside edges toward center. Sprinkle with remaining salt, pepper, and paprika; dot with remaining margarine. Cook about 10 minutes more on HIGH. Pour dressng over chicken and cook on HIGH about 3 minutes, until dressing is hot. Serves 4

Notes: I generally use less salt than the recipe calls for and much more paprika--the Hungarian kind (there really is a difference!).

Get creative! I even roasted a small stuffed turkey in a microwave one Thanksgiving when my oven quit on me.

Enjoy experimenting. There's more to microwave life than just reheating coffee.

:D
 
I am not very creative with microwave usage either... But one thing I found out which is very convenient is, to steam some vegetables quickly, if you only need them enough for just 1 or 2 person/people. Cut them up, stick them in a plastic bag and tie the top tightly, throw it in and nuke for a few minutes or until the bag bursts, they steam themselves perfectly, no over cooking...

BTW I have seen those mikes with grill function, I see they are getting popular but I don't directly know anyone who has/uses it... has anyone tried it, do they work like they are supposed to?
 
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