Why Use the Micrwave to Cook?

With a microwave oven, the concept of fast food takes on a whole new meaning. Using your microwave you can:

Slash cooking times by up to 75%.

Reduce fat in dishes anywhere from 50% to 100%.

Preserve valuable nutrients that might be lost by some other cooking methods.

Simplify cleanup tremendously - often you can mix, cook, and serve a dish in one casserole.

Rarely will there be any burned or baked on fat or grease to try to remove.

Other benefits of microwave usage:
You'll keep the kitchen cooler in hot weather, and you can even save money in the bargain. Utlity experts estimate that a microwave uses 30-70% less power than conventional cooking methods. Microwave recipes don't require any preheating time.

Most of us use our microwave ovens to reheat coffee, and leftovers; to pop popcorn; to heat such things as sweetrolls; and occassionally to actually cook something.

To use your microwave for cooking, you first have to want to use your microwave for cooking.

Most people find trying to cook a meal in a microwave too difficult because it requires learning something new and very different from what they're used to.

Microwave cooking is different from any other cooking method you've ever used. The microwave is more that just a turbocharged oven or frying pan. Foods are actually heated and cooked in a whole new way. Unconventional types of cookware can be used including paper and plastic. Diffent cooking techniques apply than the ones you're used to. In a way the microwave is the Picasso of cooking because such things as judging doneness requires a different orientation.

While the microwave is not likely to replace all your stovetop, oven, pressure cooker, wok, toaster or any other cooking item; it is another tool with its own special uses and strengths, but there are many things it does better.

If all you know about the microwave is that it's great for reheating coffee or pizza, can cook pizza or make popcorn in a flash, consider this: A microwave can quick-cook healthy foods that usually take too much time for daily use. Here are a few examples.

Butternut squash takes about an hour in a conventional oven, but 12 minutes or less with a microwave.
At an hour or so to cook fresh beets on the stove top, canned beets are much quicker and far less flavorful, but you can have them fresh and flavorful from the microwave in 20 minutes.
So called quick breads need a good hour in an oven. With the microwave, they bake in 10-15 minutes.
You'll hardly have time to turn around before your whole grain muffins are done in the microwave. Ten minutes or so in the oven, less than a minute in a microwave.
Bake potatoes for family of four in 10-15 minutes.

The time-saving possiblities are endless.

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