Remember the first time you saw a microwave? I remember the day I found a microwave on sale. It soon made entrance into our home. But not without some fast talking. “Why won’t the oven work just as well? “ My husband responded to my plea for a new microwave. “The thing might blow up, you never know,” he continued. Of course here’s a man who fears he might become the next pork roast from our electric blanket. Talk about the ice age!
How excited I was to have this modern day miracle placed on the cabinet of our modest home. I had visions of pot roast (no, not pork roast) cooked in half the time, cakes baked to perfection---well, almost--if you don’t count the time the cake was two to three inches taller on one side. My husband flashed me that all-knowing, ‘I told ya so’ look.
I tried, I really did! I learned to make hot cereal with cinnamon and brown sugar. Hubby was ecstatic ! That is, until I left the spoon in the microwave…Almost blew every circuit in the house! And then there’s the time I decided to try may hand at a soft cooked egg….well, they said it could be done…who knew you had to take the egg out of the shell first? Took me days to get all the permanent baked-on egg yolks off the glass liner. And the smell…we won’t even go there.
Months passed, and then years, I finally found my calling….making popcorn! Oh my goodness was that not the greatest invention? Take out bag, place in microwave, center the bag in the microwave…did I say, ”remove the rack from the microwave first? Yeah, I know. My first dry run ended up with six inches of smoke and the fire alarm going off….I forgot to remove the rack. I think the neighbors may have even considered calling the fire department but they were very much aware of my cooking skills. I believe they called it, ‘Turning the other cheek.”
I regrouped and advanced my cooking disabilities over the years. I also started selling well-known microwavable storage pieces. You know the ones--from fridge or freezer to the microwave. The great thing about this was the fact that they actually taught and demonstrated uses of the storage piece and cooking with the microwave. I can honestly say that during that time, I finally learned how to bake cakes evenly and numerous other recipes to boot! Wow, now I had a hand-full of uses for this much needed microwave.
I’ve long since learned the proper techniques and uses. They go as follows..
1. Call hubby into kitchen, have him help UNLOAD all the STUFF stored in the microwave,
2. Pull out rack, remove plastic wrap from microwave bag and insert in the center of the microwave.
3. Cook for approximately five minutes or until popcorn stops popping…..
4. Remove bag and allow to cool below burning point (yes, hot steam does burn…)
5. Next have hubby help replace all the STUFF back into the microwave and store for another month or until you need to make popcorn again.
By then, you can simply unload microwave and toss all into the trash and wa-la, you have a nice clean microwave ready for storage!
Oh, speaking of the Ice Age…naaa, that’s another story!
