Sunday evening

On Jan 21, 10:23*am, "Mary Fisher" wrote:
"Shillelagh" wrote in message

news
Well it's been another cool day on the Canadian prairies.
Today felt quite a bit warmer than yesterday. *At least the
hubbo and I were able to get outside to cut and split some
firewood today.

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.



...

Hope you all had a good day. *I'm off to warm up the turkey
I made for dinner yesterday. *Yes - turkey. *My husband's
company gives them out free for Christmas, so I always
save it for January

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!

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

"Bernadette" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:21:51 +0000, Mary Fisher wrote:




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.
http://www.antiqbook.co.uk/boox/star/001696.shtml

Thanks, I'll look out for it. Good Housekeeping books certainly are
reliable.

Mary
--
Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light

"Shillelagh" wrote in message
...

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

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

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.

It did :-(

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.

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

Shelagh

"Olwyn Mary" wrote in message
.. .
Mary Fisher wrote:

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

Hi thee to thine free public library!

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!

....

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.

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

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.

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 :-)

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

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

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.




--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Katherine" wrote in message
news:2dee7167-abf0-4b27-b880-

....

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

"Bernadette" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:21:51 +0000, Mary Fisher wrote:





This is my microwave "bible" that I've used for nigh on twenty years Mary.
http://www.antiqbook.co.uk/boox/star/001696.shtml

Ordered, used, from Amazon - with postage it will be about £6. Can't be bad
:-)

Mary

On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:48:35 +0000, Mary Fisher wrote:


"Bernadette" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:21:51 +0000, Mary Fisher wrote:





This is my microwave "bible" that I've used for nigh on twenty years
Mary. http://www.antiqbook.co.uk/boox/star/001696.shtml

Ordered, used, from Amazon - with postage it will be about £6. Can't be
bad
:-)

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.
--
Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light

"Mary Fisher" wrote in message
t...

"Katherine" wrote in message
news:2dee7167-abf0-4b27-b880-

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

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

Shillelagh wrote:



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.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Bernadette" wrote in message
news



This is my microwave "bible" that I've used for nigh on twenty years
Mary. http://www.antiqbook.co.uk/boox/star/001696.shtml

Ordered, used, from Amazon - with postage it will be about £6. Can't be
bad
:-)

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.

Same here. I mguess it's true of many round here :-)

....

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.

Good heavens! Our whole bill isn't much more than that!

I don't suppose I could be bothered with monitoring bills - haven't done
since we installed solar water heating (although it was my intention!) but I
believe you.

Thanks again.

Mary