Quote:
Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8
Shortly after sales of microwave ovens began to soar (let's say the mid 1980's), microwave oven cookbooks began to proliferate, too. Most manufacturers included at least something resembling a cookbook with their ovens. But it seems (I didn't do much cooking back then) that the recipes were not any good, with maybe a few exceptions. Many of the foods in the grocery stores intended to be cooked with the microwave ovens just weren't hardly palatable. It seems to me that manufacturers of frozen foods especially had trouble creating items made with flour (like crusts of pot pies) that would turn out decent. Honestly, about the only thing that I used my microwave oven for was warming up things that had been cooked in a conventional oven, and for baking potatoes, which turned out, well, good enough.
There has been a long learning curve for manufacturers of ovens, professional cooks, cookbook authors, et al., it seems, to figure out how to adjust recipes, and maybe create some new ones, that are microwave-friendly. Back when I was scrounging the thrift stores (second-hand stores), etc. (okay, to be honest, I still do it some) for used dead-tree books, there were always a large number of microwave oven cookbooks among the books for sale. People with the ovens didn't want them, and it seems that it was because the recipes weren't any good.
It seems that that situation has changed, thankfully. I now readily buy frozen foods intended for the microwave, even flour-based ones, and am generally pleased. Apparently, from what people like Cinisajoy said about the risotto, for example, that peeps who put out cookbooks are doing a much better job of coming up with recipes for the microwave than they used to.
I still am very wary of cookbooks intended for the microwave, though. I just simply won't buy one, no matter what the ratings or reviews. Maybe it comes from the bad experiences years ago, and it will take some more time for me to get over.
|
I still frequent thrift stores and find many microwave cookbooks. It isn't the recipes are not good, it is especially on the older cookbooks if you do not have that exact model, most of the recipes won't work in other microwave ovens. Second problem was on many things like say a roast, it didn't really save any time and you had to check on it every few minutes.
The newer microwaves generally have the same features across the board. Though note, I cannot use my well never mind as it has been re-donated due to being unusable. It was a 1970's era Kenmore microwave cookbook for the microwave that had the roasting probe.
The new steam in bag vegetables work pretty well and microwave popcorn.
I grabbed this one out of curiosity because I don't see how one can do a risotto in the microwave.