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Nah, actually I was reading about inflation and deflation and how computers were basically getting to the point of costing less to buy a new one than fixing the old one, and discovered that microwaves used to cost about $26,000 when they first came out. Not any more, .
What!? Whoa.
I don't know about the very first ones, but we had one back when no one else I knew had one... small town, mid 1970's. It was huge, with rotary turn dials. I am not sure but I always assumed my parents had brought it back from Japan, because everything we had that my friends didn't have seemed to have been brought back from Japan. I don't know though. My father was in the Air Force, worked in supply, we always had weird stuff. We had that huge microwave until I was in high school. The controls stopped working long before that though, you had to "count" or use an external timer and if you went off and forgot you'd come back to burned food, happened fairly often.
I make the meatballs in the microwave from scratch, every Monday. I reheated the coffee this morning; hubby puts the pot on at like 5 in the morning and I don't get up til after the coffeemaker turns itself off some days. I always nuke potatoes when I want baked potatoes. They come out perfect every time.
I use the microwave to steam vegetables too. SO easy, and they come out tender and delicious in just a couple of minutes. While I don't normally cook microwave popcorn, I -do- use it to melt the butter for regular popcorn. And of course I use it to melt butter when I'm making my apple crisp.
Also - just an FYI: according to this engineering professional website: http://www.smecc.org/microwave_oven.htm - the first home model of a microwave oven was offered by Tappan for $1250. The Radarange, which predated Tappan's and wasn't marketed toward Mr. & Mrs. Suburbia, was available for up to $3000. That would have been ridiculously expensive for the time (prior to 1970), when you could buy a *house* on a half-acre, with 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a 2-car garage, built-out basement, a deck, and an in-ground pool in the back yard for under $30,000.
I use mine all the time. Last night I made corn on the cob....4 minutes an ear. I don't remove the leaves, so it basically steams itself cooked with no loss of nutrients.
Otherwise I use it to store bread, butter and other food. My cat is a thief. If it's even vaguely edible, he'll make off with it.
He was licking the butter dish clean every night and I thought I was losing my mind.
"I could have SWORN I put more butter in that dish!"
Probably last night, to steam vegetables. Most of what I use it for is steaming veggies, reheating leftovers, and popping corn (just regular popcorn in a NordicWare bowl).
Care to expand on how and why you do this? I've used the microwave for baked potatoes, and admit it doesn't give the best results, but I don't always have 45 minutes to bake a potato in the oven.
Partially cook it in the microwave and finish it in the oven or on the grill.
I currently do not own one and haven't for about 6 months now. If I had one, it'd probably only get used to heat up water. I cook but rarely have left overs as I don't care for the taste of some reheated food. Like pasta for example. I don't like reheating pasta as it taste bland, bloated, etc. Takes on an "over cooked" feel and flavor. In the extremely rare case where I buy frozen dinners or pizzas, etc, they taste better cooked in the oven.
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