It’s been an interesting journey as I do my best to avoid the microwave. I bought a popcorn popper for a buck at a garage sale, which has helped the microwave popcorn issue. I steam my veggies on the stove. I use a toaster oven or the stovetop to reheat leftovers. We cook our oatmeal with a pot.
The changes have been small, and at first I was open to using the microwave if it was difficult to avoid it. Now it’s like getting a perfect attendance award: after the first 170 days of going to school on time, you’d do anything to make it that last 10 times. I like a challenge, and it’s become almost a game to see if I can stick with it. Here are some the surprising benefits I’ve stumbled upon as I succeed:
- Meat that is thawed in the fridge doesn’t (a) have some weird cooked spots from uneven microwave thawing and (b) is ready the second you walk into the kitchen.
- Popcorn on the stovetop or with a popper is really good and is healthier for my body than microwave popcorn.
- Hot chocolate is actually easier because I don’t have to run the microwave separately for each cup of water. I can flip on the teapot burner, then worry about getting mugs and hot chocolate mix organized. There is less “hands-on” time.
- Second helpings of casserole or soup are ready immediately, not when I scoop another serving and nuke it.
- I don’t always create more dishes: we can put leftovers in our glass dishes, which can go right into the toaster oven in single or double servings, then into the dishwasher to be sparkly clean!
- I am encouraged to eat the same thing as my children or guests, ultimately simplifying lunch preparation and cleanup. I counted the number of items I had to get out one day to feed my preschool-age son and myself. Between two different main courses, condiments, fruit in the yogurt, and drinks, I got up to over 20 things! That’s a bit ridiculous. I was ready to simplify!
- Bread products like pancakes, waffles and biscuits are good in the microwave, but not if you overdo them. Same with the toaster oven: a lot of people don’t like the “toasty” parts of reheating these in the toaster, but you can alleviate that problem by wrapping the items in aluminum foil.
- Leftover pizza, hamburgers and crispy nachos are MUCH tastier in the toaster oven.
- Ditto for anything with meat in it, especially chicken. I hate the toughness of chicken reheated in the microwave. Ask my mom: I used to eat cold leftover stir fry for breakfast in high school!
- I can lightly warm baby’s food in a glass dish with one “toast” cycle. I plan ahead and thaw my food cubes a day in advance, but if I’m in a pinch I can just toast a frozen cube longer.
- I am convinced that heating a pot of leftover soup (or any liquid-based meal) is quicker than heating two (or more!) separate bowls in the microwave, and it definitely makes certain everyone has hot food and eats at the same time. The toaster oven is not always as accommodating.
- I can make other parts of the meal (veggies, cut fruit, salads, drinks) while the leftovers are heating in the toaster oven. Sometimes avoiding the microwave doesn’t make lunch prep take any longer at all.
- The BEST one ever: Everything stays hotter longer when heated “for real”, either on the stove or in the oven. Hot chocolate, soup, steamed vegetables, you name it. Let me repeat that one, it’s worth it: Everything stays hot. That one is really nice.
Please visit the Mind the Microwave in May Invite post if you are willing to be cognizant of your own microwave use. A challenge is fun!
Find More about Minding the Microwave:
- The Challenge
- The Invitation
- Research Notes, part one: Breastmilk
- 10 Tips for Avoiding the Microwave
- Time Management/Fewer Dishes Tips
- Research Notes, part two: Radiation Danger
A fun note: I got to guest post at Kelly the Kitchen Kop this week! You can read my post here, but I’ll warn you: if you’re really depending on these baby steps, there’s a reason I posted over there and not here. 
Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money. If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.
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This post is part of Thursday Thirteen, Things I Love Thursday and What I Learned This Week.
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I found your blog a few weeks ago. We already weren’t using our microwave much, but your challenge encouraged me to try to eliminate it entirely. We are also finding the same benefits that you mentioned to reheating and cooking “for real”. Our only hold out is popcorn, but I’m hoping to find an alternative in the next few days. Thanks for your thought provoking posts and challenges
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Lori’s last blog post..Garden Update 5-21-09
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Thank you so much for this post. I really hate using the microwave. I’ve never been able to put my finger on why, I just do. Maybe with these ideas, I can stop using it for the most part. I do not have a toaster over though, so that may be something I need to look into. Thanks for the ideas!
Whitney’s last blog post..TILT: Sassy Baby’s First Rattle & Teether Set
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Katie Reply:
May 21st, 2009 at 5:34 pm
The toaster oven always feels like less of a commitment than the big old oven, but they do the same task. My toaster oven is in my “gadget wishlist” – click the bar at the top of the screen. Also check out some of my other tips for avoiding the mic, listed at the bottom of this post. Thanks so much for visiting!
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Twitter: sarahsmusings
// May 21, 2009 at 10:10 am
I love leftover cold Mexican food!
Sarah’s last blog post..Daybook
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It’s amazing how quickly you get to using the microwave all the time. Reading about your challenge, I doubted whether I could do the same. But just like you’ve been writing, it’s the baby steps that add up to big changes. Must keep that in mind.
Jendeis’s last blog post..Library Math
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I was raised on air popped popcorn (I have so many memories of movies at home, snack time, and on the go snacking as a kid). Popcorn is quite a tradition amongst our family! I am so used to making my own that I don’t really like microwave popcorn. I sure love my popcorn, ask my husband! My mother in law recently introduced me to powdered flavors for popcorn (she is a fellow popcorn lover). I’ll be honest, I love my melted butter on my popcorn.
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I used to love those powdered flavors, too, but stick with just butter and sea salt now because those are full of icky ingredients – real butter tastes the best, anyway!
Katie, make sure your new popper isn’t made of aluminum. When I was shopping for a new stove-pop popper (I think it’s much tastier than air-popped), I wanted to find one made of stainless steel – it’s the kind you crank with your hand a few times while it’s popping. It wasn’t easy to find. I cook it in coconut oil for the extra nutrition. More about my “recipe” and where I got my popper are here:
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/2008/01/kellys-recipe-for-popcorn-with-coconut.html
Kelly the Kitchen Kop’s last blog post..Pork: the Source Matters – Michael Pollan and the Swine Flu
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Katie Reply:
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Oh, dear. There’s always so many things to think about, aren’t there?! Kitchen Stewardship is even planning on “Analyzing Aluminum in August” and I didn’t think that the popper probably is – looks like? – made of aluminum. Hmph. It even had a little door to melt the butter in the side (also aluminum, probably). It’s 30 years old! I bet the company’s not even around anymore to ask to be certain. Now to weight the risks vs. the benefits (of not having to wash a pot)… Thanks so much for the good advice.
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I have been wanting to swear-off the microwave for a few months now, but as a single person I am finding somethings a bit difficult. For example, I made lentil soup yesterday and wanted to heat up one bowl for lunch. It seems like a waste to me to use the energy to heat up the entire pot (plus the time and the fact that it isn’t good to reheat food over and over) when I only needed one bowl that took less than a minute in the microwave.
Also, I have the same problem when I want to reheat just one serving of oatmeal or a single baked yam.
Lastly, though I usually eat fresh-cooked steel cut oats, there are days when I use a premium organic, whole grain packet variety that specifically says on the package that just adding boiling water won’t fully cook the whole grains.
Any suggestions for getting around these last few hang-ups? Thanks!
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Katie Reply:
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
It would be much harder to justify being single, just because I hate dishes so much. You would be surprised how fast a single serving of soup heats up, though, and I don’t know if the energy difference would be remarkable enough to matter. See this post: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2009/03/05/appliance-cost/ to figure out how much energy it takes to run your kitchen appliances. The stovetop is less than 15 cents per hour, so the 5 minutes it takes for soup…. Do you have a toaster oven? 5 minutes in there is usually good for oatmeal, in my experience, a yam probably 10 if whole, 5 if mashed on an oven-safe plate.
I don’t have any experience with the packet oatmeal you mention, at least not without a mic! Can it just go on the stovetop? Maybe other readers can chime in on that one.
A question: I’ve not seen info on reheating food over and over. Do you know why it’s not good?
Best of luck! Katie
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So true! It is a rare thing for anyone in this house to use the microwave.
Great TILT!
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Thanks for sharing your opinion on my questions! I have heard that repeated reheating further degrades the vitamins and nutrients in food because the longer food is exposed to heat, the more nutrients are leeched out. Also, all the food safety material I’ve ever read says to avoid repeated heating and cooling of food because it makes the food much more vulnerable to harmful bacteria and puts you at high risk for food poisoning.
I don’t have a toaster oven, but I’m not sure if it would really be useful for the two things I use a microwave for (heating up one bowl of soup, one already cooked yam, or one bowl of oatmeal).
Thanks for the link, I am very interested to calculate the energy difference!
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It’s interesting that I came across your blog tonight. Just a few days ago, I decided to do away with our microwave oven. We didn’t use it much, just the occasional reheating of leftovers from the night before. Even so, it did it’s job poorly. I mean, wasn’t the point of having one in the first place to make life easier? My answer to that is NO!
Whenever we have leftovers now, I just reheat on the stove top or in the oven. Even being a busy mom pressed for time, more often than not, I haven’t found it any more difficult to reheat meals this way versus waiting for hours (OK, maybe not actually, but it felt that way!!) on something to be zapped beyond recognition in the microwave. We haven’t missed it…and an added bonus? My Crock-Pot has taken it’s place on my kitchen counter (talk about tasty dinners with little fuss!)
With a little extra planning and preparation I can still have a warm, nutritious meal on the table within minutes to fill hungry bellies! Thanks for the information
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