• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

(important for even popping)

Large mixing bowl

Old maids--the biggest downside to microwave popping is unpopped kernels. I’ve never managed better than a 70-percent pop without burning some of the corn. That’s just life in the big microwave.

Tomato Sauce Rosie

There are times when you want to slowly simmer a sauce all afternoon on the cook top. And then there are the times when you just want to eat something. The microwave oven is here to help—so let it.

Application: Microwave Cooking

In a microwave-safe glass dish, combine the oil, garlic, shallot, onion, and chile flakes. Put the dish in the microwave oven and cook on high power for 1 minute.

Remove the dish from the oven, add the tomato sauce and the diced tomatoes, then tightly cover the dish with plastic wrap. Pierce the film twice to allow steam to escape, return the dish to the microwave oven and cook on high power, for 2 minutes. Allow the dish to rest, covered, in the oven for 2 minutes, then remove, take off the plastic wrap, and stir in the basil, parsley, sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Serve over your favorite pasta.

Yield: Approximately 3½ cups sauce

Software:

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 tablespoons thinly sliced garlic

2 tablespoons minced shallot

1 cup diced yellow onion

½ teaspoon chile flakes

1 (14-ounce) can unseasoned

tomato sauce

1 (14-ounce) can unseasoned diced

tomatoes

2 heaping tablespoons basil, cut

into fine chiffonade

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

2 teaspoons sugar

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

Hardware:

1½ microwave-safe glass or

ceramic dish

Microwave oven with carousel

Plastic wrap

Rosie, of course being the Jetsons’ robotic maid and cook. I’m pretty sure the ol’ girl had a microwave oven in her midsection so she could cook this while ironing Judy’s school uniforms.

Bourbon Apple Pear Sauce

This sauce can be served hot or chilled, over ice cream, or pound cake, or anything you like.

Application: Microwave Cooking

Combine all the ingredients except the bourbon and lemon juice in a microwave-safe container, loosely cover (to allow steam to escape), and cook in the microwave oven on high power for 10 minutes. Allow the dish to rest in the oven for 10 minutes more.

Remove the star anise. With a sieve, drain the liquid from the fruit into a small bowl, and set aside. Return the fruit to the container and use a potato masher to mash to your desired consistency.

Add the reserved liquid and the bourbon to a small sauce pan and cook over medium heat until the liquid is reduced to a near-syrup consistency. Fold the sauce into the fruit. If the sauce is too sweet, add a little lemon juice to taste.

Yield: 3 cups

Software:

2 Granny Smith apples, peeled,

cored, and diced

4 Taylor Gold pears (or your

favorite variety), peeled, cored,

and diced

1½ tablespoons honey

2 tablespoons butter

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 piece star anise

½ ounce bourbon

Freshly squeezed lemon juice to

taste (optional)

Hardware:

1½-quart microwave-safe

container with lid

Fine-mesh sieve

Small bowl

Potato masher (preferably the

grid kind)

Small sauce pan

Beef Blueprint

Beef

Lamb

Lamb

Chicken Blueprint

Pork Skeleton

Pork

The Basic Culinary Toolbox

The word gadget derives from the French gachette or “piece of machinery.” It’s a cool word and I dig the way it sounds, but I’m not too fond of the modern connotation, which smacks of infomercial hucksterism rather than the Yankee ingenuity that produced marvels like the ice-cream churn and the space shuttle. The fact that the word is most often used in association with devices intended for culinary use is a sad statement indeed. In an effort to save time, calories, energy, and so on, people turn to gadgets; then when they find no satisfaction in them, stick them in a drawer. Eventually, there are so many gadgets there’s no room to cook. What we need is less gadgetry and more tools. Tools are serious things, meant to last and to be employed in a wide range of applications.