Living without a microwave

So, I'm not a total crazy conspiracy theorist. But, when I found out I was pregnant five years ago, I was heating up my lunch at work with the microwave pointing directly at my yet-unformed baby- and I wondered. There are tons of sources of radiation in my life, and it seemed like this would be a relatively easy one to ditch. I met one friend who only used their microwave to store food in, and I was inspired, but I could never quite pull the plug. (Literally.)

When we moved to the Slight South a year ago, our rental had a built-in microwave, and no room to store ours, so we got rid of it on Craigslist. Of course, when we moved this summer into our new home, it didn't come with a microwave. While our new kitchen has more counter space than I'm used to, after so many years of counter space scarcity, I wasn't looking to give any up. So I figured we'd see how it went- we could always buy one later.

It has been a bit of a learning curve: re-heating rice in a pan was not my best experiment. (Much better in the oven. Thank you Google.) The basic microwave-alternatives are:

Heating in a pot: Great for melting, soups, sauces, and saucy things (like pasta in sauce or leftover meat in sauce to be served over pasta, rice, etc). Sometimes the sauce will burn a little bit on the pot, but it cleans up pretty easily with a scrubby.

Heating in the oven or toaster oven: This has a benefit it took me a while to notice: I go do something else while the food heats. If I heat something up in the microwave and it takes two or three minutes, I usually just stand aimlessly in the kitchen or try to work on a quick task- but it's not really enough time to finish anything. If it takes ten or 15 minutes to heat in the oven- I put it in, set the timer, and move on to the next thing! No awkward waiting. Of course, that means ideally I think about lunch a whole 15 or 20 minutes in advance- awesome when it happens, but it doesn't always. Still, I love the lack of awkward waiting- especially if we're heating up a variety of leftovers that would all require their own several-minute wait. Today I heated two slices a pizza, a couple bites of leftover broccoli, a hot dog, a leftover friend chicken tender, and a hot dog bun all on one big cookie sheet. Ten whole minutes to set the table and heat some soup- and everything was done!

Quick dunk in boiling water: Works great for quickly re-heating boiled or steamed veggies, plain pasta, or the frozen dumplings.

Sauteing in a pan: I've done this with leftover veggies too. Yum.

Benefits? The food tastes amazing! It makes me wonder why I put up with that microwaved texture all those years! Also, it seems to stay hotter and be more evenly heated.

Downsides? Dishes. I usually have to use a different pot or pan that the one I used to store the leftovers. I also ended up buying a tiny saucepan for heating a small amount of food or water. Worth it. (My Dad said heating water in that little pot was actually faster than the microwave!)

It's true that it takes longer and sometimes I get impatient and the food is not as warm it might be. For the most part, it's not a problem- I feel like since the food is more evenly heated, it tastes much better lukewarm than with awkward hot and cold spots like insufficiently heated microwave food.

I've been surprised how much I like not having one! But, after so many years of dependence, I still don't think I'd have the discipline to leave it unused. And that's why I haven't bought a tiny one, even to sterilize our sponges and nose-rinsing squeeze bottles. (That's a whole other post, no?)