Microwave Peanut Brittle
“It is no exaggeration to say I have made this recipe over 500 times,” says Austinite Sam Beneski. “During the years when I taught microwave cooking, I started every class with this recipe. I made it first so it could cool and we could eat it. If I had brought it in to class already done, no one would have believed how easy and good it was.”
Beneski says that older microwaves tend to have a lot more power than some of the newer, smaller ones, but on the other hand, some have double the power. If you’re experimenting with a new microwave or new microwave recipe, err on the side of undercooking. “You can always add a minute or two, but you can’t take it back,” she says.
1 cup raw peanuts
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Karo syrup
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. baking soda
Grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper. Use 8-cup glass measuring cup to cook, which makes it easier to pour out onto baking sheet.
Put the first four ingredients in the glass cup with wooden spoon. Stir. Cook on full power for 7 to 8 minutes, stirring halfway through.
Quickly add butter and vanilla, and stir well. Put back in microwave and cook for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes until very lightly browned. Remove from microwave and stir in the baking soda, which will cause it to foam. Quickly spread on cookie sheet. Let cool and break apart. Store tightly covered.
— Sam Beneski
Yellow Cake in a Mug
Mug cakes are single-serving cakes “baked” in the microwave, usually in a ceramic coffee mug. Their popularity has boomed in the Pinterest generation, and in 2013, Leslie Bilderback published an entire cookbook dedicated to them. This basic yellow cake recipe is one of the cakes featured in the book, and she calls it a “perfect blank canvas on which to paint a sweet celebratory picture. Eat it as is, or fold in anything you like — chocolate chips, candies, nuts, fruits — to create a personalized mug cake statement.” Feel free to top with icing, whipped cream, sprinkles or colored sugar crystals.
2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1 large egg
2 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup granulated sugar
6 Tbsp. (1/4 cup plus 2 Tbsp.) self-rising flour
Pinch of kosher salt
Place the butter in a large mug and microwave it for 20 to 30 seconds until melted. Add the egg and whisk it in with a fork. Stir in the milk, vanilla and sugar. Add the flour and salt. Beat the batter until smooth. Divide the batter between two mugs. Microwave separately for 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 minutes each until risen and firm. Makes two mug cakes.
— From "Mug Cakes: 100 Speedy Microwave Treats to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth" by Leslie Bilderback (St. Martin's Griffin, $22.99)
But are they safe?
Since the discovery of microwaves, experts have debated the safety of using electromagnetic radiation in cooking, including whether it leaks out of the microwave or damages the food. The most current research, according to Good Housekeeping, indicates that the minute amount of radiation leaked from microwaves isn't going to hurt you, even if you're standing in the kitchen. The Food and Drug Administration limits the amount of microwaves the oven can leak over the course of its lifetime to 5 milliwatts, but even that measurement is taken at 2 inches from the oven surface.
As for the food inside, heating ingredients changes their chemistry, no matter if it's by air, water or microwaves. The Good Housekeeping report found that experts say we should be more concerned about other kinds of exposure, including cellphones, power lines and the sun.
We do know that heating plastic can cause chemicals to leach into food. Some plastics are safer for microwaving than others, but the term “microwave safe” is not regulated by the government, so use glass or ceramic containers to be on the safe side.
What about the claim that microwaving food makes it less nutritious?
Just a few years ago, food scientist Harold McGee confirmed what Beneski has been teaching all along, that microwaving food actually can preserve many of the nutrients lost when cooking food for a longer period of time in an oven or on a burner.
If you stopped using the microwave for fear of "popcorn lung," take refuge in the fact that the Colorado man who was awarded damages for his case of bronchiolitis obliterans ate two bags of popcorn a day for 10 years. His case prompted popcorn makers to remove diacetyl from the bags about six years ago, and no other cases of eaters getting "popcorn lung" have been reported. There have been other cases of workers in the popcorn facilities suffering from respiratory problems, however.
Microwave tips from Sam Beneski
- Take advantage of the various power settings. "Everything doesn't need to be cooked on full power," she says. For instance, if you had a dish of leftover cooked pinto beans, you wouldn't put them on a stovetop burner on high. You'd warm them slowly, stirring frequently.
- Don't put a blob of food on a plate and expect it to heat evenly. Spreading out the food will allow it to heat faster but without overheating the edges and leaving the middle cold.
- If your microwave has a turntable, place the food on one side of the circle, not in the middle, which will also help it heat more evenly.
- Need to clean your microwave? Heat a mug of water for 30 to 45 seconds, which will loosen the food particles inside the microwave to make it easier to clean.
But are they safe?
Since the discovery of microwaves, experts have debated the safety of using electromagnetic radiation in cooking, including whether it leaks out of the microwave or damages the food. The most current research, according to Good Housekeeping, indicates that the minute amount of radiation leaked from microwaves isn't going to hurt you, even if you're standing in the kitchen. The Food and Drug Administration limits the amount of microwaves the oven can leak over the course of its lifetime to 5 milliwatts, but even that measurement is taken at 2 inches from the oven surface.
As for the food inside, heating ingredients changes their chemistry, no matter if it's by air, water or microwaves. The Good Housekeeping report found that experts say we should be more concerned about other kinds of exposure, including cellphones, power lines and the sun.
We do know that heating plastic can cause chemicals to leach into food. Some plastics are safer for microwaving than others, but the term “microwave safe” is not regulated by the government, so use glass or ceramic containers to be on the safe side.
What about the claim that microwaving food makes it less nutritious?
Just a few years ago, food scientist Harold McGee confirmed what Beneski has been teaching all along, that microwaving food actually can preserve many of the nutrients lost when cooking food for a longer period of time in an oven or on a burner.
If you stopped using the microwave for fear of "popcorn lung," take refuge in the fact that the Colorado man who was awarded damages for his case of bronchiolitis obliterans ate two bags of popcorn a day for 10 years. His case prompted popcorn makers to remove diacetyl from the bags about six years ago, and no other cases of eaters getting "popcorn lung" have been reported. There have been other cases of workers in the popcorn facilities suffering from respiratory problems, however.
Microwave tips from Sam Beneski
- Take advantage of the various power settings. "Everything doesn't need to be cooked on full power," she says. For instance, if you had a dish of leftover cooked pinto beans, you wouldn't put them on a stovetop burner on high. You'd warm them slowly, stirring frequently.
- Don't put a blob of food on a plate and expect it to heat evenly. Spreading out the food will allow it to heat faster but without overheating the edges and leaving the middle cold.
- If your microwave has a turntable, place the food on one side of the circle, not in the middle, which will also help it heat more evenly.
- Need to clean your microwave? Heat a mug of water for 30 to 45 seconds, which will loosen the food particles inside the microwave to make it easier to clean.
We’ve come a long way from the Radarange.
That was the original name for the microwave when it was invented after World War II, but it took another 20 years for the newfangled cooking device to become affordable enough for the average American home.
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, as women were increasingly leaving the home for work, we started embracing convenience foods (and cooking methods) that would help us prepare food quickly and with as little hassle as possible.
Cookbook authors including Barbara Kafka wrote best-selling books on gourmet microwave cooking, but before long, we weren’t cooking in microwaves as much as using them to heat up ready-to-eat foods or leftovers. (And we can’t forget popcorn. Microwave popcorn came along in the 1980s, leading to the peak popcorn consumption years of 1992 and 1993.)
Whether you blame that shift on laziness or busyness, it’s hard to dispute that the ways in which we use microwaves have changed significantly, even in the past 20 years.
But is the microwave dying?
In a much-shared article for the digital magazine Quartz a few weeks ago, writer Roberto A. Ferdman argued that the microwave's days are numbered.
Ferdman pointed out that microwave sales actually increased from 1999 to 2004, when Americans bought nearly 12 million of them, according to Euromonitor. But in the past 10 years, sales have dropped by 40 percent.
That’s just shy of 8 million units sold in 2013, which is roughly the same number of toaster ovens that Americans bought last year.
Ferdman argues that rising toaster sales and falling microwave sales mean that Americans have turned their back on zapping food in favor of more “natural” ways of cooking, while at the same time spending more money on products like ready-to-eat popcorn.
“Americans are at once too patient and too lazy to use their microwaves these days,” he wrote.
Maybe it was his use of the word “lazy,” but I bristled at the whole concept that so many millions of us don’t need or want microwaves anymore.
I’ve already been through the phase of not wanting a microwave for the sake of eating more “purely” or “authentically,” and then I had kids and changed my mind about how long I wanted to stand at the stove to heat up that cup of coffee I didn’t get to finish or leftovers from last night’s dinner.
To get a sense of how others felt about the issue, I shared the Quartz story on my Relish Austin Facebook page. Terri Givens said her microwave helps with two ravenous preteen boys who can use it to cook and heat some food for themselves.
Andrew Riggsby wrote that he’s always used his to melt butter and chocolate and cook things such as oatmeal, but in recent years, he’s used it to par-cook fresh vegetables as opposed to steaming on the stovetop.
Nikki Rowling said she’s a committed from-scratch cook but couldn’t live a week without her microwave. “I cook in batches on Sundays, portion stuff out and freeze it. Reheat throughout the week — in the microwave!”
I decided to reach out to Sam Beneski, an Austinite who has been featured in the Statesman through the years for her expertise in (and enthusiasm for) microwave cooking.
Like just about every other home cook in America in the late 1960s and early ’70s, Beneski says she knew absolutely nothing about microwaves, which were often sold by dealers who would offer classes along with the purchase.
“For people who grew up with a microwave in your kitchen, it’s not a big deal,” she says. “But for those of us who didn’t, it was a piece of magic.”
As soon as Beneski, who lived in California at the time and had just started teaching Cajun cooking classes, learned what a microwave could do, she started teaching microwave-specific classes.
After she moved to Austin in 1977, Beneski continued to teach microwave cooking classes until the mid 1990s.
Some of her favorite classes were at the request of Opal Washington, the former Statesman columnist and longtime Travis County home economics extension agent, who died in 1997.
She remembers Washington asking her to teach a six-week class to a room full of women who were, at best, dubious of what they could cook with a microwave. “The first week, there were 10 people in the class, and by the end, it was standing room only,” Beneski says. “They were giving me thank you gifts. It was the highlight of all my classes I taught.”
Beneski says she always loved the surprising things that microwaves could do but never understood why people thought they should be able to cook everything in one appliance. “If you expect it to do everything, you’ll be disappointed,” she says. “Can you make scrambled eggs in a rice steamer, or pancakes in a Crock-Pot?”
Microwaves don’t just save time, Beneski says, they reduce the number of dishes you have to dirty up and, even more importantly, save energy, especially during the summer when heating up the oven will in turn heat up the house and kick the air conditioner into overdrive.
According to estimates from Energy Star, reheating small portions of food in the microwave saves as much as 80 percent of the energy used to do the same in an oven.
Microwaves are also less expensive and don’t take up as much space as a traditional oven or stove, which makes them valuable in offices, RVs, small homes or dorms.
Beneski still uses her microwaves — she has two, including one that is 36 years old — to prepare everything from lasagna (one of her specialties) and spaghetti pie to pudding and peanut brittle. She even swears by her technique for microwaving a Thanksgiving turkey.
Beneski, who says she hasn’t sensed a backlash against her favorite kitchen tool, says microwaves have become even more valuable as we’ve become more busy. She thinks that microwave sales are down not because people aren’t using them but because the appliances are lasting longer and don’t need to be replaced as often.
Although cooking in microwaves might not be for everyone, they are an essential tool for many families to put food on the table quickly, and that’s not changing anytime soon.
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