Jeff's Cooking Insights

Warm equals good. For this reason I officially love the microwave. I don't know how my parents lived without one. Yes the microwave does occasionally make your dinner taste like an irradiated mutant meal, but thats usually only because you attempted real cooking. For God's sake cook your food the first time in the oven or on the stovetop. The microwave is for reheating or cooking things like hotdogs. Perhaps melting an ingredient or two (like a warming up a sandwich just enough that the cheese gets all melty). It try to use to rule of thumb that the microwave is for leftovers and stuff that is so processed it can't possibly be hurt. (Foolish customer you cannot hurt the Twinkie!)

My mother has yet to realize this and often reheats things in the oven. They taste like they have been cooked twice as long as they should have, which is understandable because they have been. I swear you could make shoes out of some of her leftover roast beef. But she's generally a good cook, especially when she has the time to really cook and isn't slapping something together after work like everyone, including me, ends up doing.