As some of you know I have recently moved to Savannah, Ga. The previous owners of the house took their counter top microwave with them and we left our under cabinet mounted one in our old house. I have now lived for over a month without a microwave and I kind of don’t miss one. In my new kitchen I cannot afford the counter space so it would have to be a model that we could either remove the rang hood and replace it with one or mount one over the kitchen sink. Any thoughts, is anyone not using a microwave? It is not as if I cannot heat things up cook top or in my convection oven and even if were to heat something in my microwave the container would still have to be washed.
I don’t find a microwave essential, more just a convenience.
Use it mainly to reheat things (soups, leftovers, etc.), sometimes to temper chocolate.
I have a MW/convection so when I need a second ‘real’ oven I have it. Although I have it on a big shelving unit it’s technically OTR and has a vent fan. It’s not cheap but I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
FWIW I can reheat rare steak and keep it rare. Very slowly.
I agree with @ipsedixit. Lately the main use of my microwave has been as a clock / timer.
I think if you’ve lived a month without it and don’t miss it, you’re already on the path. Microwave it bye bye, babyyyy.
I haven’t had a microwave since I moved into my apartment with hardly any kitchen counter space about a dozen years ago. I don’t miss it (counter space is more important to me and I don’t have a good location to mount one to the wall).
I don’t really eat frozen prepared meals (except occasionally @ work and we have a microwave), I defrost frozen items in the fridge overnight and I reheat leftovers in the oven or on the stove. I was never a fan of how the microwave heats up things unevenly and can change the texture/flavor of lots of things.
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In my old apartment, I did without one for many years (after the first one died) since the kitchen was truly tiny and there was a serious lack of counter (and every other kind of) space. The only thing I really missed it for was reheating frozen meals, whether store-bought or home-prepared. Not surprisingly, the fridge/freezer in that apartment was small (though not “under-the-counter” sized), so I didn’t really keep much of the sort of thing on hand to begin with and so the lack of a nuker wasn’t a big issue. But while they serve little to no other purpose in my own experience, they are a huge convenience for those specific things, cutting the prep time to a literal fraction of what it takes in a conventional or counter-top/toaster oven. (Frozen lasagne, for example, or anything else dense/thick and frozen solid, takes so long to reheat in a regular oven that it completely vitiates 90% of their “convenience”. In the time it takes to reheat them, you could easily cook something “quick” from scratch.) (PS: They also “bake” a decent, if not ideal, potato in a fraction of the usual time, but how often do most people do that?)
Now that I have a normal-sized freezer again, I’d hate to be without one, but otherwise, I never use mine except to reheat things out of the fridge, or heat/boil small amounts of water, both of which tasks are easy enough on the stove and involve, at most, washing just a single pot or pan. And there’s an issue of not wanting to heat up the whole kitchen with a the full-sized oven during the warmer months (and you’ll certainly have plenty of those in Georgia), I think a regular counter-top oven would be more generally useful than a microwave).
I think I need my range hood more than I need my microwave.
I just popped a left over egg white into my rice cooker and in a few minutes it was cooked, another thing I used to put in the microwave and am fine without.
Not mutually exclusive. As I mentioned above, my OTR MW has a vent fan in it. I kinda assumed that anyone that was specific for OTR does but I don’t know that.
Why not just cook it in a skillet?
The model I was looking at had a vent but it does not vent outdoors. It recycles the air through the filters and back into the kitchen.
The cooker was right there and I just plopped it into a custard cup and it was quickly done. When I have stuff like that I cook it for the dogs. I was making a peach and almond tart and only needed the yolk. It took about as long as it might have in the mw.
So no water? Interesting. I assume it won’t burn out the motor doing that.
No, there was a little water in there for some steam. Not much, it didn’t need much
Got rid of it. Don’t miss it. I sometimes wish we had a portable convection/toaster oven, especially in summer when it’s hot. But enjoy having the space more.
I’m pretty much there. My oven is convection and I’m finding I am getting along without it pretty well.
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Mine died in 2008 and I never replaced it. You can do it!
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I think I can, not sure about DH
I also use mine for warming plates because even the lowest setting on the regular oven is too hot.
It has now been a bit over 6 mos. with no microwave. I guess we can live without it.
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