William Sommerwerck wrote:

The only thing "wrong" with a 700W unit is that it won't heat things as
quickly. Which -- except for bacon and a few other things -- is all that
microwaves are good for -- heating and re-heating.

Some items are marked, Do not use a microwave rated under 1 KW,
to prevent possible food posioning from under cooked meat.

I kinda, maybe, see the logic in that.

One should not be cooking meat in a microwave. (Other than bacon, I'm not
sure what sorts of mean /can/ be successfully cooked.


A high power microwave will cook most meat, but doesn't brown it.
One thing that helps is to cook it about 2/3 of the required time, pour
off the fat and juices, and finish cooking. I cook hamburgers and small
steaks in mine. i add the spices and some dried onions before cooking,
so the steam and juices re hydrate the chopped onions and add their
flavor to the meat.

I have made meat loaf as well, but they are hard to drain the fat and
a little messy. I also precook some meat for homemade soup, to reduce
the cooking time in the crock pot. Another trick is to add a little
instant mashed potatoes to the soup to thicken it.

My favorite frozen dinner is a pot roast, with a side of green beans.
Nothing is completely pre-cooked, and it has the warning about using sub
KW microwaves. Sometimes they are in the freezer for a month, and
others, they are daily meals.

Having to survive on a minuscule VA Disability pension has forced me
to get creative because a full tank of propane for the gas stove just
isn't in the budget.


If you're heating up already-cooked items -- such as chicken nuggets -- the
only way you /might/ have a problem would be if you stuffed the oven with
several dozen, and the food stayed at an incubatory temperature long enough
for the bacteria to grow.

Even this is highly unlikely, as we're talking about pre-cooked food.

I have three that are 1 KW or more, so why open the box?

No obvious reason, other than that you raised the issue. (Nothing personal.)

There are times I feel so bad I have to use a frozen dinner, and
I don't want to take chances. Other times I cook with one of my 5.5
quart crock pots.

You'll probably be upset to learn that, when I eat frozen dinners at work, I
let them completely defrost before shoving them in the microwave. It's
quicker, saves a bit of energy, and I'm not dead -- yet.


I generally only use frozen dinners when I'm too sick to cook, and I
never know when that will be. I used to put what I planned to microwave
into the fridge the night before, but quit when I had to throw out food
that spoiled before I could cook it. Its hard to be ready to fix a
planed meal on time, and some days I can barely even face food, let
alone what was planned.


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