SAMJJIA R. JUCIIARDSON

SAMJJIA R. JUCIIARDSON

Extension Afcnt, Home Economics

Now that spring is here, we are looking for cooking ideas that will enable us to provide nourishing meals for our families without heating up the kitchen and taking hours to prepare.

Have you tried cooking meals in your microwave?

Many homes in America are equipped with microwave ovens. Yet, when we question many families, the microwave is used frequently for boiling water, reheating leftovers, and thawing frozen foods.

Reapes must be followed precisely. Quite often we like to change something in recipes that we try. This can present m^jor problems if the cook isn’t experienced with microwave cooking. Substituting chicken for pork causes both the power level and cooking time required to be changed; baked products may fail by reducing sugar and/or changing leavening agents.

Ann Steiner and CiCi Williamson, Home Economists specializing in microwave cooking and authors of several microwaving cookbooks, have developed guidelines to help even beginning microwavers find success when increasing or decreasing the size of a recipe. To double or triple a microwave recipe, these ladies have developed this formula:

“For each added amount equal to the original recipe, add 75 percent (or 3/4) to the original cooking time. For example, if a recipe can be microwaved in 8 minutes, twice the amount of food would take 8 plus 6 (3/4 of 8) or 14 minutes. To triple the recipe, add 8 + 6 + 6, or 20 minutes.

“To do the reverse and cut a recipe in half, use 60 percent of the original microwave time. For example, if a recipe takes 10 minutes, half of it could be microwaved in 6 minutes. ”

It must be remembered that the most efficient use of microwave energy is using recipes that serve from four to eight. Cooking times will vary from microwave to microwave because of many factors, some of