Old-fashioned microwave cooking

It's really starting to heat up. The (dusty!) dinosaurs that live on top of my desk are starting to come out of hibernation, so I'll probably have to stop being cheap and turn on the air conditioning to cool them back into submission. All that roaring gets distracting when I'm trying to write.

Maybe I'll also keep the house cool by switching to some nice microwave recipes. To that end, we'll look at Toshiba's 1978 Everyday Microwave Cooking for Everyday Cooks.

Now remember, in 1978 it's a waste of money to buy a microwave just to reheat things. This is an expensive piece of equipment. You've got to be able to cook in it, too. How about a nice main course?

Lovely beige, flabby chicken skin with beige, flabby mushrooms in some kind of a orangey-beige slime! The spring flower print on the serving platter tries to distract from the beige-on-beige action, but it's not exactly a fair fight. Some food stylist noticed and dumped a bit of reddish powder (probably paprika-- the garnish is not named in the recipe) on top, but it's just as ineffective as the pink and yellow flowers at making this pile o' slime seem attractive.

Yes, chicken with mushrooms and wine will remind you that you can have a lovely, golden-skinned chicken with seared mushrooms OR you can have a cool house, but microwave cooking ain't gonna give you both.

Now, how about a side to go with the chicken?

And this is...? Some weird variety of mold-veined cheese? Natural sponges accidentally left on a serving platter? A selection of exceptionally dirty artgum erasers?

Nope! It's old fashion pumpkin bread. Deliciously gummy and chewy, just like no one used to make. Ever. Because they didn't have the "advantage" of cooking in microwaves.

But you know, maybe I should try making a batch anyway. If I fed it to the dinosaurs, it might gum up their mouths enough that they would quiet down, and I could continue being a cheapskate and leave the air conditioning off. Win-win! Well, except for my poor dinosaur friends. I'll just tell them that they should be grateful. Old fashion pumpkin bread is better than a meteor! (That would be an excellent advertising slogan.)

Have a good old-fashioned weekend!