The Very-Many-Questions-Not-Worth-Their-Own-Thread Thread XLI

[Synobun]

If you get the oven hot enough, it kills any germs that might get to the food.

Whatever he did makes it so that it smokes up the apartment when turned on. I've tried using cleaning sprays and DIY cleaners and scrubbing at it myself to no avail. I'm too weak/stiff to really get at it and the cleaners seem ineffective at best.

The stove is, in theory, being replaced next year, so I haven't spent the $120 it'll cost to have a professional come by.

 

[Farm Boy]

Would wrapping them in foil then putting them on the stovetop in a covered pot work? Dunno. I don't bake a lot of potatoes.

 

[tjs282]

One thing I found with microwave-'baking' potatoes (back when I was doing it more regularly than I do now!), was that although it works, the part of the potato which is in direct contact with the turntable, tends to go rock solid up to about 3–5 mm in — presumably something to do with the (glass) plate absorbing/reflecting the potato's own heat.

So to avoid that, you might want to try sticking (wooden!) toothpicks into the potatato around its circumference, and then rest the ends of the toothpicks on the rim of a microwave-safe mug or bowl, so that the potato is effectively suspended in mid-air while it cooks. That would also go some way towards avoiding the exploding-potato problem.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Prick with fork (as has been mentioned). Microwave about 3 minutes. Flip. Microwave 1 minute. Wrap in cloth (dishtowel, e.g.). Allow to sit for 5-10 minutes.

 

[thecrazyscot]

What is the best way to prepare russet potatoes in the microwave with the skin on? I can't boil them (leaching) and my oven is so dirty to be unusable because of my last roommate. Frying is out too.

Does your oven have a self clean function? Essentially it just turns the temperature up insanely high for a bit so that everything organic in it burns to ash. Still requires the ash to be cleaned out, but theoretically it's easier than manually scrubbing everything out. I would expect quite a bit of smoke while it's happening though.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Does your oven have a self clean function? Essentially it just turns the temperature up insanely high for a bit so that everything organic in it burns to ash. Still requires the ash to be cleaned out, but theoretically it's easier than manually scrubbing everything out. I would expect quite a bit of smoke while it's happening though.

Ovens with this feature tend to have a special lock you have to engage in order to turn on the self cleaning feature. The lock effectively seals the oven until it's done with the self cleaning cycle to prevent smoke from getting out.

I will say though that on the one oven I used this feature with, the seal did not prevent microscopic smoke/ash particles from getting out and it cause my allergies to go nuts. There was no visible smoke though, and other ovens might not suck so bad.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Whatever he did makes it so that it smokes up the apartment when turned on. I've tried using cleaning sprays and DIY cleaners and scrubbing at it myself to no avail. I'm too weak/stiff to really get at it and the cleaners seem ineffective at best.

The stove is, in theory, being replaced next year, so I haven't spent the $120 it'll cost to have a professional come by.

Have you considered a toaster oven? They do everything a "real" oven does, and are much easier to clean.

You can even keep it away from your roommates.

 

[Broken_Erika]

A small convection oven would also work. And it can do more than a regular oven.

 

[Cutlass]

Whatever he did makes it so that it smokes up the apartment when turned on. I've tried using cleaning sprays and DIY cleaners and scrubbing at it myself to no avail. I'm too weak/stiff to really get at it and the cleaners seem ineffective at best.

The stove is, in theory, being replaced next year, so I haven't spent the $120 it'll cost to have a professional come by.

See, it may be just the way I roll, but I would take down the smoke detector, open all the windows, put on all the fans that I could airing the place out, and just crank that oven to max for a couple hours.

 

[Ajidica]

Have you considered a toaster oven? They do everything a "real" oven does, and are much easier to clean.

No they don't,
Unless you want to nuke your countertop to make pizza a slice at a time.

 

[Takhisis]

One thing I found with microwave-'baking' potatoes (back when I was doing it more regularly than I do now!), was that although it works, the part of the potato which is in direct contact with the turntable, tends to go rock solid up to about 3–5 mm in — presumably something to do with the (glass) plate absorbing/reflecting the potato's own heat.

So to avoid that, you might want to try sticking (wooden!) toothpicks into the potatato around its circumference, and then rest the ends of the toothpicks on the rim of a microwave-safe mug or bowl, so that the potato is effectively suspended in mid-air while it cooks. That would also go some way towards avoiding the exploding-potato problem.

My sfather, similarly schooled in British ‘cooking’ (for lack of a better word), still has the troublesome habit of making potatoes stand upright in the microwave with an unsightly scaffold-like array of toothpicks.

 

[Cutlass]

No they don't,
Unless you want to nuke your countertop to make pizza a slice at a time.

Most are better than that. And really very useful. I use the toaster oven far more often than the full size one.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

My toaster oven cost me $6000.

That is what it cost to replace the countertops after it torched them. Never again will I own such an infernal device.

 

[tjs282]

My sfather, similarly schooled in British ‘cooking’ (for lack of a better word), still has the troublesom habit of making potatoes stand upright in the microwave with an unsightly scaffold-like array of toothpicks.

See, I actually agree with you on this. Oven-baked is always preferable.

But the major advantage of microwave-baking is the time saved, so is mostly felt when one is a student (in a shared kitchen, that represents a lot less opportunity for someone to turn off the oven / steal / throw away your food before you got to it), or working 12-15 hour days in a minimum-wage shift-based job (when you get home at 11 pm, and have to get up at 5:30 the next morning, oven-baking represents time you simply don't have — at least, not if you want to get some sleep as well).

In the sports-centre cafe, they/we used a compromise: the chef would bake potatoes (wrapped in foil) in small batches ahead of time, let them cool down, then store them in the fridge, and re-heat them individually in the microwave when a customer ordered one. This actually worked pretty well (I was a frequent customer!), but unfortunately isn't really a viable domestic strategy.

 

[Takhisis]

Hey, you can actually knock up a more-than-decent béchamel in a microwave oven if you need one to add to stuffings and such. But for potatoes, no, no, and no. Fry them or boil them.

 

[Quintillus]

I've never owned a toaster oven. I'm not sure how much of that is due to growing up with a toaster and a microwave (and an oven) but no toaster oven, and how much is playing The Sims and noticing how much more often toaster ovens caught on fire than microwaves in that game. But I always equated them with a risk of what happened to Lemon Merchant. I'd never heard of it happening to someone in real life, though.

My parents' old toaster did manage to scorch a section of their counter when it catastrophically failed once. But they quickly realized it had gone horribly wrong, unplugged it, and it only resulted in a burn mark on the counter, and the loss of whatever it had been toasting.

In the sports-centre cafe, they/we used a compromise: the chef would bake potatoes (wrapped in foil) in small batches ahead of time, let them cool down, then store them in the fridge, and re-heat them individually in the microwave when a customer ordered one. This actually worked pretty well (I was a frequent customer!), but unfortunately isn't really a viable domestic strategy.

Wouldn't it work all right domestically as well? Make six or twelve potatoes (however many you/yours could eat before they went bad) in the oven at once, and reheat them over the next few days? I've occasionally made two potatoes at once in the oven, eaten one right away, and saved the other for lunch the next day, and it always worked well enough.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I've never owned a toaster oven. I'm not sure how much of that is due to growing up with a toaster and a microwave (and an oven) but no toaster oven, and how much is playing The Sims and noticing how much more often toaster ovens caught on fire than microwaves in that game. But I always equated them with a risk of what happened to Lemon Merchant. I'd never heard of it happening to someone in real life, though.

My parents' old toaster did manage to scorch a section of their counter when it catastrophically failed once. But they quickly realized it had gone horribly wrong, unplugged it, and it only resulted in a burn mark on the counter, and the loss of whatever it had been toasting.

My problem wasn't a sudden scorching, but the build up of about a year's worth of heating the counter when being used, eventually it badly discolored my quartz counter top. I noticed it when I moved it once to clean under it. I think the oven was malfunctioning because two weeks before when I cleaned it wasn't like that, but it left a big rectangular burn mark on my counter top. I had to replace a large section of counter as a result.

 

[Ajidica]

We had two different toaster ovens at my parents house and we never used them as an oven because we weren't sure if they would discolor the countertop at all.
We also didn't use the feature on the first one because we were afraid it might literally burst into fire - my mom had gotten it in a garage sale when she wen toff to college and it had been ressurrected so many times we nicknamed it Lazarus.

 

[Cutlass]

I never had a problem with one. They are much easier to use when cooking for one. And you can make toasted cheese sandwiches instead of grilled cheese, which is less greasy.

 

[Narz]

In a job application when the question is "why did you leave" (a previous job) what are you supposed to answer when the real answer is simply "I hated it"?