Microwave Mayhem

Working away in a new place for a shortish period: I don’t really mind. Not having any access to WiFi: I can live with it for the time being. Using kettlebells to feed my weightlifting addition: Actually rather enjoyable. Feeling my way around the local 33m pool with nice wide lanes and no silly rules on using fins or paddles (take heed Five Rivers!): I could get used to this! In fact now that I’ve also found somewhere decent (read: has both a pavement and working streetlamps) to run and come to terms with using the turbo, I’m settling in to my temporary location fairly well.

However, there is one thing that is making the whole experience a little less enjoyable. Okay, quite a lot less enjoyable. The kitchen in our house is equipped with only one cooking device: a microwave. Initially, I thought this was going to be fine, but slowly I have to come realize just how much I use the hob, grill and oven at home.

I refuse to buy microwave meals. We all know I enjoy the odd(!) indulgence of unhealthy food, but I just can’t bring myself to buy this kind of processed junk that never looks very appealing, has questionable nutritional content and is full of all sorts of ingredients that I would not normally choose to eat. So instead – I told myself – I shall look upon this time as a mini research project into the possibilities of healthy microwave cooking.

So far, I will confess, I haven’t been enormously inspired. Googling “healthy microwave recipes” brought up mostly a combination of different flavours of oatmeal and a surprisingly large number of microwave cakes; my favourite being “X-Boyfriend Low Fat Microwave Fudge”, which has absolutely nothing low fat about it whatsoever except that she tells you to eat a small piece of it.

I’m not brave enough to cook meat in the microwave. As an avid meat fan I have been missing my fix and as a result, have apparently started to develop a fairly heavy supermarket hot meat counter habit. It’s actually verging on obsessive behaviour; by my afternoon tea breaks I’m already salivating over hot and spicy chicken thighs.

To reign in this riotous routine I have made a pact with myself: the supermarket is officially banned until I have eaten through all the food I already have (which, as I’m sure you can imagine, is not a piddly amount). So, keep an eye on the recipes page for – hopefully – some creative and delicious meals made in a microwave!