For future reference, I just looked and you can get a microwave on clearance at this moment for $23.99 at Best Buy. Maybe worth it for three weeks of use.
Making little round scrambled egg ‘patties’ is what some of our local coffee shops do. Open a bagel or English muffin, throw on an egg ‘patty’ and cheese, call it a day.
Yes, I spray the inside of the bowl before making scrambled eggs in the microwave. If left unwatched and unstirred, they’ll still puff right up nice and tall.
My technique differs from the one you learned – three eggs cooked with less than full power.
These two short videos show different techniques for cooking scrambled eggs in the microwave. I do notice that both of these videos (and some other ones I viewed) show the microwaves at (apparent) full power, which differs from how I do it.
The first one is close to my method, except he’s using full power. Also, the cook didn’t add any liquid to the eggs – and he chopped up the eggs into little pieces at the end with his whisk. But up until that point, this is more or less my method.
The second video shows what I think is essentially @Thudlow_Boink 's method as described in post #24 above. Again, microwave on full power:
Microwaves can also make decent poached eggs. I once had a microwave egg poacher for that purpose, which had six little bowl-shaped compartments and a cover, but I seem to have misplaced it. Here are some suggestions for egg poaching without any special gadgetry (haven’t tried it myself).
This thing that I have recommended many times for hard boiled eggs also makes flawless poached eggs
https://www.amazon.com/Dash-Rapid-Egg-Cooker-Scrambled/dp/B00DDXWFY0/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1CWGFFCDTITXQ
In addition to reheating, I use the microwave at home for steaming potatoes or other vegetables, making garlic butter, draining tofu, cooking small amounts of rice.
At work, I make breakfast every day in the microwave - poached eggs, omelets, cooked oatmeal (not instant).
They make a product for “baking” potatoes. It is a pocket, large enough to hold 2 or 3 small potatoes or 1 large potato, made of fabric quilted like an oven mitt. I think it traps steam, and keeps the outside from drying out, while the inside is still heating up. The key is to let it sit for a couple of minutes, and let the steam finish cooking it, after the microwaving is done.
I will beat a couple of eggs with a lot of water, add diced ham and onions, cover the dish, and cook it for several minutes on half power. It’s not as good as a real frittata, but I can hit the Start button and go do other stuff, confident that there won’t be a disaster waiting for me when I come back to it. (And only one dish to wash!)
I actually like baked potatoes to be a little crispy on the outside. My usual method if I need them fairly fast is to cook them in the microwave for about 3/4 of the required time, and then finish them in the oven. Now that I have an air fryer I’ll probably finish them in there, but I haven’t tried that yet.
As I mentioned elsewhere, air fryers – although a completely different beast from a microwave and in many ways pretty much the exact opposite – should be regarded in the same way in the sense of being very good for some things but not so much for others. I’ve learned that microwave ovens, conventional ovens, and air fryers all have their place, and beyond the obvious cases, in marginal cases only experience will tell you which one is best.
there’s even a plastic container for that
The main thing I cook in a microwave that most people wouldn’t is pasta, usually macaroni. One time I just figured out how much time and how much liquid it would take to get soft noodles with no leftover liquid.
It also used to be my primary way to cook rice, and I still occasionally use it for that instead of my pressure cooker. That idea came because non-instant flavored rice I bought had microwave directions. It was finding out I could cook rice in the microwave that led me to try noodles, in fact. However, while the noodles come out basically the same, the rice is slightly different.
I heat up my turkey bacon in the microwave, because I just find it tastes better and isn’t any less crisp, unlike with regular bacon. I also heat canned veggies that way, since there is no difference. Basically anything that you can boil to cook, you can replace with the microwave, except eggs since they’ll explode. Though I have hard poached them in the microwave before.
Finally, while this isn’t fully cooking, I will thaw meat in the microwave. What’s so weird about that? I don’t use the defrost setting, and let it cook the outside partly. I can handle one or two servings in 2.5 minutes, which is just incredibly convenient. It started because I forgot to thaw some fish ahead of time, and it works with tilapia, salmon, and chicken breast so far.
(I do keep the fish in their plastic pouches, with one part cut open.)
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Our old microwave started shutting off unpredictably right before Christmas, so we bought a new one, and it turns out this one has a “soften/melt” setting. I used it to soften butter for several batches of cookies, and it works a treat!
How does one “brown” meat in a microwave cooker?
I guess that your definition of brown is different to mine.
Talking about minced beef specifically, I would brown it in a pan - effectively caramelising parts of it. To me, browning is not simply changing it from raw pink to cooked.
The picture of the meat towards the bottom looks browned to me. I’ve never tried it, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible if the meat sits in its own hot fat. It should brown. Bacon definitely browns when I’ve made it in the microwave.
Yeah, no one is advocating a microwave be used as one’s go-to for browning ground meat. It has the advantage of being able to defrost meat and cook it quickly, but haute cuisine it ain’t.
As I read, I see that I’ve forgotten some things I use the microwave for.
I will never go back to boiling corn on the cob on top of the stove. Five minutes in the microwave…done.
I haven’t “baked” a potato in years. I put oil, kosher salt, and pepper in a zip-loc, put the potato in and roll it around until its covered in oil, etc., take it out and put it on a plate in the microwave for about 7 minutes - deeeelicious. (Always prick holes in the potato)
I have some soup mugs that are low and wide. They’re great for making eggs that I put on toast for a sandwich.
A microwave egg poacher is a useless bit of single-task kitchen clutter. Try this for soft boiled eggs which are similar but not quite the same. (I mislabeled the recipe as “poached” in that post and don’t want to misquote myself 
):
You’re welcome.
And that is the one and only thing I cook (not heat/reheat) in a microwave. I used to do baked potatoes in there, but since finding a far superior oven method the nuked ones are too sucky to bother eating.
For the folks who swear by microwaved corn on the cob, you might try steaming your corn rather than boiling (ugh!). I have a tall narrow asparagus pot which also works great for corn. Shuck the corn, trim the stalk end close, then put up to 4 ears of corn stalk-end down in the basket in the pot in about 3/4" of water. Put on the stove, set the burner to high, and 10 minutes later the corn is cooked to perfection and not soggy. Do not forget them on the stove; the pot will boil dry at about 15 minutes.
I grill corn on the cob. Pull down the leaves, remove the silk, put butter and seasoning on the cob, pull the leaves back up, wrap in foil, toss on the grill.
See The Quickest Way To Drain Moisture From Tofu .
I set the tofu in a bowl with the tofu resting on some old used plastic lids to raise it up off the bottom. I set another bowl on top of the tofu to weight it down. Then nuke for a minute or two and repeat until it’s drained enough for me. It’s amazing how much liquid comes out, even from extra-firm tofu.