Fresh pizza is superior to cold pizza, but cold pizza is superior to reheated pizza. And that applies no matter how you reheat it: Even the best methods aren’t good enough.
Microwaves do not cook by hitting the resonance frequency of water. They use dielectric heating, using quickly alternating current to make polar molecules (such as water) vibrate. It’s not just about vibrating water–liquid water just happens to respond well.
Placing metal inside a microwave will not harm the microwaves electronics. They can get hot enough to damage the interior, and can cause arcing which can do the same, but, most of the time, if you catch it quickly, everything will be fine. There are even devices made with metal, like browning sleeves or those covered metal cans.
You can boil an egg in the microwave–it’s just really slow since you have to cover it in foil and put it in water–literally boiling it. Better is to poach the egg in a mug with water.
Yeah … I had to be clear that the damp paper towel in the microwave only helps the pizza, compared to not using a damp paper towel. It certainly doesn’t rejuvenate old pizza.
I saw a chef on a PBS cooking show, way back in the late 1980s, using aluminum foil in the microwave. He explained that if you used it just so, it was totally safe. I forget the whole spiel, but part of it was that the foil has to be of minimal surface area compared to the food’s surface area. Wrapping up a potato to “bake” and throwing it into the microwave = BAD. Covering the edge of a frozen pie crust with foil before microwaving = OK.
Am I remembering that right?
Last donut in a box that’s a week old: Put in microwave for 30 seconds at 20% power. Not “fresh”, but improved. I buy the ones from the grocery store bakery, not Krispie Kreme’s though.
I bought one of these and it works really well. You put water in the bottom below the eggs and it steams them. The eggs come out boiled in the shell and no exploding eggs. Four eggs take about 10 minutes.
I once noticed that poptarts had microwave instructions, so I tried them. Thing is they said to microwave the poptart for 3 seconds. I tried this. A poptart microwaved for 3 seconds is utterly and completely indistinguishable from a poptart that hasn’t been microwaved at all. Tested on an 1100 watt microwave.
I don’t really care, I rarely heat my poptarts at all, but when I do, it’s like, oh no, not a WHOLE TOAST CYCLE, how lazy can you be to think you need a 3 second microwave poptart in the first place, even regardless of the fact that it is bullshit and does nothing.
Everything you need to know about microwaving Ice cream.
Our freezer gets our pints of gourmet ice cream rock hard, way too hard to scoop any out even with a dedicated ice cream scooper designed to scoop hard ice cream.
Solution: turn container upside down in microwave, nuke for 10 seconds on 100%. At least in our microwave, it seems to heat from the bottom up, hence the turning upside down (until the container is half empty, then leave it right-side up). 10 seconds makes it just scoop-able and eatable. Commercially packaged gelato-style ice cream doesn’t seem to require this step.
Could be. if the heat is mainly concentrated in the outer parts of the food item (which is normal for microwave heating), an item that appears very hot to touch can cool off quicker than an item that is heated to the same temperature throughout.
This is not a UL. The exact combination of factors and circumstances causing hot water to sometimes freeze faster than cold are somewhat in ongoing dispute, but the effect itself is not imaginary.
This should be engraved on our currency. It should be set to music and taught to every child along with the ABCs. It should form the basis of our legal system.
Incidentally, nothing in life is worse than asking a co-worker to save you some of the leftover pizza for lunch, and then walking into the break room to have them hand you the last two pieces out of the microwave saying, “Here, I just warmed it up for you!”
Or your father. My father used to do that to me when I was JUST. A. LITTLE. BOY. Oh the pain. The agony. The years of therapy. “I thought you liked it that way!” “Who wants to eat cold pizza?” “I just heated it a little. It tastes better, you’ll see.” You’ll see! YOU’LL SEE, YOU TWISTED SON OF A BI-ah-aaaah[incoherant screams and sobbing]
Why would you do that? I’ve only done it in chopped-up pieces, but either as part of a dish or on a plate by itself, always with a cover. Not the best means if you like it crispy, but perfectly fine otherwise.
Beat me to it.
Yea, when techies talk about microwave ovens, the first thing they say is something along the lines of, “The frequency of the microwaves (2.45 GHz) was chosen because it’s the resonance frequency of water.” Um, nope. The resonance frequency of water is much higher than 2.45 GHz.
The frequency used for microwave ovens was chosen because it does a nice job of penetrating food, but not too much. When choosing a frequency, you don’t want too little penetration, else it will only cook the outside surface of the food. And you want too much penetration, else it will go through the food without cooking it. The chosen frequency is kind of a happy medium, where the microwaves penetrate a couple centimeters or so.
Gremlins won’t actually explode in the microwave unless you get them wet first. It’s the budding new gremlins in combination with the microwave that actually result in the big splat. Can’t Hollywood get anything right?
metal objects in a microwave won’t be a problem in certain cases. a few which come to mind:
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they’re small enough to not be anywhere near enough to the interior walls to be able to strike an arc. Alton Brown once showed how to make your own microwave popcorn in a brown lunch bag with one staple. the staple was so small that it could neither heat up enough to set anything on fire, nor be close enough to the inside walls of the microwave to strike an arc.
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they’re a loop or other form of closed circuit; this is how you can microwave those single serve soups which have a metal rim on the bowl.
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they don’t have any sharp points for an arc to form. forks are right out, but spoons might be OK (assuming #1 and #2 above apply.)
microwave ovens work by concentrating a kilowatt (or more) of energy inside a small box. they don’t produce or emit harmful radiation. the only danger to you is if you somehow manage to get a part of your body trapped in that box and it gets cooked.
Probably true, never tried it. I’d never use a microwave for actually cooking any raw meat of any kind. But microwaves are great for precooked bacon. Not nearly the same as properly fried quality bacon, but ideal if you’re in a hurry or just want a slice or two to add to a sandwich. If one is going to lower oneself to precooked bacon, the microwave is probably the best way of preparing it.
Only true if your idea of defrosting is to blast the thing at max power. Most microwaves have a defrost cycle that works in accordance with the mass of the item to be defrosted. It begins with an appropriately long run at full power, then backs off to increasingly shorter bursts and longer idle intervals as the item warms up. It actually works quite well for most things. I don’t like using it for frozen raw meats, though, unless I really have to, because it seems to drive the juices out and dry them out more than overnight fridge defrosting.
We always do this but never turned the container upside down. I’m about to go try your method on a brand new carton of Blue Bell (WELCOME BACK) Dutch Chocolate and I will report back if putting it upside down works better than right side up. Then I will eat it with some lovely ginger snaps. (I recently discovered this combination and I’m addicted.)
And the answer is: yes, turning the carton upside down did soften the top a bit more quickly. Thanks for the tip!