Bigger, Faster, Better ?

My new combination microwave finally arrived this afternoon. The delivery company had rung me yesterday to tell me it would be on the morning truck and sure enough, in the time honoured tradition of British delivery companies, it arrived this afternoon !

Never mind, being retired I'd nothing better to do than wait in.

The muscular driver brought it up the drive like the box was empty. I opened the door, he brought it in, placed it on the kitchen floor and after putting my John Hancock on his document, he was gone.  I was all set to move the box out of the kitchen when I noticed the weight on the side of it...29kgs !!  That's 64lbs in real money. Or weight.


So the box stayed where it was and I managed to get the oven out without any serious medical complications but it was a close call. Who knew microwaves weighed so much.

At first I was delighted with the colour as I love all things blue, well except for movies. Then I realised it was only a blue protective cover and the unit was a boring silver. Ah well.



I can't show any other photos as the front acted like a mirror and it was impossible to get a shot without me appearing as well.  It hardly matters as they're all much the same.

Then I found the instruction manual and knew where most of the 64lbs came from !  With a control panel worthy of the Space Shuttle flightdeck, it needed to have a manual to match - and it did. It'll give me bedtime reading for the rest of the month. My old oven had 2 dials and a start/stop button. One dial to set the power level and the other for the time. Once both were set and the start button pressed, 6 large tealight candles would be slowly lowered from the oven top and the cooking process would begin.

Well it was 25 years old.

So the new oven was plugged in and following the instructions, I cooked some fresh air for 40 minutes. Worked a treat and never has air been so well cooked in my experience. I used the grill setting for 20 minutes and then the convection oven setting for the other 20 minutes. This got rid of that new smell and probably cremated any bugs that may have sneaked in on it's trip from Thailand.

By now it was time for supper and its first real chance to impress. On the menu tonight was a pork chop with garlic mashed potatoes and mixed veg. Deciding I didn't want to clean up the mess on day 1, I grilled the chop on the griddle which left the new microwave to.....ah....heat up the mixed veg !

I know, not much of a test but it's early days.  I'm going to settle down and watch a movie later on and that means microwave popcorn.

Heating up mixed veg and nuking popcorn. I'm sure I can hear sniggering coming from the old oven !