A couple of months ago my microwave died a violent, fiery death and I've yet to replace it. Since then, I realized that I had seriously taken my dear microwave for granted. Most of my "recipes" read "peel back film to vent and cook on high for 3 minutes." How could I have not realized that mic-y was as essential to my kitchen as my fridge/freezer?! Well, my epiphany came the other morning while in the shower. I was already thinking about eating my mom's delicious black bean soup for dinner that night and I was stoked! But then my mind replayed the night before when I had to figure out how reheat mashed potatoes sans a microwave. I eventually made a little bowl out of aluminum foil and put the taters in my toaster oven which worked like a charm. But would that work with soup? My train of though went as follows:
"Ok, I just have to make a really sturdy aluminum foil bowl. Perhaps use 2 layers of foil. Maybe between the layers I would line up toothpicks to make a 'frame'. Would that be a fire hazard?"
Then, "DUH!!! How stupid am I? How come I didn't think of just putting the soup in a deep baking dish and putting that in the toaster oven?? Would baking the soup change the consistency of it though? Well, besides the makeshift aluminum bowl, I don't have any other option. Baking dish it is. Geeeeze, how do people who don't have microwaves ever heat up liquid? That's insane. Does everyone just buy lots of aluminum foil? What about in the olden days? How did those people heat up liquid?"
I gave it more thought and that's when it dawned on me.
I guess will NEVER be the next Julia Child...
