2011-05-03T06:14:00.000-07:00

Help:

thaw – to melt

pizza – bread dough baked with toppings

taco – filled crisp tortilla shell

gallon Ziploc- brand of reusable zipper bag

defrost – to remove ice

If your microwave oven is out of order, don’t worry, you can still heat and thaw food just as fast. Long before the advent of microwave oven, there were common household ways to reheat food, boil water and thaw meats even without the microwave.

A top 100 associated content producer C. Jeanne Heida suggests these tips that will help you get your meal on the table on time.

FOIL TENT

Use a foil tent to quickly heat up pizza, tacos and other leftovers in 10 minutes or less. To make a foil tent, you will need a box of aluminum foil and these instructions:

1) Turn oven to 425 degrees.

2) In the meantime, roll out 12 to 24 inches of foil on the counter, depending on the size of the pizza or other leftovers.

3) Gather up the ends of the foil and crimp together to form a tent

4) Place in the preheating oven, 5-10 minutes until warm.

HOW TO SPEED UP BOILING WATER OR MILK

Most microwaves take at least 2 minutes to bring 2 ounces of water to boiling. Equally as fast is to pour 12 ounces of hot tap water into a tea kettle or covered one-quart saucepan and heat it up on the range. Boiling a cup of water or milk is actually faster on the stove than in the microwave. The secret? Don’t heat more than you can use in a single serving.

SPEED UP A DEFROST

One easy trick to speed up the defrost of hamburger, roast or a chicken is to seal the cut of meat on a gallon Ziploc and then set the meat in a medium-size bowl. Put the bowl in the sink and turn on the cold water tap at a steady stream. With this steady method of defrosting, hamburger will be completely thawed in 15 minutes, a whole chicken in about 25 minutes. The reason that cold water is recommended for thawing is that hot water can actually cause bacteria to grow.

(ha31) Heating and thawing food without a microwave oven