To ask what you use you microwave for?

[Afternooninthepark]

At 47 and having lived together for 23 years, dh and I have never had or felt the need for a microwave.
However, ds (15) is badgering me to get one, he says he can make things quicker in it and in the future when we are away or out he and his sister can make quick and easy meals for themselves.
I remember having one when we lived at home and it was only used for heating beans and defrosting stuff.
They are obviously still popular as they are for sale everywhere.
So what do you use yours for?
Does anyone actually make proper meals in there microwave?

Heating plates and heating milk for my latte in the mornings.

And starting off baked potatoes, too!

Heating a bit of milk for a coffee (so it doesn't cool so quickly, just 20 secs or so). Heating a mug of milk with double instant for a fake latte, or with ovaltine. Defrosting either stuff that cooks better while defrosted, or cat food that I forgot to take out of the freezer in time, so needs a quick 30 secs boost.

It's used at least 3 or 4 times a day but we never cook whole meals in it, not worth it to try and cook potatoes, for example. I have a micro wave egg poacher which has been sitting in the cupboard for a year at least, but still haven't tried out.

Not a huge amount normally, though it gets a lot more use right now.

It’s used for;
Sterilising bottles for DD
Cooking those pre-chopped tubs of veg you get
Warming soup
Jacket potatoes
Warming baked beans/other tinned horribleness made when I’m too tired or lazy to cook
Reheating leftovers
Defrosting meat I forgot to take out of the freezer that morning

I was asking a colleague about the shittest present he’d ever received the other day, and he told me it was a cookbook he’d gotten on how to make whole meals in a microwave, I think it was from the 80s?
So I imagine some people cook everything in one!

Actually, reading all of this I do think I’d use one quite a bit, especially for the mug cakes (the dc love those).

We've been microwave free for 18 months. Things I miss doing (but are usually achievable in other ways)
Reheating leftovers for lunch
Starting off jacket potatoes
Porridge
Melting chocolate
Softening butter if I forget to leave it out to make the kids sandwiches. This is the only thing I've not found reasonable alternative to (my memory us shot, because all I need to do is keep the butter dish stocked!)

Reheating coffee

That's about it.

I use it to cook frozen veg. I buy the empty steam bags and then fill them with whatever mix of veg I want.

When your cooker dies & you can't get a new one for a few days, you can prepare complete meals in a microwave.
It just takes a bit of thought & organisation.

Reheating left overs. I often batch cook

Beans/spaghetti hoops, reheating leftovers, jacket potatoes then finish them in the oven, frozen peas. Mainly.

Heating milk up for ds cereal starting off jacket potatoes before finishing them in the oven, oh makes porridge in it, he heats everything up in it beans soup etc I use a pan

We use ours pretty much every day, mainly because there are 4 adults in the house and we all work different hours, so come dinner time somebody is usually missing. Theirs gets plated up for them to reheat when they get in. It is sometimes used for ready meals too, as an occasional convenience.

I also use it for re-heating cups of tea and coffee that I've let go cold (this happens with embarrassing regularity), for scrambled egg and for frozen fish, either for a fish pie or for the cat.

I like to quick steam veggies in it, and I batch cook, so I use it for reheating those meals.

Reheating batch-cooked food every night
Heating milk for hot chocolate
Microwave brownie (in silcone loaf mould)
Sponge pudding from scratch -so light you would not believe, just use standard 2:1:1 ratio and bake in pyrex bowl or similar
Sterilising my glass jars in 2 min each when making jam / preserves

Could not manage without mine!

Mines is a combo Micro/oven/grill. Never used for oven or grill till today as I cleaned the big oven which needs to be left for ages before cleaning , wanted toasted cheese for lunch usual grill in big oven so used the microwave grill.
Had to look out the instruction booklet on how to use it. :-)
Heat pack for aching cycling muscles
Heating batch cooked things.
Heating ready made custard in the jug

We use ours every day in the colder months for porridge and soup. I also use it for reheating leftovers and making jacket potatoes - they only take about 7 minutes in the microwave and I’m not fussed about the crispy skin. I also recently discovered that you can microwave frozen peas in a ramekin. I also always do baked beans in the microwave. I also get ready to cook poppadoms and do them in the microwave - lower fat than the ready made ones. Microwaves use less energy than the oven/hob so cheaper to run. As a student all I had was a combi microwave, toaster and kettle so I can verify that you can cook proper meals in them too - we made Christmas dinner in one, and meringue!

Use Mine often- beans, reheating leftovers, soup, making sauces, frozen dinners etc.

My DH doesn’t think we should have one, but it’s so convenient for some things.
I use it to warm up beans, soup, ready meals (occasionally) and leftovers. I find it less messy than using a pan to warm up or defrost things like that.
I also sometimes use it to cook veg, and do things like baked potatoes quicker before chucking them in the oven to crisp up.

Oh, I forgot porridge! And sometimes if I’m feeling lazy it’s easier to do scrambled again in there.

Scrambled eggs.

Literally beans and defrosting when I forget to take meat out the freezer.
I've also recently discovered mug cakes that you do in the microwave, great for when i want cake and noone else does haha

I have a fancy kind of one that has a recipe book & your are supposed to be able to cook full dinners & brown meat etc. Still I don't like the idea of it & prefer oven or hob so I only use it for reheating leftovers, beans, soup or 'boiling' an egg! I'd get more use out of a slowcooker I think.

Reheating food
Heating up milk
Making scrambled eggs/ porridge

Microwaving stuff