New toy for the kitchen

The microwave stopped working.  It just refused to cook rice, or anything else come to that, but the rice was where it gave up.  Granted we have had it a while.  It was at the time of purchase an all singing and dancing microwave, grill, oven combination. I believe the additions had been used by others or, at least, another but I have only ever used it as a microwave.  

For a moment, quite a short moment, I wondered whether I could manage without and bask in the additional worktop/counter space that would give me.  Well additional space up to the point where I decide I should join those raving over air fryers.  

I use the microwave for:

- Cooking rice - usually where needed fairly quickly.  16 minutes to be precise.  My preferred method is the absorption method on the hob.  This is not least as I often do something else in addition to just water, be that with orzo, stock, spices etc. I also have a rice cooker.  This was a gift from my boss.  He got one decided it was a revelation and put in a Christmas order to Amazon so everyone in the department could share his experience.  He’s not wrong, it is very good.  I can’t fault the rice cooking bit and it does small portions.  Not that small portions are commonplace round here but it does them well.  It just spends most of its life in its box on the wall cupboard top in the utility room.  

- Baked potatoes to then be finished in the oven.  This is where even I think an air fryer starts to make sense rather than the oven especially when it is a couple of potatoes for lunch.

- Re-heating leftovers

- Defrosting - obviously things could be taken out of the freezer earlier.  When I freeze stuff myself I tend (ice-cream aside) to freeze in freezer bags and in a flat layer rather than a lump so, for example, bolognese sauce, chilli, goulash or a casserole can be put in a saucepan with a little water and defrost and heat through, quite quickly, that way.

S uses the microwave to soften his ice-cream - he could take it out for a few minutes but he’s usually in more of a hurry to eat it than that.  

The decision was, therefore, made quite quickly, that we needed to replace the microwave.  Arguably it is not essential and we have alternates for all the things we use it for but S did look rather forlorn watching and waiting for his ice cream to soften.

We went to Currys.  Now Currys has stood us in good stead for a good number of years when things have needed replacing quickly and I have absolutely no gripe with Currys.  I will be going again, probably for my next oven and fridge freezer.  On this occasion, however, a more miserable selection of microwaves, aesthetic wise, it would be hard to imagine.  Having established we really only needed a microwave and did not need it to be an oven or have a grill we narrowed down to 2 not exactly handsome specimens but ok.  One was £169, the other £189.  Both were the same make and neither was exactly blowing me away looks wise.  If it is gong to take up that much worktop/counter space it really needs to fit in with the rest of the kitchen.  I have no idea why one deserved to be priced at £20 more or, for that matter, why they were £100 more than other simple microwave only options on display.  At this point we were in a straightforward beauty parade.  The killer re pricing, however, was that the same make had another (big black box thing) for £229 that was also an oven, grill and air fryer combi.  

We left and went to McDonalds for a bite to eat.  S, clearly seeing a bank holiday weekend of staring forlornly at his ice cream waiting for it to soften, or just taking inspiration from his burger, ordered a microwave/oven/grill/air fryer combi from John Lewis online for £179 with next day delivery.

We may need to actually read the instruction manual for this but we have proof, were proof needed, that you can’t keep S from ice cream for long!