New poll. Which do you use more often?

I tend to use the microwave more myself, but only because if I were a Sim, I'd burn the apartment down if I tried to make anything more complicated than frozen pizza in the oven. My cooking skills are only slightly better than Lois's (I can follow simple to moderately-difficult recipes, as long as no fancy crepe-like-folding or Kitchen Kung Fu is required).

Awww... Emily, you didn't have the option: What's a stove? <g>

I use them both but hardly ever the stove. I'm definitely a Lois in the kitchen.

Sara

I use the microwave more simply because of heating up leftovers. For actual cooking it kind of depends on what the food is. So for cooking I guess its a 3 way split between stove, microwave or grill.

In America, is a stove the oven plus the hob (which is what it is in the UK)? Just checking before I answer the poll.

Yvonne

PS - what's a 'Sim' ?

What's a hob? I consider the stove both parts -- that which you make pizzas in and the top part which you occassionally fry eggs and hamburgers on. Or at least, I do.

I'm surprised that I'm the only one (so far) to answer 'stove'. I might use the microwave to heat up some leftovers or defrost frozen foods, but I cook on the stove. (Breakfast, lunch, and dinner - usually using 3 or 4 burners at a time.)

I'm assuming by 'stove' you mean just the stove-top. If you mean the entire appliance, including oven, then even more so I'd say stove!

- Vicki

Yes, I'm referring to the entire thing.

Darn, I wish I could go back & edit.

Definitely the microwave. My culinary skills consist totally of 'throw item into microwave, close door, wait for ding'. Although I have recently graduated to sometimes using a George Forman grill, too. Which is really the same principle...


LabRat

The whole stove. I only use the microwave to heat leftovers, but I don't always eat leftovers. I'm finally getting into the habit.. never had it growing up, since we had dogs.

I've been doing my best to cook dinner more lately. I don't always feel like it. But even when I don't, a quick dinner is a fried egg and bologna sandwich, or french toast. I don't even use the microwave to heat the water for my tea anymore, because for some reason the mug handles got hot in the microwave. I also love to bake, which is easier to do in the oven.

I use the microwave to heat up leftovers, but I keep ending up surprised at that thought that people can use the derned thing to actually cook.

Personally, if I'm cooking, I'm using the stove.

Oh, as for what, exactly, a "stove" is... I think of it more as the stovetop/range than the oven. I'm used to the combo units, but in our house, the two are seperate. The ovens (we have two) are built into the wall, and then we have burners on an island, with cabinets and drawers underneath.

I use the oven mostly for baking (which I don't do so much these days, other than brownies), but my cooking method of choice is to sautee.

More than you wanted to know, I'm sure.

Paul

Like Paul, we have a separate stovetop/oven, and I also did in the last place I was.

If I am actually cooking, then the order of usage is stove, oven, microwave.

If we're including such things as heating milk for coffee, instant oatmeal, and popcorn then the microwave wins -- mostly because I nuke milk for my coffee just about every weekday morning.

Definitely the microwave -- for heating up water for coffee, leftovers, cup noodles, powdered soup. You can even make instant noodles in the microwave, if you just put the block of noodles in a bowl of water and cover it to heat

I'm *worse* than Lois in the kitchen. My mum does all the cooking. Can you tell?

JM

I lived on Ramen noodles and mac n' cheese in college. Microwaves work great for both.

Okay, here it is for those who live alone.

Hot dogs: Microwave
Soup: Microwave
Frozen Pizza: Pizzaz Pizza maker (they work great)
Hamburgers: Broiler under the oven or George Foreman grill

That's pretty much it.

Tank (who almost forgot the toaster... savior of breakfasts)

You left out calling restaurants or going to delivermefood.com and having food delivered without even turning on the stove or microwave. And if I feel adventurous, I might actually go to the restaurant and eat there.

- Laura

I do use a microwave, but really only for defrosting things, for heating up leftovers, and for making custard. Actually, you can make a great white sauce in the microwave, too. Oh, and it's very good for cooking courgettes (zucchini).

I use the cooker (stove) more, though. Even though I had leftovers for lunch today, only part of the meal got reheated in the microwave; I also used the hob.

I bake. I roast. I fry, boil and grill. And I suffer from huge pangs of guilt whenever I'm reduced to eating ready meals!

In case you haven't guessed by now, I like cooking -- and I dare to say that I'm pretty good at it.

Now, if only I could get my bread maker out of storage... I didn't know it was possible to miss an appliance this much!

Chris

Nonono. Hot dogs = grill. Best way to make them. Doesn't matter if it's an actual grill, or the George Foreman, it still tastes better that way. Reminds me, I need to get more gas...

In a drive to eat more real food and fewer ready meals, I usually batch cook on Sunday afternoons. I'll make enough casserole, soup, stew, whatever, for a family of four, then freeze three portions. Over the course of a few weeks, that means I'll build up a variety of home-cooked meals in the freezer which I can take out in the morning to defrost, then zap in the microwave when I come home from work.

I also use the microwave to heat up Saturday night curries and such like, bake potatoes when I haven't got the time to wait for them in the oven, and cook some vegetables.

Otherwise, I fry, grill, casserole, toast, boil, mash, chop, peel, grate, um... etc.

I consider myself a pretty competent cook who doesn't cook as often as she'd like to. I used to bake a lot when I was a teenager, but these days, it's a once or twice a year thing - partly because my new oven is terrible and not worth the vast quantity of money I spent on it.

Yvonne

Yeah, funnily enough, I used to do that too. In fact, I even went to catering college after leaving school with the intention of becoming a chef, so convinced was I that I loved cooking.

Boy, was that a bad career choice! I think I lasted six months before deciding there was no way I was going to spend all my working life in a suffocatingly hot kitchen.

Can still tell you how to chop an onion fast and furious though. And something about some kind of sauce, the particulars of which escape me, except that I know it tasted foul...


LabRat

Actually, I think I had a neither.

For me, there are three options and they're used roughly equally: cooker (which is the entire unit: oven and burners), skillet and microwave. These days I use far fewer ready meals than I used to, and I actually spend quite a lot of time cooking - including making soups. And I even enjoy it!


Wendy

Heh. pizzahut.com and papajohns.com gets quite a few of our orders. More rare is calling Take Out Taxi, since ordering from the restaurant and paying the delivery fee usually costs more than $30.

Back when I was a teenager, I used to bake a lot as well... and then I moved out and cooking/baking for myself never appealed so much somehow, so McDonald's became a weekly habit, among other take-away places. I became an expert at choosing ready-meals, and I can tell you from experience, the ones you find in France are nowhere near as good as Sainsbury's fresh curries...

Anyway, I got back into trying to cook for myself a few months ago, and even though I'm still far from being good at it, I manage to make decent stuff that I can actually enjoy eating. I've been trying to have my share of healthy vegetable and fruit every day, as well as balance things out with protein, whether it's eggs, fish or chicken. I can't go as far as saying I enjoy cooking yet, but it's not as bad as it used to be.

Kaethel (who has a McDonald's loyalty card anyway )

For those of you who order pizza, be extra nice to the Dominos guys. Last month, we got dumped on with a couple feet of snow in one day. I spent like 3 hours on the highway that would have normally taken about 40 minutes, and only managed to get stuck in my apartment building parking lot because it hadn't been plowed out. Luckily, someone at the building next door had ordered pizza, and the pizza guy helped push me into the parking spot.