What is a “microwave-safe plate”?
Soooo.. Apparently, paper towels are not “a microwave-safe plate”. Neither are cheapest-of-the-cheap thin paper plates, and–surprisingly–neither are my favorite Tupperware plates. Oops!
I’ve recently started eating Banquet pot pies for lunch, every so often. They didn’t used to have microwave instructions on them, so I didn’t used to take them to work. I feel like, even as recently as 2 years ago, I took one to work, and was dismayed when it said not to microwave it. So, anyways, now that they are microwavable, they make a decent cheap-and-easy lunch.
Unfortunately, I’ve had mixed results with this whole microwave-pot-pie thing. The first time, I didn’t have a plate, so I stuck it on a couple paper towels. When that was part-way done, I noticed a burning smell, and opened the microwave. The bottom of the pot pie container was scorched, and the taste of the food was ruined by the burnt-paper odor.
So, the next time I decided to try microwaving a pot pie, at work, I put it on a paper plate. Apparently that was not a good idea, either. The paper plate was the extremely thin, flimsy, cheap kind that happened to be laying around in the kitchen, at work. Part-way through heating up that pot pie, I started hearing sizzling and popping sounds that I knew were not normal. Again, the familiar smell of scorched paper, this time having scorched a brown ring on the paper plate, and there were seemingly-random burnt areas on the top of the pot pie. This pot pie was ruined, as well.
[hmm, I thought I had a picture of this one, but I can’t seem to find it. insert picture of sad pot pie on thin, cheap paper plate here]
Meanwhile, at home, we’d been heated these things up in the microwave several times, and never had any trouble. So, it was either the microwave at work, that was at fault, or my choice of “microwave-safe plates.” I decided to try using one of my good Tupperware plates, because I was pretty sure we’d used those for heating up pot pies, at home. But, that didn’t work out so well, either.
At least the pot pie was edible, this time, but it did some damage to my previously-invincible Tupperware plate.
I was determined to figure out a way to heat up a pot pie, at work, without hurting the pot pie or the plate. So, the next thing I tried was a paper plate that I’d brought from home. This was a good-quality Dixie paper plate, which has been our favorite kind for years. These plates have served us well, for all manner of cheesy/tomato-saucey/juicy foods. Foods don’t tend to stick to them, and they tend to withstand quite a bit of prolonged wetness before suffering any ill effects–unlike most other paper plates.
Anyways, when I heated up a pot pie, in the microwave at work, on a Dixie paper plate, it worked great! The plate was not damaged at all, and the pot pie was thoroughly heated and tasty. [Note: The pot pie pictured below was pretty broken up when I opened the box; the nasty-looking chin was *not* the result of heating it on a Dixie paper plate!]
From now on, I will only heat up my Banquet pot pies on Dixie paper plates.
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September 2nd, 2007 at 6:45 pm
I like the sad faces and the happy face. :)