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Cook Healthy Meals in Your Microwave Oven

Many people think that in order to eat healthy, you have to spend a lot of money and spend a lot of time in the kitchen cooking. In this fast-paced world with its tough economy, it may seem impossible to be able to enjoy a healthy diet. Well, it is possible to eat healthy on a budget and make delicious, healthy meals quickly and easily using your microwave oven.

Save Money and Eat Healthy
Cooking meals in a microwave doesn’t have to consist mainly of pre-packaged foods that are laden with chemicals and virtually nutrient- and vitamin-free. In fact, these foods, although convenient, can often be more expensive in the long run than to make the same dishes from scratch using your microwave oven. For example, instead of buying a family-sized macaroni meal that you add hamburger to, why not create your own?

You probably already have pasta in your cupboard, as well as spices. Now, all you need is the meat, which you would have had to buy anyway, and a can of tomato paste (add water to make it the consistency of tomato sauce) or stewed tomatoes. The boxed meal (including meat) costs approximately $8 to $10, and has little to no valuable nutrients. For less than $6, you can make the same meal from scratch, using healthy ingredients, and in the same amount of time it takes to prepare the pre-packaged meal.

Cooking Vegetables in Your Microwave
Which would you rather serve your family for dinner: frozen vegetables that have been in your freezer and your grocer’s freezer for heaven only knows how long, or even worse, canned vegetables that are loaded with preservatives, or delicious, fresh steamed vegetables that are cooked to perfection in just a few minutes? Obviously, the answer is fresh vegetables, and when you cook with a microwave oven, even carrots, turnips and potatoes can be prepared quickly and easily.

When you cook vegetables in water, you lose many of the valuable nutrients that you need to make your diet a healthy one. Steamed vegetables are much better for you, and you don’t need to go out and buy a special vegetable steamer to do the job. You can easily prepare steamed vegetables in the microwave, and in addition to retaining their goodness, they also keep their crunch and flavor.

All you need to do to have delicious steamed vegetables from the microwave is place the vegetables on top of paper towels that you have moistened. Wrap the wet paper towel around the vegetables, and then wrap this bundle in plastic cling film wrap, two or three times to make sure no steam escapes.

Cooking time depends on the type of vegetables you are cooking. For vegetables that take longer to cook such as carrots, you will want to set the microwave for seven to nine minutes. Vegetables such as broccoli take less time to cook, and will probably only take three to four minutes for soft vegetables, less time if you like them crunchy.

It is easy to cook healthy meals in your microwave oven. For more tips and recipes, there are all kinds of resources, including some great cookbooks and microwave cooking websites.