Now You're Cooking With ... a Dishwasher?

For those too lazy or cheap for a microwave, NPR looks at the fabled art of ... cooking in a dishwasher. Yes, this is an actual thing that people actually do, and apparently it's growing in popularity. The "traditional method," writes Michaeleen Doucleff—who says her mother has been poaching salmon in the dishwasher since 1995—is to wrap the fish tightly in foil or a cooking bag, along with lemon oil, and spices, then put it on the washer's top rack, and set it to wash—just don't add any soap.

Lisa Casali, an Italian food writer who has penned an entire dishwasher cookbook, prefers to use canning jars and vacuum bags to make everything from couscous to dessert (here's an instructional video of her making the former), for one very practical reason: they're airtight, so you can add soap and do your dishes at the same time. "After some experiments, I found that it wasn't just a different way to cook—it was a really particular technique," she says. "Something I was looking for years: the way to cook at low temperature at home." Next up (we hope): How to roast a pig in a clothes dryer. (More dishwasher stories.)