Tonight I experimented with a new gluten-free muffin recipe.  It called for 1 1/2 cups of almond butter.  Upon retrieving the almond butter from the fridge and peering inside, I realized that I would not be able to “whisk” the almond butter into the batter of sugar and mashed bananas because it was hard as a rock.  No problem.  Into the microwave with you.  As I reached for the start button I paused.  I suddenly had a post traumatic stress syndrome flash back from a prior episode involving a hard-boiled egg and the microwave.  Once upon a time I had made a few hard boiled eggs for breakfast.  I cracked one open but the inside was still runny.  Gross.  Hmm, late for work and no time to boil another pot of water, what to do?   Well microwaves cook from the inside out, right?  I bet 30 seconds on high would do the trick.  Beep.  I pressed start and turned to the kitchen sink.  A moment later there was an explosion like a gun shot.  I screamed and hit the floor.  The egg had vaporized and actually blew the microwave door open.  You remember the old popcorn ceilings?  That’s what the entire inside of my microwave looked like.  Egg spackle.  It was tempting to just unplug the thing and cart it down to the trash can.  My gosh what an incredible mess.  The house stunk like egg for some time after that too.

So this time, instead of pressing start, I decided to Google it.  I wondered if I was the only person to have ever Googled the microwave-ability of peanut (almond) butter but apparently not.  Google even finished the search sentence for me!  I learned that it was recommended to scoop the nut butter out of its jar and put it into a microwave safe bowl and proceed with cautious 30 second intervals.  Worked like a charm.