[Backinwellies]

I should have said, SiN, that my pastry pies are invariably from a supermarket freezer    so blinding is not an option.  .
These pies come in alu' trays and I would have thought this would transfer good amount of heat to the bottom pastry, but seemingly not!

Question
Are you putting in micro in aluminium tray (which seems to be implied ) ....whilst using the microwave? .. aluminium will ruin your microwave in that quantity.  Can be used in small quantities to say cover the wings of chicken to slow down the cooking here whilst rest cooks......  so  aluminium acts as a barrier to microwave cooking.

If just using as conventional oven .... then to be honest ....  most  commercial pies will have soggy bottom on reheating

[arobwk]

Yes I am (or did) throw some microwaves into the mix [member=26580]Backinwellies[/member] - I won't do it again.  Haven't re-tested w/o alu' tray for a while though as I'm avoiding pastry right now due to the covid waist-line expansion syndrome !

[member=212379]naturelovingfarmer[/member] - Thanks kindly for your thoughts.  I'm not sure what you mean by an infra-red stove and equally I'm not sure what sort of heating element is in my multi-oven for convection or grill modes.  However, in passing: I did try a halogen air-fryer-type cooker with glass bowl for a while until the bulb died - turned out that the bulb was not a 'plug-and-play' type:  I didn't bother replacing it, despite some good cooking results, because I was getting fed up with awkward hand-washing of a 17 ltr bowl that could not be put in the dish-washer apparently.  Also, I did once cook a whole Xmas turkey dinner, for my 2 kids and me, using just my original micro-wave multi-cooker !!  In retrospect, if I'd had any sense I could have used a camping stove for boiling the veg, but it didn't occur to me at the time. Never-the-less, the dinner was, I have to say, a juggled success - even the gravy !!  So, junking a conventional oven/cooker is not something that fazes me:  it's just a matter of getting used to routinely doing all things differently (compared to conventional cooker) as my new standard.  I'm not interested in going back to a standard cooker/oven and my old micro-multi lasted almost 20 years (albeit along-side a traditional gas/electric range cooker) - fingers-crossed/touch wood for the longevity of its replacement supported by the Instant Pot.


 

[arobwk]

Just one other thought re junking the traditional oven/cooker:  we all know, surely, that the long-term future is probably 'just electric' for cooking and domestic heating (excluding the odd BBQ or the unavoidable cow-dung fuelled fire in some very remote lands) - and we all know that we must try and reduce our carbon footprints:  microwave-aided and pressure cooking are just 2 more-efficient ways of doing the latter compared to using traditional (gas or electric) cooker/oven-type appliances. 
Of course, if one has a family of, say, 11 mortals to cook food for (many UK members will know who I mean) then a large traditional cooker/oven (range-type perhaps) might be the more energy-efficient answer !? 

[Given the apparently ever-endless series of 'Our Yorkshire Farm' - which I rather like - I wonder if we will one-day get a good peek at the Owen's kitchen set-up, including, perhaps, insight into Owen easy menus to cater for all those hungry mouths! ]

[arobwk]

Hah - I learn today that my ex' and her housemate have just bought a multi-cooker (sounds like its the same one as mine). Reckon I will set her the challenge of trying to reproduce one of those deep-pan veggie flans in her multi- rather than me faff around !