HCA: Hermit Crab Association

My range is broken and I don't want to take time off work to wait for a repairman any time soon. (We never cook any actual food with it anyhow -- I just use it for pet stuff. How sad, I know.) So ... I know you can boil water in a microwave, but is it safe to boil shells in the microwave? Because the microwave heats stuff from the inside out, my husband thought that it might explode or damage the shells, especially if they had air trapped inside. Does anybody boil their shells this way?

I think to do that the safest thing to do would be to bring your water to boiling in a large, microwave safe bowl, one that's deep enough for you to dump your shells into and have them covered, then AFTER the water is hot, take it out of the microwave and put the shells into the hot water and let them soak for 5 or 10 minutes. I honestly don't think you'd have any problems with exploding shells or anything like that if you nuked them, but it's better to be on the safe side.

I tried bringing water to a boil and then dropping shells in it, but I'm not sure that it stayed hot enough long enough. I hate to go out and buy anything, because we really don't cook and once the stove is fixed it'll just be more useless kitchen junk to store and I have quite a lot of kitchen junk already that people have given me. Out of pity I think, but really, I don't want to cook and I am not simply waiting for the right appliance to change my mind! Maybe I can use a friend's stove or something. I've got quite a few shells to boil (with more one the way!) so maybe next weekend I can lease some burner time. Or maybe I can find an appliance repair place that will come out on Saturdays. Stupid stove. You just don't seem worth all this trouble. Maybe I should just get the hot plate. Then I can store kitchen junk in the stove.

Moire_eel, I boil my shells in the microwave all the time I put them right in the water in an oversized measuring cup (holds like 8 cups) and put them in for 8 minutes. I haven't had any mishaps with shells bursting or anything being damaged. I've even boiled fossil shells too.