audreyh1
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Yes, you can cook pasta in the microwave and have it turn out great. It tastes the same as stove top - boiling is still boiling after all.
I finally decided to try this pasta cooker gadget Amazon.com: Fasta Pasta The Microwave Cooker It takes about the same time for the pasta to cook as stovetop, but you skip the time waiting for the water to boil, so it is a lot faster. Also - you use less water. The cooker also strains the pasta.
In the limited space of an RV kitchen, sometimes boiling pasta on the stove top was just too much trouble. After reading all the rave Amazon reviews, I decided to give it a try. It looked perfect for RV living.
Well after using it about 10 times, I have to say this gadget is amazing! We do mostly whole wheat pasta and it works great. I don't think we'll ever cook pasta on the stove top again. This is so much less hassle. The cooker 11.5 x 5.6 x 3.5 inches, and rinses easily after cooking - no colander for straining pasta, no pot for boiling water/cooking pasta.
This is also the only "microwave cooking" gadget we own.
We had to make a few adjustments. We salt the water - for some reason the instructions leave that out, but the pasta IMO tastes awful unsalted. Also, my cooking times were several minutes less than the instructions to get the right level of al dente. I expect this is a combination of microwave power differences and our own taste.
BTW - the lid stays OFF while cooking - that way it doesn't boil over. A common mistake which DH made right away! The lid is for straining the pasta.
I've done several things. Simplest - microwave pasta, then microwave sauce and combine. More common - have a nice sauce or dish cooking stovetop, microwave pasta just until very al dente and then add to stovetop sauce for finish. Done penne, farfalle, linguine - all good.
Finally, I got brave enough to try lasagna. A stack of 9 is what the cooker holds - just enough for 9x13 casserole. I had given up on lasagna due to the hassle, and I wasn't really crazy about the no-cook noodles - OK, but not as enjoyable as regular.
9 whole-wheat lasagna noodles - it did great. Easy to strain and cool them, then leave them laying flat in the cooker, until ready to assemble.
I made a "Greek Lasagna", my own creation. It was fantastic. I'll post the recipe later.
Audrey
I finally decided to try this pasta cooker gadget Amazon.com: Fasta Pasta The Microwave Cooker It takes about the same time for the pasta to cook as stovetop, but you skip the time waiting for the water to boil, so it is a lot faster. Also - you use less water. The cooker also strains the pasta.
In the limited space of an RV kitchen, sometimes boiling pasta on the stove top was just too much trouble. After reading all the rave Amazon reviews, I decided to give it a try. It looked perfect for RV living.
Well after using it about 10 times, I have to say this gadget is amazing! We do mostly whole wheat pasta and it works great. I don't think we'll ever cook pasta on the stove top again. This is so much less hassle. The cooker 11.5 x 5.6 x 3.5 inches, and rinses easily after cooking - no colander for straining pasta, no pot for boiling water/cooking pasta.
This is also the only "microwave cooking" gadget we own.
We had to make a few adjustments. We salt the water - for some reason the instructions leave that out, but the pasta IMO tastes awful unsalted. Also, my cooking times were several minutes less than the instructions to get the right level of al dente. I expect this is a combination of microwave power differences and our own taste.
BTW - the lid stays OFF while cooking - that way it doesn't boil over. A common mistake which DH made right away! The lid is for straining the pasta.
I've done several things. Simplest - microwave pasta, then microwave sauce and combine. More common - have a nice sauce or dish cooking stovetop, microwave pasta just until very al dente and then add to stovetop sauce for finish. Done penne, farfalle, linguine - all good.
Finally, I got brave enough to try lasagna. A stack of 9 is what the cooker holds - just enough for 9x13 casserole. I had given up on lasagna due to the hassle, and I wasn't really crazy about the no-cook noodles - OK, but not as enjoyable as regular.
9 whole-wheat lasagna noodles - it did great. Easy to strain and cool them, then leave them laying flat in the cooker, until ready to assemble.
I made a "Greek Lasagna", my own creation. It was fantastic. I'll post the recipe later.
Audrey