fishing stencils

My TakeMy mom actually gave this to me after I’d raved about cooking pasta in the microwave. The package comes with the cooker, a draining lid, a steamer tray and expander ring and a storage lid. The container is marked with numbered lines and the included directions tell you how much pasta to put in as well as water level using the numbered lines. Very simple.

The handles of the container are measuring devices and the amount of spaghetti that fits in the handle is 2 servings. The handles are one thing that has really sold me on this cooker. My trusty Ziploc 7 cup round container cooks very well, but sometimes it’s quite hot and difficult to handle. The Pasta n’ More’s handles stay cool and they are easy to grip for lifting the container out of the microwave.

The drain lid is well designed. It slides onto the cooker base and is hinged in the middle. This allows you to drain the pasta and then flip up the lid and add cold water if you are rinsing pasta for a cold salad. The oval shape of the container makes pouring the pasta into a serving dish easy.

The cookbook included with the Pasta n’ More indicates just what’s “more” about the cooker. The steamer trays are designed to let you cook fresh veggies like broccoli, cauliflower and even potatoes. The expander ring allows for cooking two food items at once. The cookbook has recipes for everything from chili, to banana bread to meatloaf. My next experiment will be the Lentil Rice Soup.

If you never cook anything but pasta in this container it’s well worth the money. You can cook spaghetti without having to break it up. If you need to cook a lot of macaroni for a crowd, you can do that without having to make it in batches.

A lot of those TV gadgets turn out to be a bust, but if you cook a lot in your microwave, The Pasta n’ More might be just right for you.

Tips & TricksThis cooker is fairly large so check it out carefully to make sure it fits in your microwave. I have a mid-sized microwave and it barely fits onto my 11-inch turntable. The Pasta n’ More is 10.5 inches at its longest point. If you have a microwave without a turntable it might fit in a smaller microwave at a diagonal.

Use the instructions with the cooker as a guideline ONLY. For example, the directions say for 2 cups of uncooked macaroni, you should cook for 23 minutes, stirring after 12 minutes. If I had cooked the pasta that long in my 1000 watt oven, it would have been mush. I cooked the pasta for 11 minutes, stirred, and cooked another 8 minutes and it was just a little past al dente.

You do not need to heat the water first as I do when using the Ziploc container to cook. I do find that starting with hot tap water works out a bit better though.

I cooked a whole pound (1 box) of elbow macaroni at once in this cooker and it did not boil over. I don’t know if it’s the shape or just the size of the container, but the pasta doesn’t boil up as much as with a regular container.

Be careful putting the draining lid on. You need to slide the draining end onto the container and align it properly with the shape, so that the other section will snap closed firmly. With the lid on properly, you can turn the container completely upside down without incident