So This Post Was Inevitable . . .

It's Lent, which means no meat or dairy, which means pasta, among other things. And once I experimented with cooking pasta in its sauce, and then I got a pressure cooker, well, you can guess the next step: pressure cooker pasta in sauce.

Sorry, I was hungry and forgot to take pictures. Next time.

First off: yes, it works. I used Kroger whole grain pasta; a can of diced tomatoes; some seasonings; a little wine (because it was a weekend, and I'm trying to use up the last of a box); and a little water.

Of course I had made a few attempts already that had gone wrong, so here's what worked. In the stovetop, I added pasta, diced tomatoes, seasonings (in that order) and then filled up the cooker with wine and water until the level of the liquid was almost to the top of the pasta.

I turned on the electric burner, set the cooker on it, and let the liquid reach a fast simmer, stirring all the while. When the liquid reached a fast simmer, I put on the lid. Once the cooker had reached full pressure I let it go about a minute and turned off the heat and walked away, leaving the cooker on the burner.

When the lid unlocked, I had perfectly-cooked pasta in sauce. Total burner time: 6 minutes.
This may not seem like much of a big deal, but with summer coming, you don't want to heat up the house, so instead of waiting for a pot of water to boil, and then cooking pasta for another 8 minutes, and cooking sauce in a separate pan, you'll be reducing your cooling bills significantly. And while this method may not be any faster (you still need the cool-down time), it's a lot less hands-on.

Easier Pasta

Being that I'm always busy, I'm always looking for ways to make my life easier. And I've certainly found the solution to easier pasta!

Great cooks will have you boil the pasta in several quarts of water, reserve a cup of the pasta liquid, drain the pasta, add the sauce, add the reserved pasta liquid, and then serve. But, emboldened by my previous experiments with cooking pasta in sauce, I decided that all of that was too much work! Instead, try this method:

Heat the sauce to just below an energetic simmer. Add the pasta, and enough warm water to within an inch of the pasta (for al dente), or level or slightly above the level of the pasta for softer pasta. Stir the pasta several times during the first few minutes. If the sauce/water level is below the pasta, cover. Reduce the heat to a gentle simmer, and give it maybe a minute or two longer than you would traditionally boil the pasta. Test, then remove the pot from heat and let sit a few minutes.

The result? A one-pot pasta dish, with the silky quality of the starch reserved, and only one dish to clean. It works with tomato sauces, pumpkin sauces, even with cheap boxed macaroni and cheese. And you don't have to attend it; just set the timer and walk away. Magic!

Pasta, Part I

I was reducing a sauce for pasta the other day, and I remembered reading about cooking pasta directly in the sauce. I thought that this was completely logical, so I decided to dump the uncooked pasta in the sauce and see what would happen (after all, I had excess water in the sauce, and I had pasta that needed water, so this seemed to be the perfect solution).

Siena, Tuscany, Italy Keith Levit

The result of my experiment: delicious!

Here are my observations, for what they are worth:
I had to add water to the sauce--a scant cup.
The pasta took as long to cook as it would to boil water and cook the pasta.
I used tomato sauce
The sauce was smoother and better.
When I tested the pasta I kept thinking it was going to be ruined, but then it suddenly became perfectly al dente.

For the record, I was using 100% whole grain penne pasta.

So the next time you cook a marinara or other tomato-based sauce, if your pasta will fit in the pot, dump it right in. In my case, I had to up the pasta cooking time from eight minutes to fourteen minutes. You'll save washing an extra pot and colander, too!