Making pasta in the microwave?

[mathsnerd]

Hello all!

I'm hoping to pick to your collective brains in the hopes that someone has the answer to this question. I have recently acquired a 20L microwave/grill/convection oven and am now facing the cold hard truth that I don't know how to use it other than re-heating things. (Oops.)

The weather here in Germany is getting colder, and I am craving PASTA! Hence, my question to you all: how can I cook pasta in a microwave? What kind of dishes/equipment do I need to purchase? (I have, quite literally, nothing.) Are some sorts of pasta going to be harder than others? I do own an electric hot water cooker, so I can boil water ahead of time, if that helps.

In other important information, I share a tiny room, have next to no storage space, have almost no prep space, have a sink, share a tiny under-the-counter-fridge, do NOT have a freezer, have two hot plates but do not use them (hence the microwave/oven) due to fear of burns, do not currently have any storage containers but can get some when I get cooking dishes/equipment if it's recommended.

I am disabled, hence the not cooking on hot plates, use crutches and hand/arm braces, and have reduced motor skills in my hands/arms/legs. Spoons vary wildly by day and time of day.

I need to eat more and eat warm food. I turn to you in hopes of being able to start having pasta. If I can cook pasta, I can make a batch and refrigerate it, and then re-heat it and make sauces or dress it as my stomach permits (I have weird food things due to a chronic illness) and a lot of things would be better. At least one of my closer friends and her mother would stop bitching (they bought the microwave).

I thank you all in advance and look forward to being able to have pasta! X-posted to boilingwater

Comments

[the_rck]

Oh, and I forgot to add-- For cooking, you'll want a microwave safe bowl, probably ceramic or pyrex if you can lift one. Plastics in the microwave can be iffy. Some don't hold up well. Some may leach chemicals into the food. I still use some plastics in our microwave (a spoon tradeoff), but I'm careful to stick with those packaged as microwave safe.

The size of the bowl will depend on the size of the microwave (you might want to measure before shopping) and on what you can reliably lift. A larger bowl will let you make bigger batches of pasta but will also be harder to lift.

I do recommend caution after cooking the pasta. The bowl will probably be hot, and you could burn yourself on it if you're not careful. Some bowls heat up more than their contents do.

[fred_mouse]

I haven't tried it with past, but what I have for cooking in the microwave is a pyrex jug - the handle doesn't heat up from the cooking, and as long as I'm not cooking a lot, the weight isn't too much (or I can use a teatowel underneath to support it)

[highlyeccentric]

I have a great plastic dish designed for cooking rice in the microwave; we also use it for preparing instant noodles, and I bet it would work for making pasta in the microwave.

In Australia, Decor make microwave-safe plastic dishes (and non-microwave safe ones): of their ordinary dishes, the red ones are safe for cooking (as opposed to reheating), as is anything specifically marked 'microwave rice cooker'. I don't know what the situation is like overseas, but something like that might be worth investigating: my plastic rice cooker doesn't heat up very much while cooking.