Ten whole minutes! Man! I could fast-forward through an entire TV show in that time! You’re killing me! In ten minutes, I could power-skim an entire book. (Amazing how much you actually absorb of a book when you force-fast-read it.)
Heck, the three minutes it takes for a Cup-o-Noodles is too long!
Okay, okay, mostly joking. To be honest, I buy regular rice, and not Minute Rice, so regular Spaghetti is just fine. I actually usually let stuff boil for 30 minutes. I also have experimentally determined exactly how much water is absorbed, so I don’t need to drain-and-strain.
Canned stuff has the drawback of being heavy. Adding water at home saves a whole lot of lugging.
(I lived on Chef Boy-Ar-Dee canned ravioli for three years in college…and, y’know, I still actually like the stuff!)
It is the way you make it. I think you’re confusing pasta with rice.
In Italy, the pasta is the most important ingredient, the sauce is secondary and used sparingly. And pasta boiled for 30 minutes would only be fit for wallpaper paste.
Maybe all my taste is in my mouth, because, honest to God, I can’t tell the difference between my home-boiled library paste and fine Italian Restaurant spaghetti.
(The same is true for the sauce. Sauce from a can or a jar is pretty much indistinguishable from restaurant sauce. I sometimes think they get it out of the same jar I do, and charge me twice for it.)
Some people are “super tasters.” Pretty obvious I ain’t one of 'em!
Back in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s there WAS a product like you’re describing. Ragu Pasta-Quick or something like that. I would stock up on the rotini & marinara with meat sauce 8-packs about once a month and leave it at work in case I forgot to bring a lunch. The portions were small enough that I’d double them up for lunches.
Then all of a sudden they were gone. I heard rumor (unconfirmed) that they were sitting on the shelves too long and the meat was going bad. Maybe they just weren’t popular enough or maybe the lead times required to accommodate mass production increased the opportunities for spoilage. In any case, I haven’t seen them since.
I’ll tell you what I’d really like: you know those packets of rice that you microwave for 90 seconds? I’d love it if there were noodles in the same type packaging, preferably the whole wheat variety (but I know that’s a lot to ask).
There are some, but they include pad thai sauce and other pad thai ingredients. I actually like that, but I’d really like just plain noodles, like the plain rice, that I could whip up in 90 seconds and add to a stir-fry.
Yeah, this is a major 1st world problem, having to boil something for 10 minutes instead of microwaving it for 90 seconds…
You must understand that “enjoy,” in this context, means “get it all horked down quickly enough not to be overcome with revulsion at what you are doing and spit it up all over your slacks.” Thus, use a big spoon, take a couple deep breaths, and start shoveling it in. It doesn’t need chewing, so you want to set up a good, brisk shovel-swallow rhythm.
Kinda roughish, but a bundle of spaghetti sticks about a quarter (25 cent piece) in diameter, break it in half so the strands aren’t overly long, and a cup and a quarter of water. Seems to get absorbed nicely.
For Rotini noodles, 3/4 cup of noodles and 2 cups of water.
I sometimes pad this out with 1/4 cup rice, and another cup of water.
YMMV – your microwave may vary!
And I confess readily, this is “nought cuisine,” the counterpart of haute cuisine. As Mad Magazine said, long ago, this ain’t snob appeal, this is slob appeal.
Some of this stuff isn’t bad, if you add a whole load of parmasan cheese, or garlic powder.
There was one brand of ramen that had a “chicken sesame” flavor – it had an extra little packet of sesame oil, and it was soooo delish. Of course, they stopped making it. Or at least, I’ve never been able to find it again.
Go down to The Strip and buy your ramen in the Asian shops. It’s just as cheap as at Iggle and they have a staggering variety…including chicken sesame that comes with an oil packet. Lots of varieties come with packets of stuff, not all of which I can identify, but daughter and I dump em all in. Warning: the stuff marked “spicy” is often seriously peppery.
