Yes.
Of all the tasks I didn’t think we needed to simplify, cooking pasta was somewhere right near the top. . .possibly only trailing “making toast” and “making ice”.
Folks — just because someone dreams something up and gets it on the TV, you don’t need to buy it.
Don’t forget boiling eggs
A trick I learned after moving to Norway, for packing a hot lunch/snack for a hike or ski trip: Take one wide-mouthed thermos. Insert hot dogs. Fill with beef or chicken bouillon, piping hot but not quite boiling, lest you split the skins. Close thermos and toss in backpack. A couple hours later, you’ll have hot, tasty hot dogs, ready to eat. Some people also drink the bouillon, although I don’t think it’s particularly tasty with all the extra salt and fat floating in it… Ook.
Anyway, sounds like this Pasta Pronto thing would work on the same principle on your kitchen counter. The only question is, why?
That’s a pharse you should never hear in connection with cooking pasta. With pasta, the more water, the better.
I admit to being curious about this thing and tempted to buy it just to see how the hell it works. But it doesn’t seem very practical in your average normal kitchen. I could only see this being useful for say traveling, hiking or an extremely small kitchen or no kitchen at all (like a dorm) where you might have one of those little electric pots to boil water but nothing else to cook in. In those cases it might be good … if it really works.
As soon as I saw that thing I had a flashback to “Mr. Tea,” an old SNL bit with Father Guido Sarducci.
“What you do is, you put the teabag in the cup, then you pour boiling water into the top of Mr. Tea (a funnel above the cup) and Mr. Tea does the rest!”