Click photo to enlarge Tonights dinner!
I decided to make spaghetti entirely in the stack cooker in the microwave. I normally would use the microwave pasta maker to cook the noodles and do the meat sauce on the stove top. But since I'm on a roll with the stack cooker I figured, why not cook the entire meal that way? Had I used elbow macaroni or tortellini pasta, I could've probably cooked it the entire meal at one time. But, I was using whole wheat spaghetti.
I took 1.5 lbs of ground beef and put it in the slotted bowl of the stack cooker and placed this on top of the medium stack cooker bowl. I cooked the meat for about 10 minutes and took it out. After just 10 minutes, this is the half cooked hamburger. What I LOVED about this was the fat and grease drained from the meat. Made my life just a little bit easier. Conventional stove top cooking would require me to carry my heavy pot to the sink and drain all the fat and put the pot back on the stove. This was SO much easier! In order to drain the fat completely, I would have to move the meat into a colander and strain and then put back in the pot.
I decided to make spaghetti entirely in the stack cooker in the microwave. I normally would use the microwave pasta maker to cook the noodles and do the meat sauce on the stove top. But since I'm on a roll with the stack cooker I figured, why not cook the entire meal that way? Had I used elbow macaroni or tortellini pasta, I could've probably cooked it the entire meal at one time. But, I was using whole wheat spaghetti.
I took 1.5 lbs of ground beef and put it in the slotted bowl of the stack cooker and placed this on top of the medium stack cooker bowl. I cooked the meat for about 10 minutes and took it out. After just 10 minutes, this is the half cooked hamburger. What I LOVED about this was the fat and grease drained from the meat. Made my life just a little bit easier. Conventional stove top cooking would require me to carry my heavy pot to the sink and drain all the fat and put the pot back on the stove. This was SO much easier! In order to drain the fat completely, I would have to move the meat into a colander and strain and then put back in the pot.
Here's the nasty fat that drained from the ground beef. This went down down the drain and the pot was washed and put away. Nice!
I put my whole wheat spaghetti in the pasta maker and filled to the appropriate water line. I put the pasta in for 15 minutes (NO COVER). While that was cooking, I took a spatula and broke the ground beef apart so it wasn't big clumps of meat. The meat was not fully cooked which was fine. It was partially cooked. I transferred the meat to the large stack cooker bowl.
I mixed in my chopped onions, tomato, celery, tomato, garlic, and olives to the mixture. I chopped all of those ingredients up in my power chef which took about 7 minutes total. As you can tell, I love to hide veggies in my meals. After mixing everything with the hamburger, I added a 28 oz can of spaghetti sauce and smoothed everything down in the bowl. I add salt and pepper at the end because the salt dries out the meat during cooking.
At this point, my spaghetti was half way done (6 minutes). I paused the microwave and stirred the pasta around to ensure there was no clumping and cooked it for the rest of the cook time. When it was done, I removed the pasta maker from the microwave and placed the cover on top and let it stand.
I then placed the spaghetti sauce mixture into the microwave for 18 minutes with the cover on (not vented which means the handles are all lined up straight).
I drained the pasta by holding the cover on the pasta maker and tipping over. The pasta maker has built in holes that allow you to drain it right in the container! Then I set it on the table for dinner.
We set the table and put the garlic butter crescent rolls in the toaster oven for 13 minutes. As soon as the spaghetti sauce was done, so was the garlic bread. We brought it all out to the table and had dinner. We were done eating by 5:10 pm. (I got home from work at 4:00!)
I can't say enough good things about this stack cooker. I love this more than I love my microwave pressure cooker. And if you've been following me online, you know how much I love that pressure cooker. More pics below. Enjoy and thanks for reading!
I mixed in my chopped onions, tomato, celery, tomato, garlic, and olives to the mixture. I chopped all of those ingredients up in my power chef which took about 7 minutes total. As you can tell, I love to hide veggies in my meals. After mixing everything with the hamburger, I added a 28 oz can of spaghetti sauce and smoothed everything down in the bowl. I add salt and pepper at the end because the salt dries out the meat during cooking.
At this point, my spaghetti was half way done (6 minutes). I paused the microwave and stirred the pasta around to ensure there was no clumping and cooked it for the rest of the cook time. When it was done, I removed the pasta maker from the microwave and placed the cover on top and let it stand.
I then placed the spaghetti sauce mixture into the microwave for 18 minutes with the cover on (not vented which means the handles are all lined up straight).
I drained the pasta by holding the cover on the pasta maker and tipping over. The pasta maker has built in holes that allow you to drain it right in the container! Then I set it on the table for dinner.
We set the table and put the garlic butter crescent rolls in the toaster oven for 13 minutes. As soon as the spaghetti sauce was done, so was the garlic bread. We brought it all out to the table and had dinner. We were done eating by 5:10 pm. (I got home from work at 4:00!)
I can't say enough good things about this stack cooker. I love this more than I love my microwave pressure cooker. And if you've been following me online, you know how much I love that pressure cooker. More pics below. Enjoy and thanks for reading!
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