How NOT to cook spaghetti!

My Italian friends would be shocked at what I’ve done.

I’m not a bad cook… in fact, some would say I’m half way decent. Not that I would ever compete in one of those reality shows… but i can whip up a decent meal when I need to.

Last night was a disaster… even by my low standards.

I decided on pasta. Dug into the pantry and found an old box of spaghetti. Gluten Free. The box was taped together so it was old, but how old? Didn’t know. But is age a problem when it comes to pasta? Didn’t they find pieces of pasta in the tombs of Egypt?

Anyway, I boiled up some water and poured in the contents of the pasta box.

I didn’t have any tomato sauce, but found an old jar of pesto in the refrigerator and a sweet sausage. I cut up the sausage and started that heating up in a small fry pan.

And then I got distracted. My computer is just a few feet away and while the pasta was boiling away I started surfing the web. It was at least 15 minutes later I came back to reality and realized my pasta had to be done. Overdone, in fact.

I poured the contents of the boiling pot into a strainer and gave it a quick rinse. It was a ball of glue. No matter how I tried to stir the mess and add some pesto for flavor, the mass of gluey gunk never recovered.

Try again.

Dumped the mess, rinsed out the pot and tried again. This time with some thin spaghetti from the tall glass container that had been sitting on my kitchen counter as decoration. (When you’re determined to eat pasta, any source is ok, I guess.)

Boiled the water for 4 minutes. That should have been enough time. Dumped the water and pasta into the strainer. Too soon! the pasta wasn’t cooked. Stiff, barely cooked rods of semolina wheat stared back at me.

Now, what to do? I had just dumped all the boiling water down the sink. How do I finish cooking the pasta?

Desperation is the mother of invention. I poured the half-cooked pasta into the frypan with the bits of sausage, added a little water and put a cover on the pan. If I couldn’t boil the pasta, maybe I could steam it?

Needless to say it didn’t work.

I still ate the pasta, tossed with pesto and bits of sausage. But I won’t be adding this recipe to my book of excellent culinary delights.