How to save time, effort and money when cooking a big volume of pasta. Let’s take spaghetti as an example. Cook all the pasta at the same time in a big cauldron. Of course, the spaghetti sauce is cooked in a separate pot. Before eating, put a desired amount of sauce in a pan and mix with the desired amount of cooked pasta. Add a little water and stir when it starts to boil. Let it cook for 5 minutes. There, serve it hot. The leftover pasta and sauce are kept in a sealed plastic container in the fridge. This is the way we do it so the pasta will always taste fresh.
We have a small family and I've learned to cook for one different meal a day. It's a bit of a challenge to have different meals daily, but I find that having just enough for the day is best for our small family of 2. Volume cooking is good for big families so the family can go to the fridge to get leftovers to pop them in the micro to eat anytime. Our little family loves different meals daily, so I cook small amounts of food.
I find pasta taking up a lot of gas. It takes real long for pasta to cook. So, what I do is pressure cook it. Although you have to watch out for overcooking them. I drain them and then sauce them up. I don't cook them frequently instead I switch to noodles more frequently as they take up less cooking time.
I think it's a great idea to cook a lot at one time so it can probably last for 3 days if put away correctly. I also am used to cooking my pasta that way to safe time and electricity since I use an electric stove. It stays nice and fresh for about 4 days in the fridge in a nice container and it's good enough for my family of 3. I love pasta because it's delicious and filling.
I normally do this every time I cook pasta. Spaghetti, Macaroni, Carbonara and Lasagna are some of the usual pastas I cook. I always do the same procedure so we can save it if there are left overs. Whenever there's an occasion, there's a less chance that we have left overs since we are a big family consists of 8-10 including my aunts and cousins so saving it for another meal won't be possible
I also recommend making large amounts of soup because at least where I live, you can get 200 grams of pasta for 12 cents which is enough to feed 3 people once or one person for the whole day. All you need is cilantro, chicken soup flavor cubes, and tomato if you want. Very cheap. Everything will cost you less than 50 cents.
I purchased a Pasta machine and I saved a lot of money because I already have a huge stock of flour on my kitchen cupboards and I have some hens walking around on my backyard so I have a lot of eggs. Flour and oil is much more cheaper than dried pasta and it is much more delicious. I don't knead it because the machine does everything except cooking. I can make lasagna shells, Angel hairs, Linguine, Spaghetti, Macaroni ,Penne and many more.
I'm not exactly a chef (like those of reality shows ), but I usually cook well (my family, my girlfriend and my friends never complained ), especially pasta. I love it because it is easy to make, and always yields delicious dishes. Not to mention that they always combine with a great variety of excellent sauces.