Microwave Pasta & Meatballs

I saw something interesting the other day and had to try it.   I did not know that there was such a thing as microwave pasta.  I had seen a microwave pasta cooker, but this is pre-cooked pasta that you put in the microwave for 60 seconds and you are ready to go.

Barilla has come out with a product called Ready Pasta.  It is pre-cooked pasta in a retort package.  I have had some pasta like this before that had a twang.  I was a little skeptical on how well this would taste.  It tasted great.  It was not fresh made pasta by a long shot.  Just about as good as the dried pasta you get in a box.  The texture is a little denser than normal pasta, but the package claimed al dente and it gives that impression.

I tried the Ready Pasta with a little butter and parmesan cheese and it was pretty good.  The price was $1.69 per package.  Not the cheapest, but well worth it for the convenience.

Plain pasta does not a meal make.  I wanted something close to Spaghetti and Meatballs. They don't have spaghetti but they had rotini.  So I decided to make rotini and meatballs.

So I picked up some Publix meatballs in marinara sauce.   These Publix entrees have been really good in the past so it was well worth a try.   It was great.  The sauce was not bland.  It was much better than Ragu and had a little spice in it.    The meatballs tasted outstanding.

It took 6 minutes for the meatballs to cook in the microwave.  An additional 1 minute for the pasta to cook and I had a meal.   It smelled so good I forgot to get a picture before I dug in.

It was a good meal,  enough for the two of us made entirely in the microwave.   Very tasty.  The meatballs were $5.49 and the Pasta was $1.69 so the total cost was about $7.00.   This is prefect for the motorhome.  Everything was cooked in the microwave, so no heat was added to the coach.  It was very tasty and will add to the variety of food we have while on the road.