975 watt microwave…8 minutes hard boiled, 4-1/2 minutes soft boiled. Perfect!
8 mins to hard boil an egg seems like a long time. I guess I need to go back in the thread. Can’t you do a dozen on the stove in this time?
After you cook the first 4 eggs, and you want to cook 4 more, the water is hot, but needs a bit more added. The water is still very warm so how do you adjust down the cooking time? 2 minutes off?
Steamers? Save a couple of $$ and buy a jiffy!!!
http://www.amazon.com/J-2000-Jiffy-Garment-Steamer-Plastic/dp/B0000665TD
This is what the brand department stores use.
A little 4 cup rice cooker–I love it! No watching a pot–set and forget! I made spaghetti in it yesterday (half a box) in half the time of cooking on the stove (but you have to watch it a bit closer). So it’s really for more than rice.
gouf78, I love my little rice cooker. But really, spaghetti? do you put the water in the pot and then wait until it boils until putting in the spaghetti? It’s so small, doesn’t the spaghetti stick together?
I got directions off the internet. The little pot can only do about a half box of spaghetti so it’s good for two people.
Break noodles in half. Put in pot and cover with water a couple inches above the noodles. (so on my little cooker it was around the 3 mark–gotta leave room at the top or it might boil over.) Put lid on. Turned it on and left–checked once or twice to make sure it didn’t boil over. About 10 minutes later it was done–right amount, no waiting for water to boil, no extra pans, no pot watching. The caveat is that the rice cooker is made for rice and a specific temperature–pasta may take more or less time so you do have to check on it
Some people put oil in the water to prevent sticking. I did not but I stirred once just to make sure.
Making side dishes in it is really great–like jambalaya, black beans and rice etc.
Made jambalya (Zataran’s) with kielbasa mixed in the other day–perfect.
We had a large rice cooker originally that I hated cause it always burned smaller quantities of rice but the little one has been great.The big one took up too much room also. My son is the one who said he and his roommates couldn’t live without one so I followed his lead. I got one for my dad too.
Similarly, I just got a small single serve blender- like a Magic Bullet, but much less expensive. (Walmart. Farberware, $18.) Have yet to try it, but it says you can blend, chop, puree (I sometimes make squash soups,) has one grinder for coffee beans, nuts, herbs. I gave my old clunker to my D, who is moving.
Re the rice cooker: I will try it but it seems like it’s fast because it uses much less water than boiling spaghetti in a pot.
BB I have had a Jiffy Steamer for many years - I always use distilled water so I don’t have a build up of minerals with it. We had plugs put in our walk in closets when we built our house, so it is parked with my clothes. Had mine for 20 years and works great.
When I make an ind’l bowl of oat meal, I use the old fashioned; pour instant hot water over the 1/2 cup oatmeal and put in microwave with a lid for 25 sec. Then I usually have to add more hot water. I repeat 25 sec. Then I put it on for 10 or 15 sec and watch, as when the oatmeal bubbles up in the bowl it is ready, and if you don’t watch it will run over the bowl and make a mess.
I have a Aroma rice cooker (maybe Costco purchased) - H fussed about me purchasing, but it makes nice rice.
It is an adjustment with cooking for two that have limitations with watching calories/fat versus family cooking.
I use my rice cooker for spaghetti sometimes (and for risotto). Barilla now makes a pasta that you don’t drain, so it’s really perfect for a rice cooker. I think it’s called Barilla Pronto? I’m not home, so I can’t check the box.
I use a larger rice cooker so that I can put everything in, pasta water, sauce and all. I have a son who loves pasta, so if he pops over and is hungry, I can make pasta for him very quick this way.
edit…here is the pasta
http://www.barilla.com/pronto?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Pasta+Shapes±+Pronto±+Generic±+Brand±+Exact&utm_term=barillaprontopasta
If you can use old fashioned oatmeal and get it done in under a minute, I think it’s still the “quick” sort. I do pretty much what you do. Love it. My stone ground original type oatmeal, otoh, is a much longer process. That might work in a rice cooker. Aiui, the rice cooker figures doneness by weight, somehow. ? Anyway, I loved mine in the beginning (for rice,) then it all started to stick or crust at the bottom. I had lost the instructions and was doing something wrong. Tips welcome 
the best “quicker” oatmeal (I think) is Coach’s Oats. It has the taste/texture of steel cut, but cooks MUCH more quickly. I cook it in the MW.
I get it at Costco where it’s MUCH cheaper than Amazon (which has a crazy price). Costco tends to carry it in the fall/winter, so I stock up when they have it.
I do buy the Quaker Oaks Old Fashioned - cook top, you boil the water, add the oats, and it takes 5 min. If doing more than two servings, it is quicker on the stove for me. Usually I am sipping coffee while watching the MW with my oat meal. I just bought the Sam’s double 5 lb package (so 10 lb total) of oat meal so I better like cooking the old fashioned kind.
This hurts my soul. Twirling a forkful of full-length spaghetti in a soup spoon was probably the most important skill my father taught me! Broken spaghetti is just…sad.
I’ve actually read a few pieces in recent years that recommend cooking pasta in very little water. Here’s one:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boiling-tips-the-food-lab.html
Agreed.
Well, I don’t know if it’s the most important thing my mother taught me, but I believe that spaghetti (and pretty much any pasta) should not come out of a box.
Baby Foot Day 6: I’ve continued to only have thin peeling after soaking or showering. No big sheets of thick skin sloughing off like in the reviews or youtube videos. But I do notice a lovely smooth feeling. You know that sensation after a dental cleaning when the tongue side of your lower 4 front teeth feel so noticeably smooth? It reminds me of that.
Funny, DH insisted on teaching the girls how to do the spaghetti twirl. I couldn’t get them interested in making pasta from scratch.
http://www.amazon.com/Hog-Wild-Twirling-Spaghetti-Fork/dp/B001HXD4U2
Another batch of eggs came out perfectly hard-boiled, so far without a single explosion… Fingers crossed. 
Madison, thanks for the update. It makes sense that some people don’t see much peeling. The product apparently works as an exfoliator - it removes only the dead skin layer leaving the living cells intact. so if you have been taking care of your feet by soaking, moisturizing, exfoliating, etc., you will not have too many dead skin cells on the surface, therefore, not much will peel off. Folks who experience heavy peeling most likely had a thick layer of dead skin…
Madison, is the peeling similar on both feet? I was wondering is the peeling was less on the foot that was “step 2” of the same bootie.