Tristar Pasta Express "As Seen on TV" - PEX

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Category: Kitchen
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Tristar Pasta Express "As Seen on TV" - PEX

Customer Review: Yeah, What they said! Crappy Product! Makes Great Gift for Bad Co-Workers!
Summary: 1 Stars

Well, luckily for anyone just now trying this, it appears the price has gone down quite a bit since I bought mine - It's maaaaybe worth 5 or 6 bucks - maaaaybe. I wanted this to work well and became determined. But the effort I put in getting some edible pasta was hardly worth it. I think it is MUCH easier to simply boil your pasta as per usual on the stove rather than resort to this device!

This is NOT a microwave cooker. No, this is a pseudo hot water cooker. Pseudo because you put hot water into it and then, well, it cools down as water is prone to do. Supposedly the pasta will cook before this point - uh no. No way. Not even if you live AT the equator. the device calls itself "thermal" - I think that may explain why the water cools off so fast. Its working very hard to equalize the water temp with the surrounding air temp. Or something like that. At any rate, yes, it cools down far too fast to even consider cooking pasta. It keeps warmth about long enough to get it kinda sticky and soft-ish in some spots here and there.

The first time I tried this, I kept my pasta in it for 14 minutes. Which was the stated time frame for what I was cooking. When I opened it and drained the water I noticed it certainly wasn't steaming, no, it was kinda luke warm. So, before removing the pasta from the cooker, I decided to taste a piece. I popped off the lid and wow, I thought something smelled kinda weird - WAY more so with the lid off! It smelled somehow like yeasty, like dough, bread dough. Now I was using GOOD pasta that I've cooked countless times over the years so it was definitely not the pasta itself in this case. Okay, I carefully pulled out one piece and gingerly nibbled at it. Ew. Just Ew. It was like chewy gooey. Soggy round the edges but definitely not all the way cooked.

Well, rather than waste all that good pasta, and besides, I was hungry! I heated more water to boiling and once again smothered the noodles in hot water. I let it sit this time another 12 minutes. This time upon opening, while I could still smell the yeastiness smell, it wasn't as bad. Again I did the taste test - This time it was *almost* edible. I admit, I was hungry and thus I did consider eating it as is at that point. But stubbornness prevailed over hunger and thus once again I heated more water and once again, poured it over the pasta in the container. This time I left it for only about 6 minutes. I figured if it wasn't done at that point I was heading over to Wawa to get a sandwich!

Well, lo and behold, it was done! Er sort of. More or less. As long as you didn't count the very NOT cooked pieces that were down in the bottom. But I picked around them. And it was edible. Sort of. As long as you didn't count the gooey sticky mess that part of the pasta was. And believe it or not, this was NOT from overcooking! Thats a whole different type of gooey mess! No, this one was some still only semi-cooked pieces of pasta that decided to mate down toward the bottom of the container.

Well, I ate what I felt was salvageable, but really, I probably should have gone to Wawa for a turkey sandwich after all! I certainly could not recommend this product to anyone - unless I really don't like them. In which case, it would make a great Christmas gift for such people!

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