Have you ever cooked pasta in the microwave?

This technique that my daughter discovered is amazing and conserves water!

One thing you should know about me is that I am always thinking about water. Water as a vital natural resource in the world…water as a beautiful place to dive and appreciate nature…water as the most important ingredient in cooking. The last point is something that I don’t think we talk about enough when we think about cooking, how every process—steaming, boiling, baking, roasting, braising, everything!—is the process of controlling water.

That’s why I love this recipe for cacio e pepe, the very trendy Italian pasta dish that really is just a fancy mac and cheese with some extra pepper on top (there, I said it!). One thing I love about it is how little water it uses—just enough to cook the pasta, no more. Too many pasta recipes call for way too much water, which you’re just going to throw away in the end, losing not just the resource but also the precious starch from the pasta, which is an amazing ingredient itself. The other reason I love it is that my daughter Lucia (remember her from the show we made together?) found it and started to test it, and we discovered that it’s a perfect quick meal for anyone with a microwave (a note for all of you college kids out there!)

Microwave Cacio e Pepe