How to save pasta and rice

Pasta and rice are notoriously hard to measure. At some stage, most of us end up with too much and it gets thrown in the bin. You might as well flush it down them toilet.

The internet is littered with useful pasta measuring tools, while you can also buy pasta measures in kitchen equipment shops or IKEA.

Sometimes, however, there’s still some leftover, or you have to heat up a plate of food for a latecomer. I have a simple trick for bringing pasta and rice back to life. Now, I thought everybody knew this one, but in the past week, my friend J Headen Esq. offered to reheat pasta for her dad’s delicious bolognaise in the microwave, while another friend didn’t know how to heat rice for me so threw it in the bin and put on a fresh batch.

No, no, no. People, people, people. All you need to do to reheat pasta or boiled/ steamed rice safely is boil up a kettle of water, put your rice or pasta in a sieve or colander, and run the hot water through it, giving it a good stir. If the pasta is particularly flat and thick (the name escapes me), you’ll need a little bit extra hot water. But this is generally foolproof, you won’t have to destroy the pasta or rice by microwaving, and it’s as good as fresh.

Do you have any useful food heating tips?