What can I boil?

As noted earlier most anything can be boiled but without doubt some things are better than others. Lets start with pasta

Pasta comes in hundreds of shapes and sizes making it seem like there is a secret knowledge base somewhere that delves into the right choice. Wrong. Take it from me, all pastas taste the same. Spaghetti tastes like macaroni tastes like penne. All the same. Unless you get into the exotic stuff like spinach fettuchini or tomato and basil spaghetti it all tastes the same. I would generally advise staying away from the fancier flavored pastas until you are more experienced because dealing with another flavor that you have no control over can make the results somewhat unpredictable.

The trick to choosing the right pasta is thinking about what you are doing with it. If you are doing meatballs then you want certain shapes, if you are doing primavera (vegetables) then you want other shapes. Spaghetti and meatballs are a timeless recipe going back thousands of years because it just makes so much sense. The idea is that you wrap the spaghetti around the fork and then shove a piece of meatball on the end. Without the meatball the spaghetti unravels or slides off, hence the need for a meatball. You wouldn't do meatballs with macaroni because you would be chasing macaroni around the bowl for hours.

Step 1:
Follow the directions in my earlier post for boiling water.

Step 2:
When you have a rapid boil, add the pasta - not before!! Add the pasta too early and you will end up with a brick of pasta because the whole thing will stick together in one big inedible lump of semolini shit. When working with pasta it's important to keep in mind, that if you look at the ingredients for pasta, its not whole lot different than Elmers Glue.

Step 3:
No no no.......don't walk away yet!! You need to keep stirring the pasta GENTLY after you add it to the water. Did you notice how your rapid boil reduced to no boil at all when you added the pasta? Stir it around a bit until the rapid boil comes back otherwise you will end up with the aforementioned semolina-glue shit brick.

Cook al dente. From the Italian dente meaning jagged or tooth al dente means just slightly firm. I don't know why but it does. Overcook pasta and you have mush, under cook pasta and you have crunchy shit that will constipate you for week. So cook to taste.

Tip 1:
Add a tablespoon of oil to the water and it helps keep the pasta from sticking together.

Tip 2:
If the pasta is done before the sauce, strain it, throw it in a bowl, and toss with some oil to keep it from sticking together.