It’s National Spaghetti Day.
Saturday is a great day to make spaghetti. The sauce can simmer longer, and everyone can linger around the dinner table. Or you can go out to eat and have unlimited breadsticks and salad before you stuff yourself with pasta.
I prefer medium shells to spaghetti noodles, but I’m fond of spaghetti sauce (my hubby makes a great sauce.) I especially like it with meatballs. No matter the pasta shape, I call it spaghetti.
Americans eat about 20 pounds of pasta a year. Most families have spaghetti about once a week. I did as a kid, but I have it less often now. Although when we make a batch, we eat if for three days, so it might average out.
Ever wonder how pasta is made? I watch a lot of cooking shows and love watching the crazy length that pasta dough grows to (like in this America’s Test Kitchen video), but it’s also fun to watch millions of pounds of pasta being made. (Beware watching just one How It’s Made video though because it’s hard to stop.)
I think the best thing about spaghetti is that everyone has their own recipe, so no two dishes taste alike. That can be true even in one household. My hubby’s spaghetti sauce is never the same twice, but it’s always tasty. What is your favorite sauce? Do you make it yourself, or does it come out of a can or jar? Perhaps it’s from a powdered packet like my mom used when I was a kid? Or do you make it from scratch like my aunt? I didn’t bother including any recipes here because I figured we each have our own.