15 pounds of cooked spaghetti...

[Emily_R]

My husband volunteers at his church, where they put on monthly community dinners. Tonight was spaghetti and meatballs. They were worried they wouldn't have enough spaghetti, and made extra... Resulting in about 15 pounds of cooked spaghetti left over! They were going to throw it out, and my husband said he'd take it home to feed our chickens... But I'd love to use as much of it as possible in casserole type things I can freeze, both to eat ourselves and to give as gifts to new moms / people going through illnesses, etc...

So, suggestions? What should I do with this gargantuan amount of cooked spaghetti?! :-)

Thanks,

Emily

[Kerry Beal]

Spagetti pie is the only thing that comes to my mind.

[TheTInCook]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrazzini

I also like frying frying a patty of the noodles on both sides so its crispy.

[janeer]

I think you need to make a lot of Chinese noodle pancakes; they reheat beautifully, and are incredibly versatile--eat plain or topped with stir frys, or whatever.

[annabelle]

Do you have Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone"? She has a recipe for fried spaghetti that is almost like a fritata.

You could make pasta salad. Cut it up and use it for noodles in soup. Use it like lo mein noodles. Weigh it out in batches and just freeze it until someone has a great idea. Throw a spaghetti dinner for the neighbors?

Honestly, now that it's cooked, I would batch it out and feeze it. Unless you can use that much pasta right away or in the next few days, short of freezing, I say let the chickens have some of it.

[Lisa Shock]

You can always freeze it plain -portion it in baggies so that you have single servings on hand for emergencies. It's also good in frittatas, which I know won't freeze, but is a good way to use the plain frozen stuff.

[Emily_R]

For freezing plain -- do I need to oil it? Or can I just put it in freezer bags as-is?

And I've heard mixed things about whether frittatas freeze or not -- some places I've read they'll freeze just fine... Does anyone have experience with this?

Thanks!

Emily

[heidih]

For freezing plain -- do I need to oil it? Or can I just put it in freezer bags as-is?

No oil - just loosen it with a bit of water so you can work with it and portion out.

[Toliver]

Spaghetti Carbonara comes to mind. Lots of it, I guess.

There's always, thanks to the TV show "iCarly", the popular-amongst-kids Spaghetti Tacos.

[Emily_R]

Thanks all... Toliver, I just made essentially a spaghetti carbonara fritatta... Fried up some pancetta, added the pasta to coat with oil, poured in a mix of beaten eggs, romano cheese, and milk, and cooked until it was a solid pancake. Pretty tasty -- made a decent lunch. Could have used a little more salt / flavor - I wish I'd remembered that I had fresh sage in the house!

[LizD518]

Cold Sesame / Peanut Noodle salad - with some grilled chicken and julienne vegetables

Baked spaghetti casseroles for the frozen dinners you mentioned - with chicken and/or Italian sausage, sauce and cheese - kind of like lasagna, but with spaghetti.

Mac & Cheese with spaghetti

[boudin noir]

Take it to a food bank.

[Nyleve Baar]

You've probably already dealt with it but, for future spaghetti overload situations, you can easily mix it with tomato sauce and layer with cheese, meat, whatnot, sprinkle with shredded mozzarella and freeze in foil pans as a bake-able casserole. If you really don't want to have that much spaghetti casserole in your freezer, make this up in large foil roasting pans and take to a local soup kitchen. I know for a fact that the place where I volunteer would welcome such an offering with open arms. We make stuff like that occasionally and it goes over like gangbusters.