How do you measure and handle your pasta?

[Kim Shook]

I am 63 years old.  I don't have any faith that I will ever become the person who weighs pasta.  I am an eyeballer from way back.  My mother was an eyeballer.  My grandmother was, too.  After spaghetti night you could count on finding two things in the fridge: 1). a bowl of pasta and sauce all mixed up in the proper proportions (to be eaten cold for breakfast by the first person lucky enough to get downstairs in the morning) and 2). a bowl of nekkid pasta that the remaining sauce from the night before wouldn't stretch to cover.  This would be dunked back in boiling water and buttered and salted for lunch or eaten cold with Kraft Zesty Italian dressing and a cut up tomato.  I honesty believe that my family invented pasta salad.  

[AlaMoi]

being almost exclusively a scratch cook, the quantities are a big focus.  as retired empty nesters, it's easy to accumulate a fridge stuffed with leftovers. 

and more often than not,,,, they do not get totally consumed . . . a light lunch, mebbe.  too often, all/some portion of leftovers sit, then get tossed....

 

DW often clips recipes to try - "serves 8" kind of things immediately get cut-cut-cut!

 

I've taken to gram measuring to make just the right amount(s).  especially for pasta, rice, dry beans - those are easily over estimated, especially if the cook is hungry!  I do fix dishes where leftovers are intended -

mac&cheese / chili / stews . . . they'll go into the weekly menu planning as 'left over xxx'

[Darienne]

We measure pasta 4 oz per person normally.   I would say that our sauce is not all that heavy and for two, we find that one cottage cheese container's worth covers it nicely.  Except that I am now eating gluten-free pasta and it's more like 5 oz dry weight.  My pasta doesn't bulk up like the regular pasta I guess.  I cook the pasta in two different pots...for one thing, I like mine rather al dente...and I say about Ed's pasta that he likes his al mushee.