Your favorite pasta dishes?

[squibber]

I love pasta but I'm not totally sure why. If I sample pasta out of the boiling water, it is fairly bland. Maybe it's the chew and the sauce. Here are my favorites in no particular order.

Angel hair pasta with Rao's marinara sauce.

Beans and greens over penne pasta.

Pasta with garlic and oil and broccoli.

Pasta with wine sauce, kalamata olives and artichoke hearts.

How about you? I'd love to try a new recipe.

[T200]

When my wife and I were stationed at Ramstein Air Base in Germany, we would go to the Commissary for lunch. They had a pasta kitchen where they made fresh dishes on order. The menu was static but they would also have a special of the day.

Our favorite from the menu was #6: penne pasta with a tomato and heavy cream sauce with scallions and salmon. They would also substitute shrimp for the salmon. We'd ask them to spice it up with some fresh habanero peppers. Amazing dish! We still make it at home to this day. We call it... #6.

My second-favorite pasta dish is Carbonara or pretty much any pasta in alfredo sauce.

[Ed Vette]

Linguine in White Clam Sauce from live clams in the shell (scrubbed) or chopped.

I like fresh Pasta from Uncle Giuseppe's but Stu Leonard has a nice dry Pasta, especially the Rigatoni. It's Hearty and meaty.

I make my own sauce and use fresh ingredients, San Marzano plum tomatoes from Italy and Sausage or my own meatballs from three meats.

I also will make my own Pesto from fresh Basil.

[T200]

I'm on my way, Ed!!!   

[Ed Vette]

Sometimes I'll use fresh Scallops. And I'll toast breadcrumbs and sprinkle it on some pasta dishes.

[Ed Vette]

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[Sem]

Mmmm pasta. All the above dishes sound fantastic!

I make a nice lasagna which has become our "new traditional" Thanksgiving meal after years of plodding through roast turkey while not really enjoying it.

My wife makes cavatelli with broccoli and mushrooms which I love. But cavatelli seems a bit harder to find out here than when we lived in NY.

A couple times a year we enjoy making Haluski, which reminds me of dinner at my grandmother's. And my other grandmother used to make egg noodles in butter and onions with cottage cheese melted in. Sounds weird but tastes good. I think it's a dish that originated in western PA / Ohio.

My mom used to make macaroni with cheese and tomatoes, which sounds a bit strange until you taste it.

When we go out to dinner at an Italian restaurant I'll generally order spaghetti with mushrooms and meatballs. That's the dish I use to judge how good the place is. Bonus points if they make their own fresh pasta in-house.

I think pasta just goes so well with other things as well, thus adding to the enjoyment. Veal cutlet (or parm) with a side of spaghetti. Chicken Piccata over angel hair pasta with butter and olive oil. Damn I'm getting hungry!!

[Ed Vette]

Fresh fettuccine with vodka sauce and Fettuccine with Muscles Marinara with capers, imported Parmesan, and toasted breadcrumbs. Tonight's dinner.

[Sem]

Jeez Ed, you're killing me here. What makes it worse is my wife is out of town for a couple weeks and I'm left to fend for myself. Believe me, my meals while she's gone don't look anything like the pictures above.

[LennG]

Since we keep a Kosher house, many of the above dishes are, well you know, not 'right' for our household.

My wife was the one who Koshered me, but before, I used to go into Manhattan and Little Italy. One of my favorite dishes was Eggplant Rollatini served with some Angel hair pasta and some unbelievable red sauce. Since this is more about the eggplant than the pasta, I don't know if it will fit into this category, but I still make this dish at home several times a year. I have forgone making, my own sauce, but I do take some of the ingredients and kind of stir them up into what we think  (for Jews anyway) is a [pretty good pasta sauce.
If it was just a pasta dish we love baked Ziti.

[AZGiantFan]

Tagliatelle with a good bolognese

Lasagna both ways, with ricotta and with bechamel

[squibber]

My mother made a bit of an unusual pasta dish with those green leafy fennel stalks. The tanginess of the fennel went so well with the pasta.

[Jolly Blue Giant]

When it comes to Italian cooking, I'm a simple man. I love a good spaghetti and meatballs when the sauce is just right and the meatballs are good. When I lived in an apartment, the recently divorced girl downstairs from me, was 100% Italian and made meatballs that she would test on me...holy cow. I didn't know it was possible to make meatball with such flavor. And for sauce, I suggest Little Venice pasta sauce. And I prefer regular no. 5 spaghetti over angel hair or some of the other variations

If I'm at a restaurant, I'll almost always order Fettuccine Alfredo with chicken and broccoli, or Eggplant Parmesan with a side of spaghetti (really depends on the restaurant's sauce or fresh eggplant etc.). I live near Endicott, NY where the population is heavily Italian during the population explosion of the 1940s, which brought in thousands of families from Italy to work at Endicott Johnson's shoe company. Many of the small restaurants (some are hole in the walls) in that area have been around since that time, and family recipes handed down from generation to generation and third or fourth generation families still running them. In Binghamton, I usually go to Cortese Restaurant, but always get a steak "Milanese Style", instead of pasta. Those smaller family restaurants are better than some of the highly touted Italian restaurants in big cities. Cortese has gone beyond the small family restaurants, but it's still in the family, only much bigger. Here's their menu

https://www.corteserestaurant.com/menu

Little Venice in Binghamton is also large, but no longer in the family, and people complain that it's no longer the same. I cannot verify by experience, but they still make great homemade pasta and their sauce is the same (a little on the sweeter side), and I like it. https://www.facebook.com/TheLittleVenice

[Sem]

Ric, having lived in Endicott for over 50 years, you're making me crave some of that good triple cities cooking. My favorite from back in the day was Duff's on the northside of Endicott. It's the place I went with my wife on our first date back when we were 16. Hands down the best homemade pasta I've ever had...anywhere. Love Cortese but not a fan of Little Venice sauce. As you say it's a sweet sauce, which doesn't do it for me. Years ago The Binghamton Press used to occasionally feature recipes from area restaurants in the "local" section of the paper. I remember Little Venice sharing their spaghetti sauce recipe, and If I'm remembering right it contained a bit of apple sauce in it. Or maybe I'm confusing it with something else. Not sure. At any rate I felt the same way about that sauce as I did about Brozetti's pizza. A lot of people love it but too sweet for me. Actually I have no idea if Brozetti's is still there. I'm losing more and more touch with the triple cities with each passing year.

[DaveBrown74]

There are so many I love, but if I had to pick a single favorite it would probably be rigatoni bolognese.