Pasta -- How much is enough? (serving)

[Greg Who Cooks]

I sometimes just skip vegetables. Or have like 3 ounces or so. Or eat things like asparagus which probably isn't too harmful. I like mushrooms, even raw. Go ahead and try to find some nutrition in that!

Doggie died. I'm getting another shortly. That should improve my meat efficiency. Old steak bits for me = nice doggie treats for him. Or her. Don't know gender of next dog yet. And my favorite rule: doggie always gets his/her own steak on his/her birthday. Inexpensive cut, and I chop it for easy wolfing down!

I'm sure I'm eating 2/3-3/4 of the calories I was eating this time last year. It can't help but have an effect over the long term. I have no real timeline for reaching the right weight, just know what it is. Keep eating less and exercising more and that's what I'll weigh one day.

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

I hear ya, bliss. When our son was at home, and especially when he played sports, we would call him "Stomach with Legs". A culinary tornado sucking up everything in its path...



If you guys haven't looked at this website yet, you need to skim through Save The Food. It has hints for being food efficient along with some stats that will open up your eyes. One stat they showed a while back was that the average family throws out $26 of food a week. If I kept track, I'd be surprised if we tossed should-have-been-eaten food $100 a year. Sometimes something gets lost in the fridge, but not often.

That's an interesting site CG, I had read articles back when in regards to Americans and wasting food and the movement to try to abate this.

Having lived in Hawaii for the majority of my life, I learned to plan out meals, shop accordingly and mostly, not waste food. 90% of all foods in the state is imported, AND MUST be consumed within 10 days.
Chew on that for a minute.
I froze everything. My husband thought I was NUTS! But what else are ya gonna do? I stopped buying milk, `cause we couldn't finish a carton before it went bad. Fresh fruits and vegetables were at a premium. If ever I did have to throw something out, it just KILLED me!

But I digress...

The topic at hand is Pasta -- How much is enough? (serving)

I suppose it's up to the individual home/family/person it seems.

My husband does not want to eat leftover pasta, unless it's Lasagna, period.
Me, I don't care. I can reheat a small plate of dressed pasta that is leftover, be it only 2 Tablespoons of sauce and a small handful of pasta, it doesn't matter, I'll eat it, I can't waste it. But that's how I was brought up.
"EAT IT! There's starving children in China!"

 

[medtran49]

My appetite/ability to consume has been dropping over the last year to 2 years, and has taken a nose dive recently. I couldn't even finish just a loaded baked potato the other night. I've been eating until I start to feel even the slightest hint of being full and then quit, otherwise I'm miserable. It's been hard to change, but I've been cuting down on what I cook to where we have minimal to no leftovers. Told Craig I was tired of eating leftovers more than once and he either had to make an extra effort to eat them or quit cooking so much himself, as I was tired of throwing away (wasting) food. I don't mind soups that can be frozen and used for another meal later on, but leftovers more than once, maybe twice, just no, unless it's something I really, really, really like, and there hasn't been much of that lately. I'm getting extremely picky as I get older. Extra/leftover pasta, I make an Alfredo-type sauce and eat for brunch when we have it, and I'll keep extra rice in the freezer for fried rice.

It's hard to change the way you have cooked for years. Craig used to have a job where he could take lunch for work and heat it up, now he's on the road and can't do that. We used to have DD before she moved away that was always home for breakfast, and more often than not lunch (with a boyfriend sometimes), besides the fact that after she married they lived with us for a while and she worked at home with me so we had 2 adults eating at home consistently for breakfast/lunch, plus 2 men eating dinner/breakfast, and usually taking lunch, plus a small child.

You just have to roll with the flow, as the saying goes, and figure out what works for you and your family as far as how much to cook.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

I completely agree. I don't know how I ate so much food in the past, but eat so little now to feel filled. And I too just don't like leftovers. I want more variety, and would have to freeze it before I want to eat it again. Anyway much of my cooking is just not amenable to freezing and reheating. Measure, eat, scrape, wash dish. Cook it again the next time I want to eat that recipe.

Except bulk stuff like rice etc. I make a bunch of jasmine rice knowing cooked rice is just nuke and eat. Goes with lots of things.

It's difficult cooking for one. That's why I'm so focused on portion control. Cook too much and either toss it or eat more than's good for me.

 

[larry_stewart]

All extra pasta is saved for a few days, if it looks like its not going, the chickens get it. they love spaghetti, I think they think its just a pile of tasty worms.

When I have pasta initially , I like the sauce on top, but with leftover pasta, I like to fry it up a bit with a the sauce. I feel left over pasta heats up better that way. When I try to nuke it or do a quick boil, the consistency just seems off when compared to the first time. But fried up, is like a whole different dish and seems to keep its al dente feel.

Now that I have to cut carbs myself, with pasta dishes , I just changed the ratio of pasta to veggies. Id never be able to completely eliminate pasta from my diet, but If I just mess around with the pasta to veggie ration ( especially in a pasta primavera, or pasta salad type of dish), I seem to be satisfied and healthier without feeling like I'm missing out on something. Unfortunately , gotta skip the garlic bread.

 

[CWS4322]

3.5 oz of cooked pasta was considered a portion when I worked in a commercial kitchen.

 

[caseydog]

I stopped buying milk, `cause we couldn't finish a carton before it went bad. Fresh fruits and vegetables were at a premium. If ever I did have to throw something out, it just KILLED me!

But I digress...

The topic at hand is Pasta -- How much is enough? (serving)

I suppose it's up to the individual home/family/person it seems.

My husband does not want to eat leftover pasta, unless it's Lasagna, period.
Me, I don't care. I can reheat a small plate of dressed pasta that is leftover, be it only 2 Tablespoons of sauce and a small handful of pasta, it doesn't matter, I'll eat it, I can't waste it.

Switch to organic milk. It tastes much better, and a carton is good for at least a month. I don't know why, it just is. It costs more, but is worth every penny.

I love leftover pasta. I can pull it out of the fridge and eat it cold if I'm in a hurry for some food. Otherwise, I nuke it and grate some Parmigiano-Reggiano on it. Maybe it is my Italian heritage, but pasta is my go-to food.

CD

 

[dragnlaw]

Cursed Carbs!

I love pasta and make my own. I don't make any extruded shapes - don't have the equipment. But do make Linguine, etal and ravioli. LOVE ravioli...

But Pasta is no longer on my menu - at least not as an entire meal in its own.
ARGHHHH !!

Unfortunately I need constant food in my stomach to offset acid re-flux (gall bladder is gone) and the only thing that seems to keep it at bay are carbs. Rice, pasta, legumes, 'patates' and BREAD! So I savour every little morsel when I do eat it. There is NEVER any leftovers.

 

[tenspeed]

Switch to organic milk. It tastes much better, and a carton is good for at least a month. I don't know why, it just is. It costs more, but is worth every penny.

Most organic milk is UHT processed.

https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/5721-shelf-life-of-organic-milk?ref=HowTo_browse_14

The taste part is subjective.

 

[buckytom]

My wife made a pound of angel hair last night. My boy ate about half (after grazing for 2 hours when he got home from school). and my wife and I ate the rest - me slighlty mire than she- with a good handful leftover for my birds.

So I guess a portion for me is about 4 ozs.

That's very unlike the old days, though, when 3/ 4 of a pound was normal. Heck, I used to be able to kill off 6 or 7 slices of a NYC pizza (18" diameter, thin crust) once a week, and I didn't gain a pound.

 

[CharlieD]

This guide from Barilla's website has come in handy for me on several occasions.

https://www.barilla.com/en-us/help/measuring-pasta

Trying to figure out this table. Most interested in Angel Hair pasta. Doesn't make any sense to me. Anybody care to enlighten me? Please.

 

[buckytom]

Charlie, when you take a bunch of dried long pasta like angel hair out of a box, pull it together between your thumb and forefinger, and a single serving is about 2 and 1/8 inches around when looking at an end.

When it's cooked, it'll measure about a cup.

 

[buckytom]

Btw, there's some interesting math going on in that chart.

Given the circumferences of a serving and a portion, and relative other measures, I wonder if one could calculate how much water is absorbed, and how long the strands of pasta would have to be.

 

[tenspeed]

It must be tough to scale down from cooking for 250 people Congratulations on your success! You are a brave man!

One of the pasta makers (can't remember which one) has a guide printed on the box. It's circles of varying diameters, depending upon how much you want to make. In this case, Barilla calls for 2-1/8 inch circumference. Diameter of a circle is circumference (2.125 inches) divided by pi (3.14), so if you make a template with a .68 inch diameter hole, you will get a cup of cooked pasta. To scale up, you will want to vary the amount be area of the circle. Remember, the area of a circle is radius squared times pi.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

That's very unlike the old days, though, when 3/ 4 of a pound was normal. Heck, I used to be able to kill off 6 or 7 slices of a NYC pizza (18" diameter, thin crust) once a week, and I didn't gain a pound.

That was your life before 30 years old. This is your life after 30, probably a lot after 30. I could eat anything any quantity before 30 and not gain a pound. Now I can weight just by looking at things!

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Switch to organic milk. It tastes much better, and a carton is good for at least a month. I don't know why, it just is. It costs more, but is worth every penny.
...snipped .....

CD

Casey, that was when we lived in Hawaii... here on the mainland, I can get a small "carton" of milk and we're good with that, not to mention that it's WAY cheaper here.


[photo at Walmart in Honolulu 2015]

 

[Dawgluver]

We got this pasta measurer as a free gift, probably in a box of pasta. It's for one to four servings. It resides in a drawer, I've never used it.


I usually just cook up a half box of angel hair. We always have leftovers.

 

[di reston]

To Gotgarlic: I WAS talking about pasta in my message. It depends on how you view it and the place it has in your planned menu. Here it is rarely a main course. It's a second course, following an antipasto, and preceding the third course which is often called the 'pezzo forte', meaning main dish. And that's for an ordinary meal. Where I live, the traditional Piedmontese dinner can have many courses, but that does'nt mean that the pasta course is not important - it's vital. I just wanted to convey the concept that pasta is a very important part of the Italian menu. For example, when you go out for an evening with friends, to the cinema et al., it's traditional to go on to the home of someone of the party for a 'spaghettata'. We have an expression here, 'Butta la pasta' ( get the pasta on), when friends get together for a simple meal of pasta. Pasta is a fundamental and very important part of our diet - that's what I was trying to convey.

di reston




Enough is never as good as a feast Oscar Wilde

 

[buckytom]

That was your life before 30 years old. This is your life after 30, probably a lot after 30. I could eat anything any quantity before 30 and not gain a pound. Now I can weight just by looking at things!

Dude, you have the diplomacy and tact of a rhino in heat.

Actually, I was pretty good shape until my early 40s. But dping the midnight shift for a little less than a decade now really takes its toll.

 

[Greg Who Cooks]

Maybe I lack tact but the shoe appears to fit.

I wish both of us could be 30 again.