Every Pasta Shape

[everypasta]

Pasta #12: Ditali

A small pasta but it was dense, the sauce made it stick together but not in a bad way

[everypasta]

Pasta 11: Elastici

Fun and twisty and holding the sauce well.

[everypasta]

Pasta 10: Rigatoni

A classic. I had eaten half the bowl before realizing I needed to photograph

[everypasta]

Pasta #9: Creste di Gallo

Good heft to the pasta but with the hallowness of traditional macaroni. Best of both worlds!

[everypasta]

Pasta #8 Farfalline

This pasta was both the inspiration for this project because they are tiny and not like anything I've every tried before and a major source of anxiety because I was worried they would get stuck in the strainer (they did not).

Given their size, they are like a soup pasta (thus not needing drained) but with this recipe the vegan cheese sauce kind of made them stick together and it reminded me of one of those pasta or rice sides that come in a box and just add water in terms of the experience of eating it.

[everypasta]

Pasta #7- Heart Shaped Pasta.

My husband got this for me for Valentine's and I just got around to trying it. The ridges means that it holds sauce in a rather even coating, but doesn't allow for pockets of sauce, which is something I really like, so while this is good, it wasn't my favorite in that respect. I've also taken to adding Old Bay to the vegan mix, which I think is a fun variation on it.

[everypasta]

Pasta 6-Trottole

Held the cheese really well, which was delightful. Definitely coming back to this one after I have completed the quest, because this was a perfect pasta to cheese experience.

[everypasta]

Pasta 5-Farfalle

These held the sauce fairly well, though not as well as orecchiette or shells, which have more crevices for the sauce to gather. But a solid choice overall. 

 If it seems like I don’t update this blog very often, it’s probably because I used about a quarter of the pasta in the package to make this, so only about a quarter of the time do I have a new pasta shape. I’m very excited about the next one, but I have to finish the farfalle first, and I only make this dish about once a month. 

A couple of developments on the recipe front: While I am committed to using the same vegan recipe for this, I realized I could do a vegan “lobster mac” awhile ago, if I added Old Bay to the powder mix (I know there are probably ways to get vegan “lobster” through heart of palm or oyster mushrooms, but this is a quick recipe). I’m also considering experimenting with other spice combos to create variations, though this will likely not be documented as rigorously.

[everypasta]

Pasta 4- Racchette

I wasn’t sure about novelty shapes because that could make the task of trying every pasta shape more Sisyphean than I wanted it to be, but these looked fun. They hold the cheese much in the same way all of the Kraft Mac shapes do, so it is as expected. They were fun. 

[everypasta]

Pasta #3-Linguine

This was a little saucier because there was nothing to hold onto the no cheese sauce like the shells or orecchiette, but the noodles did seem to be covered enough for my liking. Not too different from linguine alfredo in practice.  

[everypasta]

Pasta #2: Shells (regular size)

These also held the sauce well, though they were not as pillowy as the Orecchiette, which set a very high bar and I probably shouldn’t have done it back-to-back.  

Note: These were chickpea flour shells. I may return to larger or smaller shells, but this is every pasta SHAPE so I will not be quibbling about materials

[everypasta]

What is this blog?

The long and short of it: I found a vegan mac and cheese recipe on instagram. It was delicious, and very simple, and I made it with orecchiette pasta. And so, I have decided to make it with every pasta shape and document it here. That’s it. That’s the blog.

I have no real timeframe for this, it may not be a weekly thing, but I will document as I try every new pasta shape, with this mac and cheese recipe. 

I fully acknowledge that some shapes are less optimized to this than others, but I want a baseline.

Who are you? 

Believe it or not, I have a PhD. But who I am is not what is important. Pasta is important.

Are you really going to do every pasta shape? 

To the best of my ability. I realize that there a lot of different shapes, some of the distinctions can get kind of nebulous (especially around commercially produced pasta) and that can create methodological problems with insuring it is *every* shape of pasta. My instinct is to make rules for what counts, but I’m just going to trust my judgment. This is supposed to be fun. 

But... vegan mac and cheese sauce... on lasagna noodles?

It’s for science.

[everypasta]

Pasta #1: Orecchiette

Soft, with some heft, holds the no cheese sauce well.