I have to admit it; I love pasta! I’ve tried doing the Adkins diet before with disastrous results. More recently, I decided to try the Caveman diet… It didn’t go any better. The problem is that I crave carbohydrates almost more than anything else. Give me a meatless meal filled with pasta and bread and rice and cheese (gotta have cheese) and I’m happy as a clam. Try to make me eat a lean protein and pure veggies and I am not a happy camper.
I’ve decided to give up the fight and face facts: I’m a carbohydrate lover. There, I’ve said it. I feel like I’m in the 12-step program!
Anyway, I’m always looking for innovative ways to prepare pasta, one of my favorite carbs. This particular recipe has a bit of a story behind it. It was nearly 30 years, when I was in college, that my best friend at the time, Beth, invited me to stay with her parents in Deming, NM for the weekend. It was the end of the semester and we’d both been cramming hard for finals. A quiet, relaxing weekend in the shadow of the Florida (pronounced Flo-ree-da) Mountains near Deming sounded like just the ticket.
I wanted quiet and relaxing and that’s what I got. There was really nothing to do there. Beth’s father was quite the character. He was retired from the military, where he used to be a cook. One of his hobbies was to go out in the desert and catch rattlesnakes. He’d sell off the rattles but keep the meat. He actually canned the rattlesnake meat… he proudly showed off one of the jars, which was filled with mushy, gray meat swimming in a pool of cloudy liquid. Luckily, we weren’t expected to try rattlesnake because there was no way I was going to ingest that stuff! Unfortunately, even his cooking of "normal" food wasn't too tasty. I thought of all those poor soldiers the man had fed throughout the years and said a silent prayer of remembrance for their suffering.
One thing I did do that weekend was thumb through Beth’s mother’s collection of cookbooks. She had some old ones, which I thoroughly enjoy reading. I grabbed a notebook and wrote down the recipes that interested me. The following recipe is one of those; I hope you enjoy it!
Spaghetti Croquettes
6 ounces thin spaghetti
6 ounces grated cheese (I used Parmesan)
1 egg
Garlic salt and pepper to taste
1 T. butter
1 cup bread crumbs, divided (coarse, such as panko or freshly made sourdough, works best)
Fresh or dried parsley flakes
Boil spaghetti until done (about 10 minutes) and drain. Place it back in the hot pot and add the butter. Stir until the butter is melted. Add the remaining ingredients except parsley, using ¾ cup of the bread crumbs, and stir until thoroughly combined. Let it cool completely.
Grease a small baking dish, such as an 8 x 8 inch pan. Use a fork to twirl a quarter of the spaghetti mixture onto the tines then deposit in a bun shape in the greased pan. Repeat with remaining mixture. Sprinkle remaining bread crumbs and parsley over the top. Bake in a hot oven (that’s what the directions say; I put them in at 375 degrees) for 20 minutes. Serve with hot tomato sauce.
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