Celebrating National Pasta Day

I was struck with the urge to make homemade pasta today, a desire that came out of the blue. After pulling the pasta machine out of the cabinet, I proceeded to make simple ricotta-filled ravioli (judging by the results, I need more practice). Imagine my surprise to later learn that today is National Pasta Day, with restaurants around the country offering special deals on everything pasta-related.

Dried pasta is my go-to for days when I am short on time because it’s easy to whip up a tasty meal with little work. A simple olive oil and garlic sauce is the ultimate in low effort/high reward, and basic tomato or cream-based sauces are likewise easy to pull together. If I’m looking for more of a challenge, making the dough from scratch or assembling a more complicated dish like lasagna is on the agenda.

The EYB Library contains oodles of recipes for pasta and other noodles. There are over 1,100 books on the subject, and well over 100,000 recipes in total for doughs and sauces (online recipes), baked pasta (online recipes), and filled pasta (online recipes). Some of the most highly rated recipes are listed below in case you need inspiration to help you celebrate.

• Lemon and goat’s cheese ravioli from Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi
• Tomato sauce with butter & onion [Marcella Hazan] from Food52 Genius Recipes by Kristen Miglore (pictured)
• Lemony arugula spaghetti cacio e pepe from Cravings by Chrissy Teigen and Adeena Sussman
• Kale, tomato and lemon magic one-pot spaghetti from A Modern Way to Cook by Anna Jones
• Gemelli with anchovies, tomatoes and mascarpone from At My Table by Nigella Lawson
• Fusilli and roasted cauliflower with capers from Dinner: Changing the Game by Melissa Clark
• Ina Garten’s pasta alla vecchia bettola from Food52 by Ina Garten
• Tagliatelle Bolognese from Flout + Water: Pasta by Thomas McNaughton