If I am making a meat sauce, I start with some pork...like a chop or a small pork steak brown it in a little olive oil a Dutch oven, as its browning I chop a good big onion, or 2 smaller ones and a green pepper, Add the veggies to the pot along with 3 to 5 cloves of garlic, depending on how big the cloves are. When the onion has softened, add: 3 24 oz cans of good whole Italian plum tomatoes and 3 6 oz cans of Contadina tomato paste ( other brands are bitter!) Fill one of the tomato paste cans with a dry red wine and add to the pot, and fill the other 2 cans with water and add that to the pot. Add: A handful of fresh basil....about 1/4 cup chopped, and A handful of flat leaf parsley about 1/4 cup chopped, and 2 T fresh oregano leaves....and Fresh ground pepper, about 3/4 of a teaspoon....about 6 grinds of my Greek mill. And" 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese. For this it really isn't necessary to use the "good stuff" because what you want from the cheese is the buffering the acidity of the tomatoes. Add the good stuff to each plate as you serve it. while the sauce is simmering...VERY slowly... make meatballs to put into it....I bake the meatballs and add them to the sauce pot, and simmer another hour. I also make a simple pomo d'oro sauce using fresh tomatoes. I sautee a big onion and half a green pepper in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, add a couple of cloves of chopped garlic and about 2 quarts of peeled and cut up fresh tomatoes, a small handful of fresh basil and another of chopped parsley.....cook at a fairly fast boil until thick enough for you about 20 minutes. I use a big fry pan for this....salt to taste....it will take a fair amount as you have not used any canned products nor cheese. Linda C

Pretty common around here. But it's one of those things you don't use a recipe for. You just combine some cooked ziti, sauce, meat (cooked ground beef or Italian sausage) if you want, some riccotta cheese, parm, and a few handfuls of mozzarella. Top with more mozzarella and bake until heated through. It's sort of a sub for lasagna, I guess. And one of those things people always show up with when there's a death in the family (it's SO comforting and so easy to have a big pan of something like that in the fridge when you don't feel like either cooking or eating.)

Wow - what great pasta salad recipes! I've copied all of them. Here's one from an old recipe swap site that no longer exists, that's supposed to be the kind of pasta salad people buy in delicatessens: The Store Cold Ziti Salad with Tomato and Peppers-:Bert Green Serving Size : 8 1-1/2 tablespoons Salt 1 pound Ziti pasta 1/4 cup milk 1 red onion 2 tomatoes 6 sweet pickles 2 small green peppers -- seeded 1 large shallot 1/2 cup sour cream 1 1/2 cups mayonnaise 2 packets George Washington brown bouillon powder Freshly ground pepper 1 teaspoon wine vinegar 1 tablespoon pickle juice 1/4 cup fresh dill -- roughly chopped Salt and pepper -- to taste Bring a 4-qt saucepan of water to a boil. Add 1 Tbl salt, then add the Ziti. Boil to al dente. Drain. Rinse in cold water. Drain again. Place the cooked Ziti in a bowl. Add enough milk (about 1/4 cup) to thoroughly moisten the Ziti and toss. Chop the onion, tomatoes, pickles, and peppers into 1/4-inch cubes. Reserve a large tablespoon of each for garnish. Mince the shallot. Beat the sour cream and mayonnaise together with a whisk until creamy, and add the bouillon, 1/2 Tbl salt, and the pepper. (Thin with milk if necessary). Pour over the Ziti. Add the shallots, tomatoes, pickles, green peppers, vinegar, and pickle juice. Mix well. Garnish with the reserved vegetables. Cut fresh dill over all. Serve chilled. Posted at GailÂs Recipe Swap (now dismantled by epicurious)

Kim, making fresh pasta doesn't need exact measurements. In fact, they can throw you off. It's kind of like bread in that the amounts of flour to egg will vary with moisture in flour and size of eggs and weather, etc. I make this kind of basic pasta dough too. It's the kind my Nonna taught us. Well, more like what we saw her making. Forget the well of flour, unless you really want to play with that method. To start your experiment I'd use 3 eggs. Beat them in a bowl and start adding flour until you get a nice stiff dough. Not too stiff, you want to be able to knead it a little bit and work it afterward. If you were using the well you'd just beat your eggs into the middle and pull in as much flour as needed to make the stiff dough. Turn the dough out on the table and knead a few times until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap or the bowl and let rest for about ten or twenty minutes then roll out. That's it. I don't usually let it rest at all, but then I have a pasta machine to make it easy to roll out. For torellini we use 1 egg yolk to one cup of ricotta and about a tablespoon of romano for the filling. If you were using larger quanitites you could use the whole eggs. One whole egg per pound of ricotta. This is also what we use for ravioli and for lasagna for that matter. You can get much more complicated and add other things, but this is the basic. Hope this helps. Have fun.