One of the major advantages of being a grown-up is the fact that you can eat what you loved as a kid and no longer need to eat what you hated.
As much as I was used to eat what was served and really loved healthy food such as spinach, just as much, if not even more so, did I hate meat and brussels sprouts. The later was not served too much and I was able to cope with it, but meat was almost a daily fight. Gladly the majority of food memories are on the other end of the scale.
Some of the real good recollections are some of the foods I was able to prepare myself, easy it had to be but good. One of my first things to learn as a teenager to make myself is what found it’s way into my American family’s cooking collection as the Spaghetti Recipe after a one week visit of one of my teenage nieces during the summer of 2006 at our house. She was at the time in the phase where barely anything was acceptable, picking her way through food that would have thrown my mom into a fit. Of course I was worried how I could get her through the week without starving her to death, but once we had this recipe made, the potential problems dissipated and she loved it to the point that she had her mom and grandma learn it too.
The history of it comes from the fact of leftover pasta. Thus usually this recipe is made with leftovers (macaroni, spaghetti or any other kind) which are a day or two old and these fry really well, though I’m sure it can also be made with fresh pasta.
Melt a little butter in a frying pan, max. 1 tablespoon for a serving of 4. Add the pasta (roughly a cup per person or a bit more) and fry, on either medium to medium-high, you’ll hear the butter nicely sizzling and the pasta gets coated with the butter and fry it while moving it around for a few minutes until the pasta is warmed (usually I’ll use 2 spatulas for this, they work perfect to toss and stir the spaghetti and they are also useful for the next step).
Once the paste is heated (partially you’ll have it also lightly browned), lower the burner onto medium heat if was higher before and break 1 egg per person over the pasta (whole egg). Now mix the eggs with the spatulas into the spaghetti and basically make scrambled eggs, for this use the spatulas to pickup pasta and pull it over the egg(s) and by doing so coat the spaghetti with egg, mixing the egg white and yolk at the same time. Depending whom I’m making them for I’ll add salt and pepper. Continue doing this, not too long or else the eggs will dry out: you’ll see, it’s like scrambled eggs within the pasta. You can even add some Parmesan over the whole thing or serve it separately and have people add it if they wish.
Serve it with a green salad (mix in tomatoes if you wish) and you have a light meal that not only kids will love.