Is it confusing trying to pick the right type of pasta for your dish from a wall of different pasta shapes at the grocery store? The average American consumes approximately 20 lbs. of pasta annually.

Pasta, a food darling of both Italy and America, comes in hundreds of shapes — more than 300 by some counts. There are long strands, round and flat, thin and wide, and twisty, ruffled, tube, and ...

Pashman's “Anything's Pastable” features dishes using 34 different pasta shapes, but especially features his cascatelli, a graceful, ruffled-edged curved shape that resembles a quotation mark.

While it was a fun shape to have in my bowl, I couldn't get more than one noodle on my fork at a time. And if I managed to pick up two, I couldn't really fit them both in my mouth together without ...

Finish the hand-cut pasta. The last step is finishing the pasta. Bring that old pasta water back to a boil. Drop in your freshly metamorphosed noodles, and allow them to boil for two minutes.

Pasta on the Fly says all this pasta is made in-house daily, and it can also be purchased by the pound to make at home. Pasta drawings show different pasta shapes at Pasta on the Fly. (Staff Photo ...

Consider that the type of pasta you'll want to use is one that's on the larger side with a fair amount of surface area to hold a lot of sauce and cheese — like big shells, farfalle, pappardelle ...