How to utilize leftover spaghetti

One of my readers recently asked me for an idea of what to do with leftover spaghetti.  This can be a fun option if you have kids because it's easy to eat and if your crafty you can even hide veggies inside.

One of my favorite fast dinner fixes is "Spaghetti Pie".  If your leftover spaghetti already has sauce on it take a standard kitchen knife or a pastry cutter if you have it and chop up the spaghetti into manageable bite-sized pieces.  Now if you want to add veggies this would be the time, and if you want to "hide" some veggies in here take some zucchini or yellow squash across a standard cheese grater.  This will help them blend into the spaghetti and almost resemble noodles.  Now add some fresh grated mozzarella to help it all bind together, place it in a greased baking dish top with more cheese and bake at 375 degrees until center of pie is 140 degrees.

Now if your spaghetti noodles are plain you can do a multitude of things with it, here are a few ideas.

• You can use the noodles in a quick stir fry
• Cut up noodles with mixed veggies and chicken stock for easy chicken soup
• Add veggies and a nice dressing for a cold pasta salad

Here's another way to make dinner easy on you and fun for the kids:
Using the recipe at the top for the spaghetti pie reserve some of the mix and put it in greased muffin pans with no paper.  Once they are done, let them cool completely then remove carefully and freeze them, then the next time you need a quick meal you've got individual sized spaghetti bakes that can go right into the microwave.