Past-a Dessert

(Daniel pronounces "pasta" like "past a".)

My husband will not eat past-a. He thinks it's "weird." I guess he had some overcooked spaghetti somewhere, or something, and now thinks all past-a stinks. Saturday night Michael and I discussed eating at The Old Spaghetti Factory downtown, and Daniel seemed mildly interested, so we might be making some leeway. Maybe all this is because Daniel is used to eating past-a as a dessert! I made some today, and it jumped up my list of favorite past-a recipes (if you could call it a past-a recipe.)

Vermicelli Dessert
the thinnest vermicelli you can find
milk
sugar
evaporated milk (optional)
cardamom (optional)

Heat some oil in a heavy bottomed pan with tall sides, on medium low heat. I used a three quart sauce pan (I think). Add some broken-up vermicelli (a few handfulls). Quickly stir. It'll burn in jless than three seconds if the heat is too high or you turn your back. (I did that twice today.) Fry it until it just begins to turn light brown, constantly stirring so that most of it is the same color. Pour in enough milk to cover it. Hike the heat up to medium. Add lots of sugar (I added 8 tsps today). Put in some evaporated milk, if you want. Stir once in a while so your milk doesn't scorch and your sugar doesn't caramalize on the bottom of your pan. Bring it to a boil; then it's done.

Really, this should be more like a milky soup with vermicelli floating in it than like a pasta with sugary milk sauce.

Sorry, I'm sure there are lots of good recipes for this on the web, but I just eyeballed everything today. It was good, though. It's a pretty fast after-work snack.