According to a study by Rosstat (or whatever is the correct name of the organization that counts everything and everyone), pasta in our country is almost more popular than in Italy, which is considered their homeland.
Considering that we hardly produce high-quality pasta from durum wheat flour, this is sad: pasta made from plain flour is a product, first of all, not very useful (but the devil is it with usefulness), but not yet tasty.
By the way, a little lyrical digression: what brand of pasta do you usually buy? I will not be original, I choose Barilla or Maltagliati, in our stores this is a more or less acceptable combination of price and quality. I don’t like “Shebekinskiye”, “Makfu” and so on, but sometimes “Makfa” is in the basket: if suddenly the son remembers that he is a child and therefore wants macaroni-figurines or even multi-colored ones. By the way, earlier “Makfa” were more edible than now - I suspect that import substitution (or rather, the desire to reduce the cost of production) played a bad role, the taste of the products deteriorated.
However, it is not so difficult to buy pasta now, but to cook it so that they can be eaten is more difficult. Why are they loved? For satiety - one, and for the speed of preparation - two. Pasta with sausage or cutlet, at best - with meat or chicken with gravy, naval pasta and pasta sprinkled with cheese are a common "assortment" of dishes with them in an average family.
This is not a reproach, it is a statement of facts.
At one time, by the way, there were semi-finished products - bags with dry mixture for sauce for pasta, which had to be diluted in hot milk - they helped to "diversify" the menu. There was cheese sauce in such bags, I remember. Some kind of creamy... Inexpensive and cheerful. Now I don’t see these sauces (I don’t see them for a long time).
Because - maybe yourself?
Cheese pasta sauce
Everything is simple here: we take a glass of cream or milk, a piece of cheese - in the original parmesan, but we have an economic crisis and import substitution, so on the role of parmesan can be assigned, in principle, any cheese without palm and other oils, salt, pepper (for gourmets - white and pink, if they are not there - regular black peas, but not ground, grind or crush them just before cooking), a little butter and a spoon flour.
Cooking is easier than ever: dissolve a piece of butter in a frying pan with a thick bottom and thoroughly fry the flour in it until golden brown.
As soon as the flour is fried, we begin to pour in the cream - carefully and constantly stirring, otherwise lumps will form.
When the cream heats up and almost boils, pour in the grated cheese, fifty grams and continue stirring until it is completely dissolved.
Then add salt and pepper and serve with pasta.
It's simple and fast, but... Let's make it a little harder?
Take the pasta boiled until half cooked (half a pack, if measured dry), three hundred grams of frozen vegetables. Vegetables can be any: you can take broccoli or cauliflower, you can take Brussels sprouts, you can take pods beans, in general, here only at your discretion (taking into account the fact that when cooking vegetables should not give much juice).
Let the vegetables simmer until half cooked, grease the pan or form with oil. We spread vegetables and pasta there - in layers or "islets", fill with sauce, sprinkle with a mixture of grated cheese and bread crumbs and send them to an oven preheated to 180 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
Bon Appetit!