Just enough pasta never looks like enough, and that’s where I get into trouble. Oh, sure, the box says two ounces is a serving, but I never used to trust it, so I’d dump in a few more handfuls only to have leftovers taunting me every time I open the frig.

As hard to believe as it is, when topped with a hearty sauce, a main-dish pasta serving for most people truly is two ounces. Toddlers, teenage boys and lumberjacks are possible exceptions.

Now that I’m usually cooking for just two on weeknights and I don’t want tons of leftovers, I’ve taken to fishing out my scale and weighing the noodles. The other night we had company, and when the dirty dishes arrived in the kitchen, sure enough, the two ounces per person rule held fast. Everybody was satisfied, there were no requests for seconds, and there were no leftovers. Not even a noodle, which is to say, the rule is not only accurate, it’s exact.

If you don’t want to deal with leftover pasta, and you don’t have a kitchen scale, 2 ounces of dry pasta measures ½ cup in a typical “dry-measure” measuring cup. This works great for short pastas like macaroni, penne and rotini.

For spaghetti and other long pasta that won’t fit into a measuring cup, you’ll need to go by dry weight. Since most boxes of spaghetti weigh a pound, you could half the box, then half it again, storing these portions in gallon-size plastic bags. Or “wrap” the pasta portions using a twist tie and put them back into the box or into a storage canister. It may not be as exact as weighing, but it comes pretty close.

Okay. That's my pasta trick. Do you know of others I'm missing?