Why Not Take a Class?

Have I mentioned yet that Krystle & Pat when to Italy on their honeymoon?  So, this wasn't their first choice for a family vacation, but they were game and went along.  One of the things that was important for them was to take a cooking class.  Luckily for us, our hotel was offering a class where you learned to make bread/rolls, pasta and fresh ricotta.  So - with the exception of JB, we were all in!  JB - or Gramps - got the fun of spending the morning with Eleanor - all to himself.  I think there may have been chocolate croissants involved!

Our day started with making bread dough. While that rested we had a lovely espresso.  Then we made the dough into pizza.  In Italy, pizza is baked on a cookie sheet and it's rectangular - I don't think I saw a single round pizza.  The dough was spread out edge to edge on the cookie sheet, topped with olive oil and then the tomato sauce and set aside to rest and rise again.  We then played with the bread dough - dividing it into 4 and making 4 different types of rolls - as well as baguette.  The rolls were:  panchetta, olive, caraway & plain.

Before making pasta, we learned how to make ricotta.  It seemed pretty easy, but finding the special ingredients might make it a bit harder to do.

Then it was pasta time!  We had so much fun making the pasta.  Gramps & Eleanor arrived just in time for lunch of our pizza and fresh ricotta.  It was a good day!  Recently a friend loaned me her pasta machine so I can try making fresh pasta again.

We learned to make different shapes with the pasta dough. The bow ties are basically cut with a pinking rotary cutter.  :D

Finally - learning to use the pasta machine.  It's a 2 person job!

All in all - I was so glad that I spent a fun day with the kids learning to make bread.  Now to find Italian flour here and try my hand at pasta!