Farmhouse Cooking

I absolutely love taking cooking and baking classes. I'm that girl who buys every Groupon (yes, Groupon still exists and yes, I still use it) for a macaron class or a French tarte class or a pasta making class. I think I have taken 5 macaron classes (don't judge me- they're really hard to make!). I do go home and attempt to recreate what the wise master chefs have taught me, but it never comes out the same. Never!

When I travel to Italy, I love learning to make foods from whatever region I'm staying in. I don't know what I was thinking, but when I was pregnant with my third child, I insisted on taking a class in a restaurant that had no air conditioning in the middle of a heat wave. My classmates consisted of my husband and a group of older ladies who were traveling with their book club. When the time came to knead and roll the pasta, the only person who wasn't on the verge of passing out was my husband. He wasn't happy about it, since the class wasn't his idea, but we all cheered him on! LOL. 

I recently took the best cooking class I've ever taken at Fontanaro Farms- not only because the food was organic and super delicious, but because I actually took what I learned and successfully made the dishes by myself! The recipes are not intimidating at all because they each have only 5 ingredients or less! Easy peasy. I put this fun video together where you can see me make spaghetti alla chitarra (super cool guitar contraption thing-- I just got one!). 

And here's a recipe for the pasta from class below! 

Make sure all ingredients are at room temperature. 

Ingredients:

• 100 g (3 oz) of Organic Semolina Flour per person. Online (Amazon) you may find the Semolina Fine Wheat Flour from Gilchesters Organics or better the Semola Rimacinata di Grano Duro Cappelli
• 1 Kg Molino Agostin also on Amazon or Selezione Casillo Semola.
• Spring Natural Water more or less half of the flour. Natural temperature, not from the fridge.
• A spoon or two of EVO extra virgin organic olive oil if you have a good one (I HIGHLY recommend the olive oil from Fontanaro Farms- you can buy it online. It's organic and cold pressed in under 3 hours at their mill...and the olives are actually from Umbria unlike most olive oils you see in stores that are simply pressed in Umbria, but brought in from other countries).

Directions:

• Make a well with the semolina.

• Add some water little by little little by little, until you have a smooth dough, adding the EVO also.

• Knead the dough for 10 to 15 minutes, until it is smooth, firm and quite elastic. Leave to rest for 30 minutes.

• Roll and Cut the pasta the way you like more: spaghetti, farfalle, or ravioli?

Have you made pasta from scratch before? Give it a try and let me know how it goes!

Ciao!

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