I enjoyed teaching an Online Cooking Class to make these yummy little Italian potato dumplings! The class had participants from Connecticut and three different locations in California: North, Central and South! All participants were successful in creating their own Gnocchi alla Sorrentino! I really enjoyed cooking with these beautiful ladies and a gentleman!
The participants in my Gnocchi Cooking Class requested Pesto as the sauce for their Gnocchi. It’s a perfect fit this time of year when we all have Basil busting loose in our quarantine gardens! This is a great recipe if you are new at making pasta because it does not require any special ingredients and it’s fun for the kids to help. Basically it’s like playing with play dough as you roll out the “snake” that will become your Gnocchi.
In my Region of Italy (Lazio), it is not really common to make ravioli. But if they do make it, it’s always Spinach Ricotta Ravioli! I was shown how to make it during a fun Ravioli Making Party hosted by a very talented Italian cook. We made hundreds of these little ravioli for a party the next day. You can ready that article and how to make a large batch for a big group by clicking here,
Gnocchi are a favorite pasta choice both in America and in Italy, who can resist those soft potato pillows of dough? Basically Gnocchi are potato dumplings that originated in Northern Italy where the conditions are better for growing potatoes than wheat. That explains why I love them so much, they are from my Region!
Homemade pasta is like anything else in the cooking world, terrifying until you make again and again. It seemed surreal and strange that you would mix the flour and eggs in a volcanic pile of flour on your bread board, crack the eggs inside the indentation of the “volcano” and whisk with a fork from the center, slowly adding more flour to the eggs with your fork as you work in the center of the volcano.
This is Classic Italian Ragu, the “Saturday Sauce”, the slow cooked traditional meal for lunch with family on the weekend. It’s served with Tagliatelle, not spaghetti and it doesn’t have garlic, basil or oregano.
This is such a simple recipe, I learned it before the quarantine started when friends could still stop by and whip up an informal lunch together. My friends Davide and Giulia came by and wanted to prepare lunch for us. We stopped by the little local market before heading home, Giulia perused the pasta isle carefully, looking for the perfect pasta.
So far our summer has been a worldwind of activity, every week we have had new guests arriving even as we say good-bye to others that now depart as lifelong friends.
So today is the day that we introduce the newest members of our family to our family tradition of making homemade ravioli. This year my niece AND nephew each got married! What a crazy year for my sister and her husband as their busy household welcomed two new members and experienced the hustle and bustle of dating and marriage. Only to be followed up with the quiet days of being (almost) empty nesters. They still have one lovely teenage daughter at home.
