Making Gnocchi By Hand Is A Pain!

  Have you ever tried to make homemade gnocchi before? Well if you have then you know how much of a pain in the you know what is is to do. Making gnocchi can be a time consuming process, and a tedious one at that. Making your dough, then making your potatoes, then combining and making your dumplings, it's just a pain. If your thinking about making homemade gnocchi and don't want to deal with all of that, there is a way around it. Some genius decided it was a good idea to make a gnocchi maker. Well it was a great idea! Making gnocchi has never been better, and it's actually fun now. Making perfect little dumplings was simply a process. Pressing them on the fork or a gnocchi board, and trying your best to get them to come out looking like you new what you were doing at all. Well no more struggling, the gnocchi maker is here, and it doubles as a cavatelli maker! 

CucinaPro 530 Gnocchi Maker

When it comes to pasta machines, getting the right, quality machine is always essential when your doing your product research. Don't get no underrated machine thats going to fall apart on you within a year. Pasta machines are a dime a dozen, brands such as Atlas Marcato, CucinaPro Imperia, and others are quality machines that everyone should consider. Making fresh gnocchi, pasta, or whatever your heart desires, is a lovely project that can be done in any household, and can really bring the family a little closer together. 

Making Homemade Alfredo Sauce

How to make alfredo sauce

For this recipe tutorial I'll show you how to make homemade alfredo sauce. Making homemade alfedo sauce is a great experience. Pasta can be served hundreds of ways, but alfredo sauce is one of my personal favorites. Enjoy!   What you'll need:      Sauce Pan                                Blender             Cream Cheese                                      Parmesan Cheese         Garlic Cloves           Milk 0-2%        Onions          Black Pepper                      1 cup milk 1/2 cup cream cheese 3 tablespoons of parmesan cheese 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 clove garlic 1/2 teaspoon black pepper 3 tablespoons dry parsley Small piece of white onion (about an 1/8 of a full onion)     Step 1:  Mix all ingredients in a blender. Step 2: After your mix is blended well, pour your mixture into the sauce pan. Step 3: Heat your sauce in the pan on a medium temperature until you reach a simmer. Step 4: Make sure to stir your sauce every minute or so. Step 5: Heat at a simmer for about 10-15 minutes. For fresh homemade pasta, consider a pasta machines. Step 6: Pour over your freshly prepared pasta.

Our Weekly Pasta Dinner

The dinner table can be one of the best places to bring your family together. Eating a nice home cooked meal with your whole family is a wonderful experience, and can bring great discussion, or humor to everyone attending. My family has a wonderful pasta dinner every Sunday night. My mother spends all day preparing her sauce, meatballs, and whatever else it takes to create her masterpiece. After hours of preparing it's finally done. The family gathers at the dinner table and begins the feast. On Sundays we always sit at the dinner table. Your asking, where else would you sit? Well, during the week we have an island counter top which we eat our meals at. The island is simply more convenient, and easy to use for my mother when she's cooking. For our Sunday feast, we always set the dinner table, and sit at the table together to eat our meal. 

I look forward to every Sunday for a number of reasons. The main reason being I love to eat, and I love to eat pasta more than anything. We are an Italian family and we all enjoy a fabulous pasta dinner every week. Besides the eating part of our feast, I enjoy joining my family and starting conversation. It's not often you get to sit down with your whole family at once for an extended period of time. Being able to talk to my all my brothers at once is pretty cool. I got three brothers, and having them all there at once can be quite exciting. Asking one brother one thing can lead to a fun conversation, or sometimes a ruthless argument. Overall it's a fun experience and you get to learn a lot about your siblings, and/or parents. 

My brothers all attend school, and two of them work full time jobs, theres just no time to spend time with them. Having a weekly dinner is a very exciting aspect of our family. No matter what is happening that week, I know that the upcoming Sunday I will see my whole family whether it's at our dinner table, or simply out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants. Not everyone can make it every Sunday, but that's understandable and we forgive them. Most Sunday's we have the whole family attending, including my grandma, who I feel is the most important person at the dinner table. 

My grandma, who we call "nuni" or "nonna" which is Italian for grandmother. Our nonna came over from Italy over 50 years ago on a boat, and has never been the same since. I love talking to her at the dinner table about the old times in the old country. She teaches us some cool things about cooking, and just being Italian in general. Sometimes my nunna will teach us some Italian phrases, or secrets to different things that she's learned over in Italy. I love comparing her different ways to go about doing certain things to the way we do certain things over here in America, it's very interesting. 

One of the coolest things I've learned from my grandmother is how to make homemade pasta. My grandmother grew up in a village in Sicily, and was taught to produce her own pasta noodles when it came to their family feasts. Learning how to make my own homemade pasta was easily one of the coolest things I've learned from here. I currently attend the University of New Hampshire for Culinary Arts, and cooking happens to be my passion. Having my grandma around is so awesome, and I learn a lot from her every day. She taught me the basics of using a Pasta Machine, and how to make my own pasta from scratch. After a few hours of preparing our noodles, our product was done. I had produced enough pasta for weeks! We ate the homemade pasta later that night and it was fantastic. May not taste like it was store bought, but it definitely tastes homemade, and delicious. 

The moral of the article is to make more people aware of the power of food, whether your preparing it or eating it. Take advantage of your family dinners, who knows how much longer you'll have with them. Whether you sit and enjoy the presence, or strike a conversation with your family members, a family dinner is a great way to gather the family each week. 

Sunday Pasta Dinners

My family and I enjoy eating pasta at least once a week. Every Sunday my mother prepares this great big pasta dinner for my whole family. I look forward to Sunday's because I love her pasta recipe, and everything that goes along with it. She makes her own sauce which takes her what seems like all day to make. And to go with it she makes her own meatballs. Add some garlic bread and some Parmesan cheese and you've got yourself a fantastic meal. Sometimes if we're lucky she'll cook up some zucchini or eggplant to put on top.

The coolest thing about our Sunday pasta dinners is the fact my mom makes her own homemade pasta to go with it. Well you need to know how to make homemade pasta to do something like that now don't you! Well it's pretty simple when it comes down to it. My grandmother is also an awesome cook and loves to cook with my mother each week. I currently go to school for culinary arts and its fun to cook with my mom and grandma. Using our pasta machine is a lot of fun, and eating the final product is very exciting as well. If you're family likes to have pasta dinners once a week, or even every once in a while, you should try and make your own pasta. Making your own pasta is a fantastic family project, and can be fun for all.

The Atlas 150 Pasta Machine

I've used a fair share of pasta machines in my day, and I love making pasta. Below I will compare my two favorite pasta machines, and tell you what I think about each one.

Atlas 150 Pasta Machine



One of the originals, the Atlas 150 Pasta Machine is well known around the world for its quality, and excellence. The 150 is a fantastic pasta maker for anyone who is just starting out making pasta, or if you've been making pasta forever.

-The Atlas Pasta machine features the "wellness" rollers: they are made in a special light alloy, a Marcato EXCLUSIVE PATENT that ensures your homemade pastry is 100% wholesome.

-Also Made In Italy the atlas 150 is known for it's durability and performance.



The Original Imperia SP150

     Made in Italy the Imperia is one of the most popular pasta machines out there. Whether your an expert at making pasta or trying to make pasta for the first time, the Imperia Pasta Machine is a fantastic machine for you. This particular machine is extremely durable and will last a lifetime. Clamps nicely to most counter tops for easy use. The imperia lets you decide what pasta you want to make, letting you choose from many pasta attachments.

Hmmm, Black Pasta?

I've heard of red pasta, and green pasta, but I've never heard of black pasta. When it comes to cooking anything is possible. I recently learned how to cook red, green, or purple pasta noodles, which was super cool to learn. Today I was in my cooking class and one of my classmates was telling me about how she had eaten a pasta with black sauce. I was wondering how this was possible. She went on to explain that black pasta noodles, or a black pasta sauce, comes from Squid Ink. Squid ink is perfectly healthy, and good to eat, and can be used to cook into things to create various colors.

Squid Ink Pastas
        

Cooking with squid ink can be kind of cool. People usually don't see black pastas, or black sauces. Bringing a dish like this in front of a group of friends can be an experience for everyone. My classmate said it didn't taste to much like seafood at all, which is good because I don't like sea food too much. So if your not a sea food person ether, than not to worry.

If your trying to make pasta from scratch, then you might need a Pasta Machine. These machines are fantastic for family projects. Gather your family and create some fresh homemade pasta. And if your feeling ambitious, go out and get some squid ink and make it black pasta! Pasta machines come in all shapes, sizes, and brands. Whether a beginner or an expert, a nice quality pasta machine is the original Imperia Pasta Machine.

Whether your trying out the Squid Ink pasta or not, making a fresh homemade pasta is always fun for everyone. Get on going and make your own pasta some day, its truly a fantastic experience that everyone who enjoys cooking should try at least once in their lives

Anthony Valentine
-www.letseatpasta.com

Making Pasta: Fantastic Family Project.

Does you family love to cook? Cooking can be a fantastic way to bring the family together, and create a delicious meal for everyone. My family is from Italy and we love to eat pasta. When it comes to pasta, nothing beats a nice homemade pasta. Bringing the family together has never been more fun. Making pasta with the family can be a fabulous project for everyone. Nothing beats making fresh, homemade pasta with your family, and then eating it the same night for dinner. 

My family uses an Imperia Pasta Machine to make our pasta. The original Imperia pasta machine is a fantastic, quality pasta machine made in Italy.

 

Pasta Machines are great gifts for any family who enjoys cooking. If you have yet to make your own pasta, I suggest getting a nice Italian Pasta Machine. When it comes to Pasta Machines, the Imperia is one of the oldest, first pasta machines out there. The Imperia is extremely durable, reliable, and quality. 

Using A Pasta Machine

There are many different types of pasta machines, and they all work in the same basic way. 

Take your dough and portion it off into fist size pieces. With a dough roller, smoothen your dough out into a thin rectangular shape so it fits through your pasta machine.  

Once you have a thin enough dough to fit through your thickest setting on your machine, insert your dough and begin cranking the lever. Once your dough comes out the other side, you'll notice its smooth, and thinner than when it started. You then want to feed the dough back through the pasta machine on the next thinner setting, and repeat until the dough is fed through all the settings. Most people like to stop on the second to last settings depending on the pasta machine. 

Once you have your rectangular strips of dough from the first portion, set those aside an begin on your next portion of dough. Repeat the above steps with every piece or portioned dough until finished. 

Let the dough sit for about 15 minutes before you feed it through your desired pasta attachment. Once you've chosen a pasta attachment, feed each piece of dough individually through the attachment. With your hand behind, except the dough so it doesn't get all bunched up in a pile and loose structure. 

Repeat the above steps for all the dough you've created. You can cook the pasta right away, or set the dough aside to dry over night to obtain dry pasta. 

Learn How To Make Homemade Pasta

When working with a pasta machine, nothing beats a nice solid, quality machine like an Imperia Pasta Machine.