Making homemade pasta can be time-consuming, but it can also be a fun cooking activity. Usually homemade pasta has a better flavor than commercially made dried pasta. By controlling what you put into your pasta, you may enjoy greater creativity with these homemade pasta recipes. By Patricia Kennelly |
Once you make your own pasta by hand, you'll have a tough time going back. It's like comparing in-season garden tomatoes with out of season greenhouse-grown tomatoes. It's like comparing stereo with mono. It's like comparing black-and-white TV with color. By Natasa Shepherd |
These days, my creativity occurs mostly in the kitchen. And just as charcoal has a distinctive feel when held between fingers creating, thick, sweet dough also has a distinctive feel between fingers baking. Without a pasta roller, working with cannoli dough demands a certain patience. But finally, the dough is ready, then cut, molded, and fried. The results more than reward the effort. A truly happy calm comes from delicious homemade cannoli. Homemade mocha cannoli creates near euphoria. By Stephanie Banfield |
 | The art of cooking pasta is one that will be worth the effort to perfect. Pasta is a delicious basic building block of many dishes that can ruin even the best recipe when cooked incorrectly . By Elece Hollis |
If you look into the history of Italian pasta cooking, you will see that the food used as a staple in the Italian diet has not always been so. While till the 1500's, macaroni (the term used for any dried pasta) was considered an exotic food, cooking pasta in an Italian household was considered very expensive chiefly due to the high costs. |
 | Pasta comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. For many new cooks, choosing the right pasta for the perfect romantic dinner can be challenging. With the added component of flavor choices, selecting the right pasta almost seems overwhelming. |
Where did pasta come from? Some say China, some say Italy. Both are correct. In 1279 a Genoese soldier listed as part of his estate inventory, "una bariscella plena de macronis" (dried pasta). The Chinese are known to have been eating a starchy product made from breadfruit as early as 3000 BC. By Cheryl Bowman |
Cooked hands might not sound appetizing, but this literal translation of an Italian favorite-manicotti-describes the traditional method of using crepes to make manicotti stuffed with ricotta and grated cheese, resulting in a lighter fare than the modern manicotti recipes served now. By LuAnn Schindler |
 | Garden-ripe tomatoes. Fresh garlic. Aromatic onions. A hint of newly-picked basil and oregano. These ingredients combine to create a delicious,homemade spaghetti sauce that will tempt taste buds. By LuAnn Schindler |
 | If you love pasta, then you know there's seemingly no end to the different pasta sauces you can make to dress this dinnertime mainstay. Invented by the Chinese but perfected by the Italians, perfectly cooked pasta accompanied by fresh, homemade pasta sauces hits the mark every time. By Rachel Mork |
