Last week’s class was all about Pasta. There are hundreds of different pasta shapes. Some examples of common pasta shapes are: Pipe, Spaghetti, Spaghettini, Rigatoni, Penne Rigate, Orecchiette, Lasagna, Fusilli, Farfalle, Ditaloni, Shells and the list goes on. If I were to name them all we’d be here all day! 
Pasta is categorized in two basic styles: dried and fresh. Dried pasta made without eggs can be stores for up to a few years under ideal conditions, while fresh pasta will only keep for a couple of days if it’s refrigerated.
There are many varieties – here are some:
- Long pasta
- Short pasta
- Minute Pasta (used for soups)
- Egg Pasta
- Fresh Pasta
- Pasta for baked dishes (lasagna noodles would fall under this category)
Pasta is generally served with a sauce. There are so many different sauces that go well with pasta including Pesto sauce, Alfredo sauce, Bolognese sauce, Marinara sauce, and the list goes on.
In class we made our own fresh pasta. To be honest, this was my least favorite class. Aside from the fact that there were only 4 pasta machines (yes, the hand crank kind as picture to the left) for over 10 of us to share, I just didn’t care for the process of making fresh pasta. It is definitely hard work. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I had the Pasta Maker Cuisinart Attachment, but doing it the old-fashioned way is for the birds!
So I went through the process and made some pasta, but I wasn’t really happy with how it came out. I felt so rushed and I just didn’t have time to concentrate and do it the way I would have liked to. So I threw it out. I took my second dough ball home and thought that maybe I’d try to work with it at home in some capacity, but that just didn’t happen. Life got in the way.
What’s funny though is that I took home some Alfredo sauce that we made in class (which by the way was delicious!) and put it on some cooked pasta (that was from a *gasp* box!) that I had leftover in the fridge. It was delicious!
I’m not ashamed to admit that I prefer boxed pasta over the fresh stuff. It just tastes so much better in my opinion!
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