Item #45 – Take a cooking class for a different type of cuisine has been scratch off my list.

In grade 8 I was told to marry rich by my home education teacher after I had spilled milk all over her and started a small oven fire. (I was an awkward preteen in the middle of a growth spurt so I was not very coordinated) Any desire for cooking that I may have had, dwindled that day.

On April 27, 2012 while in Florence I took the ‘I Wanna Be Italiano Cooking Class’ with Chef Giovanni. Not only did I learn how to make pasta from scratch but gained a passion for wanting to learn to cook.

The class started off with a tour of a local food market in Florence, here we purchased the ingredients needed for our cooking lesson. Purchases in hand we head back to the Florence Wine and Food Academy, put on our aprons and got down to business. First on the Agenda was Tiramisu in individual dessert dishes.

This tasty dessert was rather easy to make and YES is does taste as good as it looks.

Next on the agenda was pasta and ravioli from scratch without the aid of a pasta machine. This was old school pasta making with your hands and a rolling-pin. Whoever said making pasta from scratch is easy, has obviously been doing it since birth. It seems simple enough with the only ingredients being flour, eggs and a little olive oil but don’t be fooled there is a skill involved here. It took me 20 minutes of muscle power and a bit of sweat to roll out my pasta dough. If anyone ever makes you fresh pasta be very grateful, because they must really like you. If you have not tasted fresh pasta you must, you will never go back to boxed pasta again.

Once our pasta was made it was time to prepare our Bolognese sauce, I love sauces so I was super excited. Here is everything you need to make an amazing Bolognese.

Plus Olive Oil, red wine and tomatoes and your sauce will look like this:

Now we are ready to eat..The finished product

For the Ravioli we made a butter and sage sauce which exactly as the name implies it is melted butter and sage, extremely simple and delish.

The Bolognese Sauce Recipe:

800g  tinned peeled tomatoes

500g ground beef 500g fresh ground pork sausage

1 cup San Giovese Chianti wine

Salt

½ bottle olive oil

1 carrot

1 celery rib

1 red onion

Heat oil in a 30 cm large non-stick pan and brown he chopped carrot, celery and red onion for 5 minutes. Add the ground  beef and pork sausage and it until it has browned, for about 10 minutes, stirring the sauce constantly (no lid). Pour the wine and boil for 5 minutes. Reduce heat and add tomatoes, salt and simmer over a gentle heat for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally and mashing the tomatoes (no lid)

Please let me know if you try this recipe.

Enjoy!