Dried Pasta

Whether you purchase dried pasta at a grocery store or buy gourmet pasta products online from CyberCucina, its packaging usually has a recommended cooking time. You should follow the cooking time because it is usually right, but be sure to taste a piece often to test for the right texture.
Whatever you do, don’t overcook the pasta!

To get the best texture of pasta you have to cook it to the point that it is “al dente,” which literally means “to the tooth” in Italian. Pasta needs to be tender but it should still be a bit firm when you bite it.

If you cook it past the point of having a bite it will get mushy.

Some people say that one good way to test stringy pasta, other than tasting it, is to toss it lightly against the wall. If it sticks, it’s done!

Some pasta dishes can be prepared ahead of time and refrigerated, or even frozen, until you are ready to cook them. Lasagna is the best dish to prepare ahead of time, but just about any casserole dish where the pasta is precooked and covered in sauce can be prepared ahead of time and kept in an air tight container. These dishes make for great party meals.

Pasta can even be cooked ahead of time and kept around for a little while to heat and use later. To do this, cook the pasta until it is just done then drain it immediately. Then, toss the pasta with a little oil and store it in an air-tight container. When you are ready to use it, simply drop it in boiling water for about two minutes just to heat it thoroughly.

When making homemade sauce that uses cheese as an ingredient, be sure that the sauce is not boiling. Grate your cheese finely and add it to the sauce a little at a time while the sauce is hot, but not boiling or it will curdle.

Take a pasta quiz at http://quiz.ivillage.com/food/tests/pasta.htm

There are over 600 different shapes of pasta in the world.

Mark your calendar - October 25^th is World Pasta Day!

The Pope laid out standards for the quality of pasta in the 13^th century.

It has been said that pasta was brought to the United States by Thomas Jefferson after he tasted a pasta dish while in France and loved it. When he returned to the United States he apparently ordered macaroni by the crate and bought himself a pasta making machine.

Spaghetto is the singular form of spaghetti. Pasta literally means paste in the Italian language. So if you are eating just one piece you can say, “I am eating a spaghetto.”

Gravy is not just a brown, meat based sauce to throw on beef, pork, or poultry. It is also a term sometimes used by Italians for a tomato sauce that is prepared by simmering it for a long time.

For the most part, Americans are the only people who use a fork with a spoon to twirl and eat their spaghetti. Most other cultures simply use a fork and twirl it against the dish. Read the rest…

There are so many pasta recipe websites on the Internet and although some of them are great, others are just a waste of time. The following list was compiled to save you the trouble of having to sort through them yourself! So don’t bother searching for dried pasta recipes any further because we have reviewed all of these websites and now we are passing them on to you! We even tell you why we like them so much. Be sure to check back in the future as we will continue to look for more websites to add to the list.

Of course, you can always start with a recipe book from Italian masters:

The Italian American Cookbook

• All Recipes
  • Allrecipes.com has good, detailed recipes and this site even lets you enter the number of servings that you wish to cook and they specify the recipe to suit your needs.
• Massachusettes Institute of Technology
  • A teacher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology posted a list of pasta recipes for students, but you can see them too. The dishes may not be traditional or authentic Italian recipes, but they are easy to follow and very tasty! If you don’t like homemade lasagna because of the ricotta cheese but you do like Stauffer’s lasagna since they don’t use ricotta, then you will love the lasagna recipe on here! Read the rest…

Turkey and Pasta Bake
Tired of all the turkey that’s leftover but don’t want to throw it away and just waste it? Try this new twist to Thanksgiving’s favorite meat.

Holiday Pasta Bake
Tired of all the traditional holiday foods of turkey, ham, or roast beef? Try this new dish to change up your holiday meal.

Holiday Pasta Bake 2!
Here’s another tasty pasta dish to help mix up the traditional holiday meal. This one has a few more ingredients and is a little more involved with the preparation process.

Seven-Layer Holiday Pasta Salad
This cold pasta is a colorful and festive way to add a chilled side to your traditional hot holiday meal.

Holiday Pasta Special
This holiday pasta recipe was posted by a user of www.bbqforums.net and includes flavorful ingredients such as garlic and jalapeno flakes.

Gnocchi

In English we say this word as “no-key.” In restaurants you will almost always see gnocchi listed with pasta dishes, however, gnocchi is not actually a type of pasta! In Italian, gnocchi means dumplings and that is exactly what gnocchi is. These Italian dumplings are generally made from potatoes, unlike other pastas. Some gnocchi is even made of bread crumbs, flour, or ricotta cheese. Gnocchi does resemble pasta in that it is served in a sauce, often a tomato sauce or butter and cheese sauce.