Is this of any interest?: Ciao Italy! Pt Quattro

Well you cant go to Italy and not talk about the food.... and we like our food! so much so that Fee called round a few places and managed to get us to a cooking course for the day. We were rather lucky as you need to book these things in advance. Score!

This was our menu for the day... many yum's to come!

This was our chef and teacher for the day.

As your can see he was a rather 'relaxed' chef, he never once used both hands.

Grabbed a pic of his list, I just liked the fact it was titled 'Lista'. Seems in Italy all you need to do is add and 'A' or an 'O' to the end of everything.

Here was our work station where we did our chopping, peeling and kneading of our hand made pasta.

Here's the whole gang, they were all from different parts of America so Fee & Me were the only Brits. See that lady in the center stirring the bowl with a really smug look on her face? She was banging on about how easy Italian food is to make and how much cooking she does......

She then proceeded to make some of the most 'fugly' misshapen ravioli's I have ever seen..... plus her husband made some the size of my first! We could not help but snigger a little. Making these is pretty much the same as making chinese style dumplings/won-tons, so Fee's looked very nice.

Mmmmm Garlic and Rosemary twice roasted potatoes.

We were there for about 5 hours with the gang learning tip and recipes. It was a fun day and I would recommend it to anybody into coking. So what did we make in the end? Well here are the fruits of our labour:

Panzanella: its a light and fresh salad made with tomatos, cucumber bread and read wine viniger. Great for summer or picnics.

Saffron Risotto: A classic risotto base infused with roasted saffron.

Walnut and Ricotta Ravioli: Hand made pasta filled with a mixture of walnut, cheese and roasted aubergine covered in a light butter and sage dressing. As you can see, we got some of the super ugly ones made by the smug super chef who was not so super.... thanks.