Italian Food - Make Your Own Pasta

Italian food is not the killer of all diets as we would like to believe. As a matter of fact, it can be quite healthy in addition to being delicious. You can make your own pasta and make it even more healthy if you use whole wheat flour.

There are many different types of pasta when it comes to Italian food. There is the macaroni style that is made in different shapes. They all have names like Rigatoni, Rotini, etc. Then there is spaghetti, ravioli, shells and lasagna. All of them involve making pasta a certain way. It is done with flour, eggs and salt. The pasta is knead like a bread until it is a dough. It is then either put through a machine or cut into squares (as is the case of ravioli) to give it its shape.

There are hand cranked machines that people used long ago to make their own Italian food pasta. Today, many of the home made pasta machines are electronic. Before the hand crank machines, there was an instrument known as the "guitar" which looked like the musical instrument where the dough was placed to allow it to be cut.

Gnochi is another Italian food pasta that is made with potatoes instead of eggs. Gnochi is little dumplings that are just dropped into boiling water. As a rule, all pasta is dropped into boiling water to get it to cook. However, it has to be either dried or frozen first or else you will be stuck with a bunch of mush.

Freezing pasta after you have made it is a good idea if you want to save space and do not like the idea of pasta hanging around the kitchen all day. You simply lay it in layers between waxed paper on a cookie sheet, cover it with tin foil and put it into the freezer. When you use it, you have to use it frozen or else it will turn to mush. You will drop the frozen pasta right into the boiling water in order to cook it properly.

Making your own pasta may seem like a daunting experience but it is not really difficult, especially with the machines that are available today. If you have a Kitchen Aid Mixer, you can use the knead hook to knead the dough. You can then just put it into the machine. If you use whole wheat flour, you are making Italian food that is not only healthy for you as it contains no preservatives, but is healthy when it comes to good carbohydrates.

When you make your own Italian food pasta, make sure that you make enough to spare. If you always have some in the refrigerator, you will always have something to eat for later. Once you get used to this Italian food, you will no longer want the store bought brands.