Is Pasta Good For Your Health?

Pasta is popular for a reason: It's versatile, inexpensive, great-tasting, and comforting. Unfortunately, the comfort we get from pasta comes from its high carbohydrate count.

As any dieter will tell you, carbohydrates, especially those that come from white flour products like pasta, aren't exactly diet-friendly. They tend to have a high calorie content, and can raise blood sugar levels and cause bloating.

Which Pasta Is That?

With so many different pastas available now, it can be a bit overwhelming trying to work out which one is what. Well sit tight and we will take a quick journey into the world of pasta and determine which one is what.

Cannelloni

Cannelloni are large hollow tubes which are stuffed with sauce mixture. My favorite is ricotta and spinach sauce that is then baked in the oven with a tomato sauce over the top.

Conchiglie

Conchigle is the shell shaped pastas. These come in a variety of sizes from tiny shells that are good in soups to very large with can be stuffed. It is a good short pasta that is great with chunky sauces and attractive in pasta salads.

Farfalle

Bow shaped, this pasta is very useful and attractive in pasta salads.

Fusilli

These are thin spiral shapes. Fusilli is good with chunky style sauces because it holds onto the sauce well. It is also good in pasta salads for the same reason.

Lasagna (Lasagne)

Large flat sheets of pasta. Used in dishes of layered fillings such as meat and cheese sauce that are then baked in the oven.

Macaroni

Macaroni is a small hollow tube that is twisted. It is the classic pasta used in Macaroni Cheese.

Spaghetti

Well we all know this one. Spaghetti is long thin strands of pasta and great used in bolognese and carbonara sauces.

Tagliatelle, Linguine, Fettuccine, Pappardelle

Known as ribbon noodles, these are long and flat in varying widths. Great for use with creamy sauces.

Ravioli

One of the stuffed pastas. It is small, flat squares of pasta stuffed with any variety of fillings such as meat, cheese, mushrooms.

Tortellini

Another stuffed style of pasta. Made from semi circle pieces of pasta folded and rolled into a little round bundle.

Vermicelli

Very fine, thin strings of which the finest variety is called 'angel hair'. It is best used with other fine ingredients such as prawns and crab. Vermicelli is often used to make 'nests' to hold the dish.

Hopefully this will take some of the confusion out of the next pasta recipe you read.

Have fun cooking and until our next cooking tip together.

Enjoy!

Lisa "The Crock Cook"

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Top Tips For Making Pasta With a Pasta Maker

If you are anything like me, I am sure that you just love Italian food. And what better way to get that authentic taste of Italy then by making your own fresh pasta. Although this can be a little bit fiddly, and the results somewhat hit-and-miss, the whole process is made much easier if you use a pasta machine. Good pasta makers are designed to still give you full control over the type of pasta which you create, but the pasta machine takes most of the hassle out. Most pasta machines which are available on the market will not only help you to roll out pasta, but will also cut it into spaghetti, fettuccini, or other various shapes for you. Here I am going to give you some of my top tips to help you get great-tasting pasta out of your pasta maker every time.

Thickness of the Pasta

Rolling pasta with a pasta machine allows you to make the dough much lighter than if you were to do this by hand. This makes it easier for the pasta to absorb juices and sauces, which will add to the flavour of the dish. In order to be able to get the past through your pasta maker several times, you need to make sure you cut only small pieces of dough. You should feed the pasta through the pasta maker several times until it is paper-thin. This will not only make better tasting pasta, but will also mean that it takes far less time to cook. One of the more important features which you need to look for when looking at buying pasta machines is that it has a good range of settings for the thickness, or you may not be able to get the thickness you want.

Stopping the Dough from Sticking

One of the most frustrating things when you use a pasta machine can be when the dough sticks. To stop this from happening, make sure you sprinkle some flour on the pasta maker as well as the dough before you begin. When you buy a pasta machine it may be better to buy an electric pasta maker. As well as making the whole process a little less labour intensive, the speed of the rolling on the electric pasta machines makes it less likely that the dough sticks than on manual ones. In addition, buying a pasta machine with more than one speed may help you to better control the rolling process - if the dough is a little too sticky then going either too slow or too fast will make your pasta fall apart!

Getting Nice Even Pasta Strands

Once you have finished rolling the pasta, you should leave it to stand for about 10 minutes before you put it into the cutting section of the pasta maker. This will help to stop it from sticking, and will also help to prevent clumping, which will mean that you get nice even pasta strands that will cook like a dream. If you make sure that you buy a pasta maker with different attachments this will also mean that you can get all kinds of different shaped pasta out of the machine.

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Starting a Homemade Pasta Making Business

Starting a Homemade Pasta Making Business

The first thing that you should know if you are starting a homemade pasta making business is the basic process of making fresh pasta. This kind of pasta is made from fresh ingredients and has a shorter shelf life compared to the commercially made or dry pasta.

Manufacturing fresh pasta is better because the business owner can tailor fit it to the consumer's needs and demands in terms of the shape, size, color and flavor of the finished product.

Below are some suggested steps in starting a homemade pasta making business, categorized into: Initial Stage, Regulatory Compliance and Marketing.

But Why Should Pasta Be Cooked Al Dente?

"With no outlet for my feelings, I stared at the phone in my hand until I remembered the spaghetti. Back in the kitchen, I turned off the gas and poured the contents of the pot into a colander. Thanks to the phone call, the spaghetti was a little softer than al dente, but it had not been dealt a mortal blow. I started eating-and thinking." The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami's narrator is typical of most non-Italians when it comes to cooking pasta. They know that it 'should be' cooked al dente, but they're not going to lose a lot of sleep over it. Al dente is, according to - amongst other - Lidia Bastianich, the famous Italian media cook in America, one of the most difficult concepts in Italian cooking to get across. It is, though, one of the most fundamental.

Why do we say al dente?

There are a number of theories to this, but the most widely accepted and most sensible is simply that the pasta is tested, to see if it's ready, by biting into it. It should not be uncooked, nor should it be soft - so there should be a slight resistance to the teeth - al dente in Italian.

But why should pasta be cooked al dente?

There are a number of good reasons, apart from simple tradition. Firstly, pasta nearly always interacts with a sauce, and when cooked al dente it 'takes on' the sauce more efficiently. 

The second reason, according to generations of Italian grandmothers, is that the pasta is more easily digested when it's cooked al dente. There is a certain amount of truth to this, although it might be better to say that the pasta is better digested when cooked al dente, because in actual fact it slows the breaking down of the carbohydrates in the pasta into glucose - or lowers the glycemic index of the pasta. Lower glycemic indexes have health benefits according to most studies.

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Catering - Pasta Bars

Food bars are a great way for a caterer to make money! Since everything is buffet style and guests serve themselves, one caterer can serve a large party of clients. Offering a "build your own" food bar is creative, fun and interactive since guests will be interacting with one another on the buffet line and are able to choose foods to their liking. This is great for clients on a budget since food bars are a lower cost alternative to traditional catering. Food Bars are also great for families with children and picky eaters. A pasta bar is a classic crowd pleaser but you can also offer; salad bars, taco bars, baked potato bars and ect...

Pasta E Fagioli: Pasta Fazool

Pasta Fazool: every time I hear that term, especially from a non-Italian it makes me cringe a bit. The words are often used as something of a joke, even, I must say, by Italian Americans. I will admit that the words themselves have a funny sound. "Zool" is indeed a funny syllable. It's just that that one someone says "pasta fazool" I conjure that somewhat stereotypic image of an oversized Italian Giuseppe with a napkin tucked in his shirt collar shoveling spoonfuls of red sauce into his mustachioed mouth while Rosa his rotund, polka-dot aproned wife ladles even more into his bowl. There may even be an organ monkey hopping about on the adjacent sideboard.