Homemade Italian Pasta- Thoughts on Lesson 1

So, I told you all last week that I finally broke down and bought Craftsy's Homemade Italian Pasta class, and I couldn't wait to dive right in.  I watched the first lesson Saturday morning while I drank coffee in my pjs.  (Part of the allure of Craftsy: If I want to learn to make fettuccine in my PJs with bedhead, it's totally okay.)

The instructor is Giuliano Hazan.  He is the son of Marcella Hazan, who brought Italian cooking to mainstream America.  Giuliano is a friendly guy who gives lots of tips and the camera zooms in on his hands often so you can see how he kneads the dough and he himself breaks down his technique step by step.

The first lesson jumps right in  to mixing an egg dough and takes you all the way to a finished dough (stopping just before the rolling out and cutting step), and then shows the whole process again making the egg dough with some spinach.  I like that they jump right in.  I loved the bread making class, but there was so may supplies you needed that I think the whole first lesson was going over yeast, bread pans, scrappers and such.  Pasta making seems to require less equipment.

At the end of the lesson they also go over storing you your cut pasta, and guess what!  Once it's dry it can store for months.  I think that's great, because I don't think homemade pasta is something you want to make everytime you want spaghetti, but if you can make a big batch and use it for three or four times before you have to make more, that sounds much more manageable.

I'm looking forward to lesson two: rolling and cutting the dough.  The class teaches you four different noodles, farfalle, and stuffed pastas  and it seems to move along at a good clip.  So hopefully I'll  have some pasta to show after lesson two.

 Note: All links are affiliate links, but all thoughts are my own.  This post is not sponsored by Craftsy and is just my own thoughts on the class.