Cooking in Tuscany!

From the time that Rosanna, the chef, walked into the Villa, you knew that today's cooking class was going to be filled with learning, fun and laughter.  Her charm pulled you towards her.  Our class of eight was excited to be there..

She greeted us with a smile and saying "buongiorno".

Rosanna Passione has been working with food for 25 years.  She is a chef, a cooking teacher and an author of cookbooks.  She has taught many classes in Italy as well as the US.  She is a mother of three and began her love for cooking with organic foods.

With me taking a cooking class is very ironic.  I don't cook!  But for some reason, I have had a desire to cook in Tuscany.  Maybe it is because of all the romantic/comedy movies of Italy that I have watched for many years.

Rosanna handed out aprons for each of us and then began to let us know what our three course meal would be.  We would begin with the dessert, so that it could sit and savor the flavors.

The dessert was peaches and baked with crushed almond cookies & cocoa mix.   Rosanna showed us how to  cut the peaches in half, take out the seeds and add the mixture.  Rosanna wanted each one of us to take part.  And of course everything, we did was perfect.  She was so encouraging and you wanted to do more.

After we finished the peaches, we then started on the appetizers, which were the zucchini slices baked and we added smoked cheese and diced tomatoes.  Once again, we each sliced & diced the items.

The last course was the spinach ravioli.  Homemade pasta!  I can't believe I did it!  Rosanna showed us how to take two different flours and mix them.  Then you take the flour mixture and add the eggs. Special technique in making the dough.  Then you bring out the pasta machine.  A lot of people still use the rolling pin to flatten out the dough.

After rolling out the dough, we added the spoonful of spinach.  We used the cutter to make the squares of ravioli.  We had the water boiling and we added the spinach pasta squares to cook.

We set the six foot table outside for the meal that we were preparing.  Of course, we had wine!

As we all sat at the table with the food we had prepared, we were all laughing and filled with confidence.  We had each achieved making homemade pasta, an appetizer and a dessert.

All of us were in awe of the meal that we had prepared and we could now scratch off on our bucket list "cooking in Tuscany"!

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