^^ It’s mesmerizing, isn’t it? Little hands rolling fresh pasta noodles. For nearly 45 minutes. What a fabulous activity! Just like Play Doh, only edible!
This week we didn’t have school on Monday so no Petits Chefs post to share. Instead, I thought it might be fun to show what my Cooking Basics boys got up to yesterday. This is the other cooking club I host each week, for the youngest boys in the school (Grades 3 and 4) and we’ve been working our way through Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution cookbook this term – I use it as a basic “textbook” for the younger boys because it really teaches excellent basic skills as well as recipes the boys love to make and eat. It’s still the cookbook I recommend to anyone looking for a beginner cookbook.
This week though, we ventured out into a recipe from Jamie’s recent book Super Food Family Classics (I reviewed it here and I’ve even cooked a couple of recipes with my older students’ cooking club – English breakfast frittata and the 7-veg tomato sauce) to make Jamie’s Spinach Pici Pasta hand rolled spinach pasta noodles that looked like a very fun way to pass an hour on Wednesday afternoon.
The dough is just “00” flour with spinach – the moisture from the spinach acts as water would in a regular pasta and also colours the pasta (and our hands!) bright green. It whips up quickly in a food processor and looks and feels a little bit like Play Doh. Then you get to the rolling part…
(no the colour balance is not off in these pictures – the lighting is very yellow and the table was tinged green 😉 )
The boys spent nearly 45 minutes *just* rolling noodles and I decided (for once) to make life easy and we only made the noodles. We didn’t try to cook them, we didn’t make a sauce. Sometimes it’s better to do one thing really well than attempt too many things and not succeed (this is a lesson in life too!). The boys wondered “Is this all we’re going to do?” which I found amusing because, well, they’re making their own pasta. I’d say that’s definitely “something”, right?
At the end of the session we attempted to dry the noodles a little before we packaged them up…
And what went home?
It doesn’t look like much but I was really proud of the boys. They made pasta! From scratch! By hand! *I* think it’s pretty impressive.
Want to make this fun recipe yourself? Join in our
A Food Revolution Toronto contest!
The team over at Food Revolution Toronto wants to get you in the kitchen and cooking!
From now until Wednesday November 30th 2016, cook up a plate of Jamie Oliver’s Spinach Pici Pasta (recipe link below) from #FamilySuperFood for your chance to win one of five Jamie Oliver cookbooks thanks to Harper Collins Canada.
How to enter:
Cook Jamie’s spinach pici pasta recipe with your family, snap a picture and share it on social media using the hashtag #CookwithFoodRevTO (and tag us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – @foodrevtoronto) and you’ll be entered to win a cookbook!
Eligibility and contest rules:
– Contest begins on Monday November 7th 2016 at 6pm EST on and closes Wednesday November 30th 2016 at 6pm EST.
– Prize consists of one (1) Jamie Oliver cookbook (various titles)
– There are five (5) prizes in total.
– Open to readers of the age of majority with a Canadian mailing address.
– No purchase of any product necessary for entry.
– Winners will be chosen randomly (using random.org) from all qualified entries on Wednesday 30th November 2016 after 6pm EST.
– Winners will be notified via email Thursday December 1st 2016 and will have 48 hours to respond to the email.
– Winners will be required to answer a skill testing question.
Get the recipe for Jamie Oliver’s Spinach Pici Pasta here or in Super Food Family Classics.
Purchase Super Food Family Classics for yourselves on Amazon (this link should bring you to the Amazon store closest to you). Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository.
Please note: The product links from Amazon and The Book Depository are affiliate links, meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you) which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!
Playful and useful – good lesson all round. Well done Mardi
They had so much fun!
such fun! and delicious too I bet
Indeed = it “even tasted like real pasta” 😉
Wow what a life lesson to learn how to make pasta. I’m still learning – always too much egg!
No eggs in this one! But a delicate balance of figuring out when to stop rolling!
Bravo to your boys! And yes pasta from scratch is impressive enough. 🙂
Thanks! And, right? Making pasta from scratch is pretty impressive!
Looks like it was a lot of sensory fun! Green pasta 🙂
SO much fun!