Homemade Gnocci & Italian Cooking

Tuesday was my first cooking class, and let me tell ya, I have a feeling it will be my favorite class of ALL TIME. We not only get to go to our teacher's house to cook with her, but we also get to make a four or five course meal and then EAT it! I have already been inspired to go to the market every day and actually cook food. Italy is awesome because there are no preservatives in anything - pastas, bread, veggies, fruit.. nothing! It's no wonder the food here is absolutely top notch. (On the downside, the fresh bread/fruit goes bad after a few days so you literally have to eat everything you buy asap.)

Anyway, back to the cooking class.. We started by making dessert first: Pesche alla Piemontese (stuffed peaches). We cut the peaches in half and hollowed them out a bit, and filled them with a mixture of mashed peaches, sugar, cocoa, egg yolk, cookie crumbs, and butter to make them a tad crispy on top. We then made homemade gnocchi - from peeling the potatoes to rolling out the dough. So fun to see how gnocchi is actually made! We also made a white cream and red tomato sauce to complement it. We then made fennel, a veggie I've never tried before but was actually really good! There was also this chicken breadcrumbs dish they made but being a vegetarian I sort of tuned that part out (probably too distracted by the gnocchi cooking.) We finally sat down to eat our finished creations and enjoyed all the food, along with wine our teacher picked out to best complimented our dishes, and even fresh baguettes.

Mmmm already can't wait for next class.