I attended a complimentary cooking class from Charleston Cooks! to review with my husband and I am thrilled to be able to share it and a wonderful recipe with you!

I few months ago, I attended a chocolate workshop at Charleston Cooks! in Columbia. I loved it so much and was thankful to be able to share my experience with you. Since we were moving back to Charleston, it was only fitting that we attend a class at the Charleston location of Charleston Cooks!. This class was the pasta workshop, where we learned the techniques of making homemade pasta with a pasta roller and made 3 different pasta dishes:

1. Spinach farfalle with a proscuitto and spinach cream sauce
2. Butternut squash filled agnolotti with a sage and butter pine nut sauce with pan seared shrimp
3. Whole wheat pasta with sausage and red pepper

The pastas were incredible and it was a pleasure working with all of our classmates to make the pastas come alive! It’s excited to share with you the whole wheat pasta that we made in class, but in my case without a pasta machine (it is currently sitting in a box in storage while we are living with my in-laws).

Here’s how in photographs:

If you’ll notice, the whole wheat pasta seen above is a lot thicker than what we made in class. I can’t tell you how much my husband and I took turns rolling out the dough by hand, but never could get it to that paper thin consistency. So, if you have a pasta machine, use it. Else, just get the pasta as absolutely thin as you can get it. If you roll it out to as thin as you think you can, roll it some more! The thinner the better with the whole wheat pasta.

However, in the pasta workshop, we started out making our spinach pasta dough seen below:

Easy peasy!

During the class, it was all about team work to have 3 pastas made within 2 hours. It was worth the work, because the end result was fantastic! I’ve never been so happy to have a plate full of pasta in my life.

Worth every calorie.

Coincidentally, I got to meet Carey Morey of Callie’s Charleston Biscuits and her family! They were also attending the pasta workshop. If you’ll remember, I reviewed her new cookbook a couple of months ago and made her Black Pepper Biscuits. Oh my goodness.

I digress. Now, we move on to prepping the sauces and dessert!

After all of the teamwork and wonderfully informative instruction, we sat down to eat. To end it all, we had fried dessert pasta the instructors prepared for us that was topped with apples and whipped cream.

Amazing and genius.

If you ever get the chance, I would recommend taking a class at Charleston Cooks! and if want great triceps, make some homemade pasta.

It’s 1000 times better than store bought and a great treat every now and then.

Homemade Whole Wheat Fettuccine

from Charleston Cooks!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 4 eggs
• pinch of salt

How-To

1. Combine the flours and create a well with them on a work surface like a cutting board.
2. Add the olive oil and eggs into the center of the well.
3. Mix the flour first with your fork, maintaining the well until a dough is formed enough to use your hands. Knead with your hands until the dough is almost elastic like, doesn’t rip when you pull it apart and springs back quickly when you stretch it.
4. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and allow it to rest at room temperature for 10 minutes.
5. Working with just half of the dough, roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface until you reach 1/16th of an inch or as thin as you can get it.
6. Using a knife, cut to 1/4-1/2 inch thickness. Lay the noodles on a drying rack or on a clean metal hanger.
7. Once all of your noodles have been cut. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Boil the noodles for about 4 minutes or until cooked through. Since my dough was thicker it took 15 minutes to cook through.
8. Serve with your favorite sauce and vegetables!

Servings: 4-6

Disclosure: I was given a complimentary class to review. All opinions are my own. Please read my disclosure policy for further information.