Sophomores stir up pasta for national event

In support of national Italian month, a fellow journalist writer and I took it upon ourselves to celebrate its cultural cuisines. We were inspired to make pasta, as it also happened to be National Pasta Day on Oct. 17, as well as it seemed to be easy and still have a lot of flavors and background.

We scoured the Internet in search of a simple and rewarding recipe to guide our novice cooking abilities. After a few decisions, we decided to choose a penne pasta with Sweet Italian Sausage recipe.

Before we started, we needed to get all of the essential ingredients for the recipe. We found what we needed at our local supermarket, and looked for anything else that would compliment in the making of the pasta. We decided to use penne pasta with its cylinder-shaped pieces. The ingredients we put inside of it were, broccoli floret, sweet Italian sausage, minced garlic, parmesan cheese, and just a little bit too much of butter.

After everything was assembled and ready to eat, a sense of overwhelming satisfaction was present. Overall making pasta was really enjoyable and a great learning experience in making Italian food. I got to learn more about cooking that specific type of food, and got to see just how fun celebrating a national food month could be. — Jaden Ventura, ’18

Soon enough into the process, mistakes were happening and time was slowly running out. One of the first things we realized is that about halfway through making the pasta, we realized that we hadn’t been keeping track of time. Then all of a sudden there was way more pasta than vegetable and sausage. We were able to get everything under control, but we could have definitely planned it a lot more.

The process of making the pasta itself seemed a little too ordinary. As the water was beginning to boil, we sliced up the sausage and other ingredients and began to sautee them. We then quickly added the pasta shells right into the water where it sat for about 15 minutes. The results were astonishing. The sausage and broccoli were cooked to a flawless crisp and paired perfectly with the pasta itself. The dash of parmesan topped it off to make an appetizing looking dish.

[fusion_soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/230489217″ params=”auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true” width=”100%” height=”150″ iframe=”true” /]

Making pasta for the first time was a pretty enjoyable experience. I never knew how much preparation was put into making a suitable dish.

Jaden Ventura, ’18, explains the struggle of making pasta for the first time. His reactions are described in the process of making it.

“After everything was assembled and ready to eat, a sense of overwhelming satisfaction was present,” Ventura said. “Overall making pasta was really enjoyable and a great learning experience in making Italian food. I got to learn more about cooking that specific type of food, and got to see just how fun celebrating a national food month could be. I’d definitely recommend making pasta for anyone who decides they want to learn how to start cooking. It s a greeting starting point since its pretty simple to make yet the outcome is so much more than expected.”

These authors can be reached via Twitter: @_jadenventura03 and @nate10messi1, or via email: Jaden Ventura and Nathan Mount.

For more food articles, read Home economics creates traditional 9-foot burrito.