Pasta is the simplest of Italian foods. It is the most widely known and can be found all over the world. There are many ways for cooking Italian pasta, a few offer the user a nicely cooked non-sticky noodle to work with. In many of the dishes that the Italians make, noodles are used in conjunction with other ingredients. A sticky, starch ridden noodle is not only not as tasty, it is hard to work with, and not as appealing to look at. When you are cooking you want your dish to not only smell and taste good, but to also look good too. There are ways to ensure that your pasta is cooked right and can be used easily as part of a dish or the main course.

Cooking With Oil

When you begin to boil your pasta the best way to help make a great non-stick noodle is to add a tablespoon of olive oil to your water. Cooking Italian pasta this way ensures that when you are ready to drain your noodles they separate easily and do not have a starchy build up. Noodles that stick together can truly affect the dish you are making in a negative way. Lasagna needs to have noodles that are not torn or bunched. If you have a huge build up of starch and try to separate the noodles for use, you risk destroying them and therefore destroying your dish’s presentation. The oil will not affect how the pasta tastes or other ingredients that you add later. It just coats the noodles finely to guarantee that they come out unscathed.

The Cold Water Trick

Do not have oil to use, or cannot use it? Then try using the cold water trick when cooking Italian pasta. What you do is boil your pasta as usual. Then rinse it thoroughly with cold water. This is can be tricky if you are making pasta as a main dish and want it hot. But what you are doing is rinsing the starch off the noodles so that you can easily separate them without breaking them. This is a very reliable method in pasta cooking for spaghetti and lasagna. These pasta dishes are heated with sauces and other ingredients so the rinsing does not usually affect them. You do not need to rinse the noodles too thoroughly. A quick rinse and stir with your hand in the colander usually does the trick and is enough to get the starch’s sticky nature off the noodles. Most times this will only cool your pasta a bit and not make it too cold.

A Touch Of Salt

When cooking Italian pasta you will want to use a pinch of salt. The salt is not for flavoring and will not get into your noodles. It is to help bring your water to a quicker rolling boil. Salt helps to raise the salinity, which lowers your boiling point of your water. This makes cooking faster and shaves off some time that it takes to get the process going. Boiling water already takes long enough, By adding salt you can cut that time in half so you and your family do not have to wait too long for that homemade Italian meal.

Everybody often cooks to eat and forget the absolute joy that can be found through the act of cooking.

Do you view cooking as a chore or duty or do you view it as a project? There is something much more exciting about embarking on a new project than getting around to a loathsome chore. If you do view cooking as a chore the more important question might be why?

Some common reasons that people dislike cooking include the following: lack of skill, lack of confidence, boredom, or you could simply dislike the inevitable clean up far more than you enjoy the process of cooking. For each of these, there are solutions if you are willing to make the effort.

A lack of skill when it comes to cooking can be easily corrected in most cases by taking a few cooking classes. Classes are offered for varying degrees of skill sets and are meant to help you develop your cooking talents while teaching you the basics of meal planning and preparation. You can increase your skills by taking more classes down the road.

While a lack of confidence is a little more difficult to address having a few ‘dinner parties’ in which your quests can compliment your culinary talents can often solve this particular dilemma. The key in this process is to plan your menu carefully and remain well within your comfort zone. You will be amazed at the wonderfully rich and delicious meals that can be prepared with very little effort if you are willing to sift through the recipe books in order to find them.

Boredom in the kitchen is perhaps one of the easiest problems to fix there is. The solution is exceedingly simple-find a challenge. Try cooking Thai or Indian cuisine. Try more difficult recipes. Try making only meals from scratch or simply try broadening your use of spices and seasonings. There are many things you can do in order to bring some excitement back into your kitchen. You may even discover hidden talents and tastes in the process.

There will always be clean up. Good suggestion is to make a deal with either your partner or your children and they can draw straws over who cleans up. Of course if this won’t work in your family, you could always turn over a new leaf and clean as you go whenever possible. This makes the clean up process after dinner so much simpler to handle that it is well worth a few extra minutes during meal prep.

Cooking for pleasure is really the only way to cook. If you have difficulties when it comes to finding the enjoyment and entertainment value of cooking, perhaps it’s time you bring some fun back into your kitchen. And you’ll feel that Cooking is a pleasure rather than a chore.