Spaghetti & Meatballs

Some of my favorite childhood memories are learning to cook and cooking with Nonna. My Nonna was a great chef and we would spend many nights experimenting and trying new things to make the family. She would always say things like: "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach!" And she was right! Everyone in my family loves the meals I make, and I owe it all to the cooking lessons with Nonna. It was the way she would put her heart into all the meals she made, choosing fresh ingredients for us, and growing her own herbs and vegetables when she could. The classics are usually the best received, like lasagna and spaghetti. It was important for her that I learn how to make my own pasta, from scratch, using a few different methods. I learnt how to use a pasta maker and how to roll the dough flat and hand cut pasta, how to make stuffed pasta like ravioli and how to make long flat noodles for the lasagna. Now-a-days, I don't always have the time or energy to make my own pasta, but the family still enjoys the spaghetti, and I usually make my own meatballs and sauce.

Another favorite was bread making. I can remember the smells of sweet, fresh oven baked bread wafting down the halls of my house making me very hungry! She would make a variety of breads, adding apricots and nuts for a fruity breakfast bread or seeds for a healthy bread, or even pizza crusts! Nothing beats a homemade pizza crust made with love from Nonna. As my husband was taught to make sausages, he would make his own spicy pepperoni and we would have the most delicious toppings on our pizza, so it was hard to call and order a pizza when you were used to such tasty homemade ones.

If you like authentic Italian cooking from all the regions of Italy, you will want to spend some time on this site. Rossella is the host of the all new online cooking show and food webisode series, Cooking with Nonna. Rossella was born into a family of culinary aficionado's and food lovers. Growing up there was always something on the stove, says Rossella a first generation Italian American from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. Her roots are from Mola di Bari, a small fishing village known as Mola where her parents were born. For Rossella cooking was never about cooking, it was about family, community and spending quality time with each other. Rossella spent most of her childhood in the kitchen with her maternal Grandmother Roman learning the long legacy of recipes passed down through the generations.

Some of the Italian recipes you will find on the site include three cheese pasta with zucchini and b�chamel recipe, Anelletti pasta with ricotta salata recipe, arborio rice with dry fava beans recipe, Arrabbiata sauce recipe, avocado pesto recipe, baked rigatoni recipe, baked rotini recipe, black tagliolini with calamari e Zucca recipe, meat soup recipe, broccoli and shells recipe, broccoli with Maritati pasta recipe, butternut squash ravioli with porcini sauce recipe, roasted butternut squash with homemade ricotta cheese ravioli recipe, gnocchi with peas and pancetta recipe, to name a few.

Now, it is my turn to share the information, and pass on the recipes to my family. I like to cook with my children and their favorite is spaghetti and meatballs! We like to make our own sauce and meatballs, but we use store bought pasta until they are a little older to learn how to make the noodles by hand like how I used to make.