Cooking & Baking

Weeknight Italian Cooking

Meets Wednesdays · 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM · on Zoom 8 enrolled Free to audit

This class is for busy people who want real dinners on a weeknight without buying a bunch of gear or learning to be a chef. I'm not a chef. I'm a guy who feeds his family after 6 and figured out a handful of things that actually work.

We'll cook every week, hands-on, from stuff you can grab at any regular store. You'll make a simple pasta, a quick tomato sauce with about five ingredients, and a cheap green salad with a shaken dressing that makes the plate feel like a real meal.

You'll leave with three or four dinners you'll actually make again. That's the whole point. Wednesdays, 6 to 8.

~devin

What you'll learn

Cook pasta perfectly adjusted for high elevation
Build a sauce from scratch while tasting constantly
Fix an overly salty, thin, or flat sauce
Time pasta and sauce to finish together
Assemble a full 30-minute weeknight dinner

Materials & tools

What to bring

Large pot for boiling pasta, at least 6-8 quart — $20-40 (any stockpot works)
Large skillet or sauté pan, 10-12 inch, with a lid — $25-50
Chef's knife, 8 inch, and a paring knife — $15-40 for a decent starter knife
Cutting board, large enough for an onion and a few tomatoes — $10-20
Colander for draining pasta — $8-15
Wooden spoon and a pair of tongs — $5-12
Box grater or a Microplane for hard cheese — $10-20
Measuring cups and spoons — $8-15
A few storage containers for leftovers and dressing — $8-15
Apron and a couple of kitchen towels — $10-20

Nice to have

Garlic press — $8-15
Instant-read thermometer — $12-20
Salad spinner for washing and drying greens — $15-30
Fine-mesh sieve for reserving pasta water cleanly — $10-15

Lessons

Your kitchen and your stove
Sorting out the few tools you actually need and learning the quirks of the stove you already cook on.
- What you actually need (and what ends up at the DI)15 min
- Cook the stove you have: hot spots and moving the pan18 min
Pasta and salt, the two basics
Why boxed dried pasta is genuinely great and how salting in stages builds flavor from the start.
- Why boxed dried pasta is genuinely great12 min
- Salt in stages and taste as you go20 min
Building a sauce from scratch
Starting the sauce first, handling garlic, tasting your way there, and fixing one that's too salty, thin, or flat.
Cooking the pasta right
Salting the water, adjusting box times for our elevation, timing pasta to the sauce, and finishing it in the pan.
A salad on the side
A jar dressing, the oil-to-vinegar ratio, drying your greens, and add-ins from any store aisle.
Timing the whole dinner
The order of operations for a 30-minute meal and cooking two things at once without panic.
- Order of operations for a 30-minute dinner22 min
- Cooking two things at once without panic25 min
Finishing the plate
Bulking the dish up with beans or chicken and plating it so it looks like a real meal.
- Bulking it up: white beans or chicken for people who lift18 min
- Plating it (mine looks like food and I've made peace with it)12 min
Variations and where to go next
Swapping pasta shapes, convenience shortcuts, cooking for a crowd, and picking the keepers you'll make again.

Key terms

Al dente: Pasta cooked until firm to the bite rather than soft, usually a minute or two less than the package time.
Pasta water: The starchy, salted water left after boiling pasta, saved by the cup to loosen and bind a sauce.
Soffritto: A gently cooked base of finely chopped onion, carrot, and celery that flavors many Italian sauces.
Emulsify: To combine fat and liquid, such as olive oil and vinegar or oil and pasta water, into a smooth, unified mixture.
Mise en place: Having all ingredients measured, chopped, and ready before you start cooking so the actual cooking goes fast.
Vinaigrette: A simple salad dressing of oil and an acid like vinegar or lemon juice, seasoned with salt and often mustard.
Extra-virgin olive oil: The least processed grade of olive oil, used for finishing dishes and dressings where its flavor stands out.
Reduce: To simmer a sauce so water evaporates, concentrating the flavor and thickening the texture.
Season to taste: Adjusting salt, pepper, and acid at the end by tasting and adding a little at a time until it's right.
Blooming: Briefly cooking garlic, dried herbs, or tomato paste in warm oil to release their flavor before adding liquid.