Materials & extras
Downloads
Handouts, flashcards, and note cards from your instructor. Print any of them.
HandoutHandout 1: Supply & Shopping List — Weeknight Italian Cooking
Handout 1: Supply & Shopping List — Weeknight Italian Cooking
Okay so before our first class, here's what you need. I kept this short on purpose. You don't need a truck full of gadgets to make good weeknight pasta, you need like six real things and a decent pan. Everything else is bonus.
I split this into "budget" (what actually gets you cooking) and "nice-to-have" (stuff that's fine to skip, or grab used). Bring what you've got. We'll cook the stove you have, not the one in some video.
Equipment — Budget Tier
- One big pot for pasta water. Doesn't need to be fancy, just needs to hold a gallon-ish of water.
- One good pan. A 12-inch skillet, nonstick or stainless, whatever you already own. This is your sauce pan and honestly does 80% of the work in this class.
- A wooden spoon. For stirring and for tasting off of, which we'll do constantly.
- A knife you keep sharp and a cutting board. Doesn't need to be expensive, needs to actually cut.
- A colander for draining pasta. If you don't have one, a slotted spoon works in a pinch.
- Measuring cup, just one, mostly for pasta water math.
That's genuinely it. If you own those six things you're ready for every class in this series.
Equipment — Nice to Have
- Tongs. Makes tossing pasta in sauce way easier than a spoon, but a spoon works.
- A microplane or fine grater, for garlic and cheese. I use mine constantly but I survived without one for years.
- A second smaller pan, if you want to do sauce and a side veggie at the same time.
- A kitchen scale. I don't use one. Some people like them for pasta portions. Your call.
If you're missing any of this, a DI run is usually your fastest, cheapest fix. I've built half my kitchen that way. Pans, wooden spoons, the occasional dented pot — all totally fine for what we're doing.
Pantry — Budget Tier
- Boxed dried pasta, a couple different shapes if you want variety. I'll say this now and I'll say it every class: dried pasta is great, you do not need fresh, don't let anyone talk you into it for a Tuesday.
- Canned crushed or whole tomatoes, good quality if you can, but store brand is fine.
- Olive oil. Regular is okay. Doesn't need to say "extra virgin" in gold letters.
- Garlic, fresh if you can, jarred minced if that's what gets you actually cooking. I'd rather you use jarred garlic than skip dinner over it.
- Kosher salt or any coarse salt. We salt in stages in this class, so grab a container you can pinch from easily.
- Parmesan-style cheese, the shelf-stable shaker kind is fine for now, we'll talk about the block kind later.
- A little red pepper flake, optional but I like it.
Pantry — Nice to Have
- A block of real parmesan you grate yourself. Noticeably better, costs more, worth it if your budget allows.
- Fresh basil. Nice touch, not required. It's genuinely finicky to keep alive up here with our dry air, so don't feel bad if it dies on your counter in a week.
- A can of white beans. This is my move for bulking up a plain pasta if someone's hungry after a workout — Heather does this a lot around her spin classes.
- Good balsamic or red wine vinegar, for the salad dressing trick we'll do (spoiler: it's a jar and a lid, that's the whole trick).
Shopping notes
Macey's or Costco covers basically all of this. Buy pasta and canned tomatoes in bulk if you go through Costco, they don't go bad and you'll use them. Fresh garlic keeps for weeks in a cool spot, so grab a full bulb even if a recipe only needs one clove.
Bring your receipts to your brain, not to me — I'm not grading anybody's shopping. Just show up with the basics and we'll cook.
~devin
HandoutHandout 2: The Cheat Sheet
Handout 2: The Cheat Sheet
Pin this to your fridge, or take a photo of it on your phone, whatever works. This is the stuff I keep repeating in class until people are sick of hearing it. If you only remember four things from this whole course, let it be this page.
---
The Order of Operations (this one matters most)
Sauce first. Always sauce first.
Sauce can sit on low heat for twenty minutes and get better. Pasta cannot. Pasta done and waiting turns into a brick of glue in about four minutes flat. I learned this the hard way with six pounds of spaghetti sitting around at a group dinner. Start your sauce, get it going, then put your pasta water on.
Salt, Water, Pasta
- Pasta water should taste like the ocean. Not a splash of salt, a real handful. This is basically the only chance the noodle itself has to taste like anything.
- Elevation note: we're up around 4,600 feet here in American Fork, and water boils at a lower temp than sea level. That means your pasta box times are lying to you a little. Add a minute or two and start tasting a noodle early. Don't trust the box, trust your teeth.
- Save a mug of pasta water before you drain. You'll use it to loosen the sauce. This is the one "technique" I'll actually call a technique.
Salt in Stages (the real skill)
Salt a little when you start the aromatics. Salt again when the sauce is going. Taste. Salt again if it needs it. Taste again.
Most bland home cooking isn't a recipe problem, it's a "salted once and hoped" problem. And once it's salted twice by two different people who didn't talk to each other, you're stuck — you can't take salt back out. Ask me how I know.
Heat: Cook the Stove You Have
Every stove lies a little. Ours in our first apartment had one burner running twice as hot as the rest, and I just learned to use that one and move the pan around instead of trusting the dial. Your stove's got its own personality. Don't fight it, learn it. Medium on your stove might be medium-high on mine.
Garlic
Fresh garlic beats jarred garlic, no argument. But jarred garlic beats no dinner at all. If it's 6:45 and Heather's not home till 7 and jarred garlic is what gets you cooking, use the jarred garlic. I'd rather you eat something real than skip it chasing the "proper" version.
Also: more garlic is not automatically better. I learned that one from Heather's face the first time I tripled a recipe. There's a ceiling.
Equipment (you don't need much)
One good pan. One decent pot. A knife you actually keep sharp. That's most of it. Half the gadgets people buy end up at the DI within a year — I'm a little suspicious of anything that claims to save you time but takes up a whole drawer.
The Salad Trick
Jar, oil, vinegar, salt, shake it. Three minutes, no stove needed, and it makes the plate feel like an actual meal instead of just noodles. If you've got a kid who calls salad "grass," let them shake the jar themselves. Works better than any dressing recipe I've found.
When Things Go Sideways
Taste it. Fix it. Eat it anyway. Nobody at my table has ever refused dinner because the sauce was a little off. Cook, don't panic.
~devin
Worksheet```markdown
```markdown # Weeknight Italian — Handout 3: Your Sauce-and-Timing Checklist
This is the one to tape inside a cabinet. It's not a recipe, it's the order stuff has to happen in so you're not standing there with cold spaghetti wondering where it all went wrong. Fill it in as we cook tonight so you've got your own notes, in your own words, for when you're home alone doing this at 6:45 on a Tuesday.
---
Before you start
- [ ] Water's on to boil — big pot, salted till it tastes like the ocean (yes, really)
- [ ] Remember: at our elevation things take a little longer than the box says. Add a minute or two and taste to check, don't just trust the clock.
- [ ] Garlic's peeled, pan's out, sauce ingredients are within arm's reach
Write it down: what's your one pan tonight? ___________________________
---
The order that actually matters
- Sauce starts first. Always. Sauce can sit and wait for you. Pasta cannot — it turns into a brick. If you remember one thing off this whole page, remember this line.
- Pasta goes in only once the sauce is going and you've got maybe 10-12 minutes left on it.
- Taste the sauce. Then taste it again in a few minutes. Then again before it hits the plate.
Your notes — what did the sauce need each time you tasted it?
- First taste: ___________________________
- Second taste: ___________________________
- Right before serving: ___________________________
---
Salt checklist (in stages, not all at once)
- [ ] Salted the pasta water
- [ ] Salted the sauce a little, early
- [ ] Tasted before adding more
- [ ] Tasted again near the end
- [ ] Didn't let anyone else salt it behind my back (learned that one the hard way — ask me sometime)
Salt is the easiest thing to fix and the easiest thing to ruin. You can always add more. You can't take it out. Tasting as you go is genuinely the whole skill, more than any technique.
---
Garlic gut-check
Circle one, honestly:
Fresh garlic / jarred garlic / I forgot to buy garlic
All three are fine answers. Fresh is better if you've got it. Jarred beats not cooking at all. Don't let a missing ingredient be the reason you order out.
---
Pasta shape used tonight
Don't worry about the proper name if you blank on it (I do too, half the time). Just describe it:
_______________________________________________
---
The side
- [ ] Made a simple green salad
- [ ] Dressing was oil + vinegar, shaken in a jar, nothing fancier than that
- [ ] Took under 3 minutes
If you've got kids who won't touch salad, let them shake the jar. Something about making it themselves gets them to actually eat it. Works more than you'd think.
---
After dinner, be honest with yourself
- Did I start the sauce before the pasta? Y / N
- Did I taste more than once? Y / N
- Would I make this again on an actual weeknight, not just in class? Y / N
If you answered yes to that last one, you've got a real one. Write it below so you don't lose it.
Tonight's keeper recipe: ___________________________
---
Bring this sheet home and stick it somewhere you'll see it. Next time you're standing at the stove at 6:40 wondering what order to do things in, it's all right here.
~devin ```
HandoutHandout 4: When Things Go Sideways
Handout 4: When Things Go Sideways
Every one of these has happened to me, usually more than once. None of it means you're bad at this. Here's the fix.
1. Pasta turned into a clump
This is almost always a timing problem, not a you problem. Pasta doesn't wait around, it just keeps cooking and starts gluing itself together. Fix for tonight: toss it with a little olive oil and a splash of the pasta water, it'll loosen back up. Fix for next time: start your sauce first, always. Sauce is patient. Pasta is not. I say this in every single class.
2. Sauce tastes flat
Probably needs salt, but don't just dump more in blind. Taste it, add a pinch, taste again. Salting in stages is the actual skill here, not some fancy technique. You can always add salt. You cannot take it back out. Ask me how I know.
3. Sauce got too salty
See above, this is why you taste as you go instead of salting once and hoping. If it's already too far gone, a splash of cream or a spoon of butter mellows it out some. A little sugar can help too. Next time is really the fix.
4. Garlic tastes bitter or burnt
Garlic goes in the pan late and comes out fast, thirty seconds to a minute in warm oil, not screaming hot oil. If it's browning dark or smells sharp and acrid, it's gone too far and there's no saving it, you start that step over. Also — and I say this as a guy who once tripled a garlic recipe because "more is better" — there is in fact a ceiling. Heather still brings that up.
5. Pasta box times are off up here
We're sitting around 4,600 feet, and water boils at a lower temperature at elevation, so things genuinely take a little longer than the box says. I didn't know this for years, somebody told me at a Costco checkout of all places. Add a minute or two, taste a noodle before you trust the clock.
6. Sauce breaks or looks greasy/separated
Usually means it got too hot too fast, or you added cold pasta water instead of warm. Turn the heat down, add a small splash of warm pasta water, and stir it back together off the heat. It's fixable most of the time, don't panic and dump it.
7. One side of the pan cooks faster than the other
Some stoves just run hot on one burner. Our first apartment had one burner that was basically a blowtorch. You don't fight it, you just move the pan around and adjust. Cook the stove you have, not the one in the video.
8. Garlic (or onion) sticking and burning to the pan
Usually the pan was too hot before anything went in, or there wasn't enough oil. Lower the heat, add a touch more oil, and don't walk away during this step. This is a stand-there-and-stir moment, not a check-your-phone moment.
9. Whole dinner running behind schedule
Sauce first, pasta second, that order fixes most of this on its own. If you're still behind, hold the pasta a few minutes past done rather than undercook it to save time. Slightly late and good beats on-time and gluey.
10. Kid won't touch the salad
Let them make the dressing. Just oil and vinegar shook up in a jar, that's it. My kid Oakley called salad "grass" for about a year until making the dressing became their job. Suddenly it's edible. Works more often than it should.
If something goes wrong that's not on this list, that's fine too, just taste it, adjust, and keep moving. Worst case you eat it anyway. Most nights that's the whole job.
~devin
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 1
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay wait, say that again, because I don't think the recorder was going yet.
DEVIN: Which part.
JESS: The dough part.
DEVIN: Oh. Yeah. So I tried making pasta from scratch exactly once. Fresh, from flour, the whole thing. And it was a disaster. Flour everywhere, on the dog somehow, and the dough itself ended up like cement. Like I could've patched a driveway with it.
JESS: And this is you, guy who now teaches a pasta class.
DEVIN: This is me, yeah. I threw the whole batch out, opened a box of the regular stuff, and dinner was great twenty minutes later. No shame about it. I will die on the hill that boxed dried pasta is genuinely good and nobody needs to prove anything to themselves with a rolling pin on a Tuesday.
JESS: For people just tuning in, this is Weeknight Italian Cooking, episode one, I'm Jess, I run the podcast side of things for Utah Community Learning, and this is Devin, who teaches the actual class.
DEVIN: Which starts next week, so this is kind of the preview.
JESS: Right. So tell people who you are. Like actually, not the bio.
DEVIN: I'm not a chef. I want that said early so nobody shows up expecting some restaurant thing. I got into this because my wife Heather taught spin classes and later ran early morning stuff at the gym, so a lot of nights she wasn't home till 7, and if I wanted to eat before 8 I had to figure it out myself. Started with pasta because it's cheap and it's hard to fully ruin.
JESS: Hard to fully ruin. I like that as a pitch.
DEVIN: It's true though. Then I watched this old guy on YouTube, no music, no personality, just a pan and a wooden spoon, make a tomato sauce out of like five ingredients. And it beat anything I'd had at a chain restaurant. That was the whole hook for me. Not fancy. Just, you can do this yourself, fast, with stuff from any store.
JESS: Okay give me one thing, right now, that somebody listening could use tonight without ever taking the class.
DEVIN: Start your sauce before your pasta.
JESS: That's it?
DEVIN: That's the one. I learned this the hard way cooking for a big group once, had six pounds of spaghetti done twenty minutes before the sauce was ready. Cold spaghetti turns into a brick, literally a brick, it clumps up and there's no saving it. Sauce will wait for you. It's patient. Pasta is not patient, pasta wants to be eaten the second it's done or it starts turning into paste.
JESS: So sauce first, always.
DEVIN: Sauce first, always. Get that going, then worry about your water.
JESS: And speaking of water, you've got the whole elevation thing you tell people.
DEVIN: Oh yeah, I'll save that one for the actual class, it's a good one, involves a Costco checkout line. But short version, we're up around 4,600 feet here and water boils a little lower, so everything takes a bit longer than the box says. Nobody tells you that. I want people to know it up front so they don't feel dumb standing there wondering why their pasta's still crunchy at nine minutes.
JESS: What's session one actually look like, for people deciding if they want to sign up.
DEVIN: Hands in dough — well, not dough, we're not doing that again — hands on a pan within the first ten minutes. I don't love standing around watching a demo for an hour, it's a slow leak, everybody loses steam. So you'll have a station, you'll be cooking almost right away, and I'll just walk around and talk while people work.
JESS: Taste as you go.
DEVIN: Taste as you go, yeah, that's basically the whole class in three words. Most home cooking goes wrong because people salt once at the start and just hope. Salting in stages and tasting constantly, that's the actual skill, more than any technique.
JESS: Alright, plug session two for me before we wrap.
DEVIN: Session two we're doing the tomato sauce, the real one, the one that started this whole thing for me, plus a salad trick that got my kid Oakley to actually eat vegetables, which is a longer story I'll tell in the room. Bring a appetite and don't eat lunch that day.
JESS: Missing an "n" there but we'll leave it.
DEVIN: Ha, yeah, leave it in. That's the class too, honestly, nothing's that polished.
JESS: This has been episode one. See you all next week.
DEVIN: ~devin
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 2
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay but did it actually get inedible, or is that a Devin exaggeration for the podcast?
DEVIN: No, literally inedible. I'm not exaggerating for content. I'd already salted the sauce, walked away to deal with Oakley about something, and Heather came through the kitchen, tasted it, said "needs salt," and salted it again.
JESS: Because she didn't know you'd already done it.
DEVIN: Right, no communication, no system. We sat down to eat and it was like eating the ocean. Oakley took one bite and just looked at us.
JESS: So that's where "salt in stages" comes from.
DEVIN: That's exactly where it comes from. Now I salt a little, taste, salt a little more, taste again. It sounds fussy but it's literally the whole skill of cooking, if you want to know the truth. Recipes are guesses. Your tongue is the actual instrument.
JESS: I like that. Your tongue is the instrument.
DEVIN: Put that on a shirt.
JESS: We are not putting that on a shirt, Devin.
DEVIN: Fine. But tell people anyway. Taste as you go, every stage, not just at the end when it's too late to fix anything.
JESS: Okay, so for anybody listening who isn't even signed up for the class — what's one thing they could do tonight, no class required?
DEVIN: Start your sauce before you start your pasta. That's the one. People do it backwards all the time, they get the pasta going first because it feels like the long part, and then the sauce is still watery and thin when the pasta's done, and now you're standing there stirring a pot of spaghetti getting more and more glued together while you wait.
JESS: Because pasta doesn't wait.
DEVIN: Pasta waits for no one. I learned this the hard way — I was cooking for like a group of twelve one time, did the math on my pasta water wrong, and I had six pounds of spaghetti sitting there done a full twenty minutes before the sauce caught up. Turned into basically a brick. A spaghetti brick.
JESS: Did you serve the brick?
DEVIN: We serve everything, Jess, that's the rule. We ate the brick. But now sauce goes on first, every single time, no exceptions, and I will not shut up about it in class, ask anybody who's taken it.
JESS: I believe you. Okay, tell the camera story. People love the camera story.
DEVIN: Oh, the plate thing. So I started bringing my camera to the class dinners, just to get shots for the flyers and stuff, and I could not stop reframing people's plates. Like everybody's trying to eat and I'm going "hang on, hang on, the light's better if you turn it a little."
JESS: You're micromanaging people's dinner.
DEVIN: Basically, yeah. And finally one of the ladies in class just looks at me and says, "are you gonna eat or shoot?" And she was completely right. I laughed so hard. I still do it though. I can't help it. If your pasta looks good I'm gonna ask you to hold still for one second.
JESS: Consider yourselves warned, everybody.
DEVIN: Consider yourself warned.
JESS: Okay, last thing — what's next session, give people a preview.
DEVIN: Next time we're doing a real weeknight sauce from basically nothing, a can of tomatoes, garlic, a little bit of this and that, the kind of thing that old YouTube guy taught me way back when. Five ingredients, twenty minutes, better than most restaurants around here honestly. And we'll do the jar salad again because I think it's the most underrated three minutes in cooking.
JESS: The jar salad's a fan favorite.
DEVIN: It's a genuinely good trick. Oil, vinegar, salt, shake it in whatever jar's in your recycling bin, done. My kid invented half of my teaching material by refusing to eat "grass" for a year, so.
JESS: We'll get that story eventually.
DEVIN: Different episode. Alright, that's it for me.
JESS: That's episode two. See you all at the next session.
DEVIN: ~devin
podcast_scriptClass podcast — episode 3
Audio coming soon — show notes below.
JESS: —okay but that's the third time you've said "cook the stove you have" this semester, I might put it on a mug.
DEVIN: Put it on a mug. I'll buy one. It's literally true though. People come in thinking their stove is broken because their burner doesn't match the video. Nothing's broken. It's just your stove.
JESS: Which, speaking of broken stoves, tell the Ogden one.
DEVIN: Oh man. Okay so our first apartment, Heather and I, one burner ran about twice as hot as the other three. No idea why. Landlord shrugged. So I just learned to cook everything on that one burner and move the pan around when it got too hot. Slide it half off, slide it back. That's how I made basically every meal for two years.
JESS: That sounds stressful.
DEVIN: It was fine, honestly, it taught me more than a nice stove would've. You start paying attention to what the heat's actually doing instead of trusting a dial. That's the whole skill really. Taste as you go, watch as you go.
JESS: Alright, so this week's episode listeners are hearing is the salting one, right?
DEVIN: Yeah, week three, salt in stages. Which by the way — real quick, free tip, you don't have to take the class for this one — salt your pasta water like it's actually seasoning the pasta, not just the water. It should taste a little salty on its own before you drop the noodles in. Most people are scared of it and end up with bland pasta no matter what sauce they put on top.
JESS: How salty is "a little salty."
DEVIN: Like, you taste it and go oh, okay, that's seasoned. Not ocean water, people overcorrect once they hear that phrase. Just enough that it's not flat.
JESS: This feels connected to the anecdote you told me for this one.
DEVIN: Yeah so this is the one where I salted a whole pot of sauce, tasted it, thought it was good, walked away. Heather comes in, tastes it, has no idea I already did it, salts it again. By dinner it was basically inedible. Like a science experiment.
JESS: Did you eat it anyway.
DEVIN: We tried for like four bites and then ordered pizza. That's the real ending of most of my kitchen disasters honestly, pizza shows up eventually. But that's exactly why I preach the stages thing now. Salt a little, taste, salt a little more, taste again. You can always add salt. You cannot take it back out of a pot of sauce, I have tried, it does not work.
JESS: So the lesson from a marriage mishap is basically "communicate with your household about salt."
DEVIN: Genuinely yes. Salt is a team sport in a kitchen. Somebody's gotta be the one keeping track.
JESS: Okay, last thing, give people a preview of next week without giving away the whole lesson.
DEVIN: Next time we're doing the sauce-before-pasta thing hands-on, which sounds boring when I say it out loud but it's the one people actually thank me for a year later. Somebody always comes back like "I started doing sauce first and dinner just works now." That's it. That's the whole magic trick. We'll do a simple tomato sauce, real garlic if you've got it, jarred if you don't, nobody's grading you on that.
JESS: And a salad?
DEVIN: Obviously a salad. Jar, oil, vinegar, shake it up. If you've got a kid who thinks salad is grass, let them shake the jar. Works every time, I've never seen it fail.
JESS: We'll leave it there. See everybody next week.
DEVIN: Bring a jar with a lid that actually seals, that's your homework.
~devin
FlashcardsPrintable flashcards — Weeknight Italian Cooking
Print it, fold it, stick it on the fridge.
Weeknight Italian Cooking — Flashcard Set
Cut these out along the lines. Front on one side, back on the other, or just keep 'em as a stack and flip through. I made these for me first, honestly — figured you'd want the same cheat sheet.
---
FRONT BACK What do you actually need to cook this stuff? A big pot, a decent skillet, a wooden spoon, and a knife that's actually sharp. That's it. The garlic press and the pasta fork with the little teeth thing — those went to the donation pile years ago. Cook the stove you have Every stove's got a hot spot. Find yours (drop some water in a dry pan, see where it boils first) and just move the pan when things are cooking unevenly. You're not fighting the stove, you're working with it. Why is boxed dried pasta actually good? It's cheap, it doesn't go bad for a year, and it holds up to real cooking — sauce, reheating, all of it. Fresh pasta's nice for a Sunday project. Tuesday needs the box. Salt in stages — what's that mean? Salt the pasta water, salt the sauce as you build it, taste again before serving. One shot of salt at the end never fixes it right. Taste along the way or you're guessing. Why start the sauce first, always? Sauce takes longer than pasta no matter what you're making. Get it going, THEN worry about the water. Do it backwards and you're standing there with soggy noodles waiting on tomatoes. Garlic: fresh vs. jarred? Fresh is better, no argument. But jarred garlic beats standing there with nothing because you didn't have a clove. Rule at my house: jarred beats no dinner. How do you know when the sauce is "done"? You taste it, not the clock. Building a sauce is really just tasting it four or five times and asking "does this need something." That's the whole skill. Sauce is too salty — now what? A little sugar, a splash of cream if it's that kind of sauce, or just more unsalted tomato to dilute it. Don't panic, don't dump it. Sauce is too thin — now what? Let it sit uncovered a few more minutes and it'll reduce. Or use a spoonful of that starchy pasta water — more on that later. Sauce tastes flat — now what? Usually it's salt or acid it's missing, not some fancy ingredient. Squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar can wake the whole thing up. How much salt for pasta water? I don't measure. I just salt it till it tastes like the ocean — a little aggressive, honestly. If you want a number, a palmful for a big pot's a fine start. Why are box pasta times wrong at 4,600 feet? Water boils cooler up here, so it takes longer to actually cook the pasta through. The box was written for sea level. Start checking a couple minutes before it says to and just taste a piece. Should you time the pasta or the sauce first? Time the pasta TO the sauce, not the other way. Sauce is already going — pasta goes in when the sauce needs about 10-12 more minutes, roughly, depending what you're making. Why save pasta water? That cloudy water's got starch in it, and starch helps sauce cling to noodles instead of sliding off into a puddle. Scoop out a mugful before you drain, every time. How do you "finish" pasta in the pan? Drained pasta goes straight into the sauce pan, not the other way around. Toss it together over heat with a splash of that pasta water till it looks glossy, not soupy. What's the jar dressing trick? Give a kid an empty jar, oil, vinegar, a couple things to shake in, let them build their own dressing. A kid will eat almost anything they made themselves. Works better than begging. What's a good oil-to-vinegar ratio? People say 3-to-1, and that's fine as a starting point. But taste it. Some vinegars are sharper than others — go by your tongue, not the ratio. How do you keep greens from going soggy? Wash them, then actually dry them — salad spinner or just a clean towel. Wet greens water down your dressing and everything gets sad and limp. What are good cheap add-ins? Canned white beans, frozen peas, whatever vegetable's wilting in the crisper, olives, capers if you've got 'em. Almost any aisle in the store's got something that'll work. What's the order of operations for a 30-minute dinner? Sauce on first. Water on to boil while sauce builds. Pasta in when sauce is close. Greens or sides get done in the gaps. Everything lands at the table close to together — not perfect, close. How do you cook two things at once without losing it? Don't start both at full attention. Get one going, walk away for two minutes, come back, adjust. Cooking's mostly waiting with occasional stirring — treat it that way. How do you bulk up a pasta dinner? Drained canned white beans stirred in at the end, or shredded rotisserie chicken. Cheap protein, no extra pan required really, and it turns a light dinner into an actual meal. How should you plate it? However it comes out. Mine's not going in a magazine — I twirl it in the bowl a little, throw some cheese on top, and call it done. It looks like food. That's the bar. Can you swap pasta shapes around? Pretty much, yeah. Tubes hold chunky sauce, twisty ones grab thinner sauce, long noodles want something clingy. But if the shape you want isn't on the shelf, grab what's cheap and go. What convenience shortcuts still get you real food? Jarred sauce as a base you doctor up, pre-minced garlic in a pinch, bagged salad mix already washed. None of it's cheating if it gets dinner on the table. How do you cook for a crowd, or a graze-all-night thing? Double the sauce, not the pasta — cook pasta in batches so it doesn't turn to glue sitting around. Or just keep a big pot of sauce warm and let people help themselves whenever. What are "your three or four keepers"? The handful of dishes you can make without thinking — for me it's a basic tomato sauce, a garlic-oil pasta, and a bean-and-greens thing. Get those down cold before you go looking for more. ---
One more thing — you don't need all 20-some of these memorized by next week. Pick three, cook 'em till you stop looking at the card, then come back for the rest.
Memory helpsMnemonics & memory helps
Print it, fold it, stick it on the fridge.
Mnemonics & Memory Helps ### Weeknight Italian Cooking with Devin
I'm not a "memory palace" guy. But I make pasta on a weeknight with a kid yelling in the next room, so I've had to come up with dumb little tricks that stick. Here's what I actually use. Steal whatever works, ignore the rest.
---
"Sauce First, Always" = SFA, Same F—ing Answer
This is the one thing I want you to leave with if you leave with nothing else. Whatever question you have about timing dinner — when do I start the water, when do I chop the onion, when do I panic — the answer is: sauce's already going. Start the sauce, THEN worry about everything else. It's the "same answer" to basically every timing question in this class.
Unpacks: Start the sauce first, always / Order of operations for a 30-minute dinner / Timing pasta to the sauce, not the other way around
---
The Shopping List Is "GOB" — Garlic, Oil, Boxed pasta
Three things you actually need before you need anything else. If you've got GOB in the house, you can make dinner. Everything past that is upgrades. I say it out loud in the grocery store like an idiot and it's saved me a wasted trip more than once.
Unpacks: What you actually need (and what ends up at the DI) / Why boxed dried pasta is genuinely great / Garlic: fresh beats jarred, jarred beats no dinner
---
"Salt Like You're Telling It Three Times"
You salt the water, you salt the sauce as it goes, you taste and salt again near the end. Three separate conversations with the same pot. If you only salt once, at the start, it's like saying something once and hoping it landed — it didn't. Say it three times, in three different moments, and it actually sinks in.
Unpacks: Salt in stages and taste as you go / Salting the water and measuring by hand
---
Your Stove Is a Weather Map, Not a Dial
Every burner has a hot spot and a cold spot, and the numbers on the knob are basically decorative. Think of it like checking the weather before you leave the house — you're not fighting the stove, you're reading it and moving the pan to where the actual heat is. I picture little clouds. It's dumb. It works.
Unpacks: Cook the stove you have: hot spots and moving the pan
---
The Sauce Fix Triangle: Salty → Sweet, Thin → Time, Flat → Fat
When a sauce goes wrong it's almost always one of three problems, and each one has basically one fix:
Problem Fix Too salty A little sugar or a splash of cream cuts it Too thin Let it sit on low longer, it wants time not heat Flat / boring Butter, olive oil, or parm at the end — fat carries flavor I picture a triangle with those three words on the points. Whatever's wrong, go to that corner.
Unpacks: Fixing a sauce that's too salty, thin, or flat / Building the sauce and tasting your way there
---
"4,600 and Rising" — Add a Couple Minutes and Taste Early
At our elevation, water boils cooler, so the box times lie to you a little. My rule: whatever the box says, start checking two minutes early, and expect it might need one or two extra past the box time to get there. The number "4,600" is just a flag in my head that says don't trust the box blindly here.
Unpacks: Elevation at 4,600 feet: why the box times are off
---
"Save the Milk" — Pasta Water Is Not Trash
Before you dump that pot, remember: that cloudy water is basically flavored, starchy milk for your sauce. I tell myself "save the milk" right as I'm about to pour it down the drain, because that's exactly the moment you forget. A mug's worth, right before you drain — that's your insurance policy for a sauce that's too thick or too dry once the pasta hits the pan.
Unpacks: Saving pasta water and finishing in the pan / Timing pasta to the sauce, not the other way around
---
"A Kid Will Eat Anything They Built" — The Jar Trick
This isn't really a memory device for you, it's one for THEM. Give a kid an empty jar, oil, vinegar, and let them shake it themselves, and suddenly salad's not the enemy. I remind myself of this every time dinner's a fight: ownership beats persuasion. Let them build it, they'll eat it.
Unpacks: The jar dressing trick / Oil, vinegar, and getting the ratio to taste / Washing and drying greens so nothing goes soggy
---
The "Three or Four Keepers" Rule
I didn't learn forty recipes. I learned three or four that I actually make on repeat, and I got good at riffing on those. So don't try to remember everything from this class — pick your three or four, cook them enough times you stop needing the paper, and consider that a win. Everything else here (bulking with beans or chicken, swapping pasta shapes, cooking for a crowd) is just seasoning on top of those three or four.
Unpacks: Your three or four keepers, and where to go next / Add-ins from any store aisle / Swapping pasta shapes: the tubes, the twisty ones, whatever's cheap / Bulking it up: white beans or chicken for people who lift / Cooking for a crowd or a graze-all-night pot / Convenience shortcuts that still get you real food / Cooking two things at once without panic / Plating it
---
None of these are clever. They're just the sentence I say to myself in my own kitchen when I'm one step from ordering a pizza instead. If they help you get to a plate of food, that's the whole job done.
Cheat sheetOne-page note card — Weeknight Italian Cooking
Print it, fold it, stick it on the fridge.
WEEKNIGHT ITALIAN — FRIDGE NOTE
From Devin's class. Tape this inside a cabinet door and stop overthinking dinner.
---
The Fundamentals
What The Rule Sauce first, always Start it before the pasta water even goes on. Sauce waits for pasta fine. Pasta does not wait for sauce. Garlic Fresh beats jarred. Jarred beats no dinner. Don't let perfect garlic be the reason you order out. Salt water Salty like it's mildly annoying to sip. No spoon measuring — just shake some in, taste it once, move on. Elevation (4,600 ft) Box times lie up here. Water boils cooler, so add 1–2 minutes to whatever the box says. Taste, don't trust cardboard. Timing pasta Pasta finishes with the sauce, not before it. Time the noodles to the sauce, not the other way around. Pasta water Save a mugful before you drain. It's salty, starchy, and it's what makes sauce cling instead of just sitting there. ---
Building & Fixing Sauce
- Taste constantly. You can't fix what you haven't tasted.
- Too salty → splash of pasta water or a little more tomato/cream to dilute.
- Too thin → let it sit uncovered, simmering, a few extra minutes. Patience, not flour.
- Too flat → salt first, then acid (splash of vinegar or lemon), then more garlic if it's still boring.
---
Real Talk on Ingredients
- Boxed dried pasta is genuinely great. Cheap, keeps forever, cooks predictably. No shame in it — it's not the fresh stuff's poor cousin.
- Any shape works. Tubes, twisty ones, whatever's on sale. Sauce chunky? Get a shape with ridges or holes. Sauce smooth? Doesn't matter — go cheap.
- What you need: good olive oil, canned tomatoes, dried pasta, garlic, salt, cheap parm if that's what's around. That's most nights.
- What ends up at the donation pile: the specialty vinegar, the truffle oil, the pasta attachment for the mixer. You know the stuff.
---
The Jar Dressing Trick
Kid-proofing salad: let them shake oil + vinegar + salt in a jar themselves. Ratio to taste — start 3:1 oil to vinegar and adjust. A kid eats what they built.
---
Stove & Method
- Cook the stove you have. Every burner's got a hot spot. Move the pan, not the food, if something's cooking uneven.
- Two things at once, no panic: sauce simmering low while pasta boils high. Nothing needs your full attention every second — just check in.
- 30-minute order of operations: water on → sauce starts → chop while it simmers → pasta in when sauce is close → drain, toss, eat.
---
Bulking It Up / Feeding More People
Need Add More protein White beans (cheap, no cooking) or shredded chicken A crowd Double the sauce before you double the pasta — sauce stretches easier Graze-all-night Big pot, low heat, let people come back for seconds whenever ---
Plating
Mine looks like food. I've made peace with it. Don't let a photo be the standard — a fork and a full stomach is the standard.
---
Your Keepers
Pick 3–4 of these and actually make them monthly. Everything else is bonus: 1. Basic tomato sauce 2. Garlic + oil pasta (aglio e olio, if you want the fancy name) 3. Jar dressing salad 4. One bulked-up version with beans or chicken
---
You don't need to be a chef. You need dinner on the table by 7. You've got this — go put water on.
Around the web
Sites we keep coming back to. Some picked by your instructor, some shared in class.
- Italian Cuisine (Wikipedia) ↗
A good overview of the regional traditions behind the dishes we'll be cooking in class.
- Pasta (Wikipedia) ↗
Useful background on pasta shapes and history if you want to know why we pair certain sauces with certain noodles.
- Risotto (Wikipedia) ↗
A quick read on the rice and technique behind risotto before we make it one weeknight.
- GialloZafferano ↗
One of Italy's most popular cooking sites, good for seeing how home cooks there actually make these recipes.
- The Kitchn ↗
A reliable site for approachable weeknight techniques and troubleshooting tips that translate well to Italian cooking.
- Serious Eats ↗
I send people here constantly for the science behind why a recipe works, especially their pasta and sauce breakdowns.
- Memorie di Angelina ↗
A smaller specialist blog run by someone deeply familiar with authentic regional Italian home cooking, worth bookmarking.
Videos worth your time
Hand-picked by your instructor, with notes on what to watch for.
- Easy Italian WEEKNIGHT RECIPES | What We Eat in a WeekPasta Grammar
Watch how they turn a handful of pantry staples into several different weeknight Italian meals without a big shopping list.
- 10 Super TASTY Italian Style Recipes & Ideas To Cook At HomeJamie Oliver
Watch Jamie Oliver keep each dish to just a few ingredients and simple steps, which is great for building confidence early on.
- How to make authentic Italian spaghetti sauce (gravy) from scratchMoneySmartFamily
Watch how the sauce builds flavor slowly from scratch, which is the base technique you will reuse in many other Italian dinners.
Practice corner
6 quizzes and 2 games. Playable by anyone, no account needed.
Open the practice corner →