Trip to Italy Day 23 –Early Lunch And Sorrento Cooking Class

Just as with the other kids visits, I arranged for a cooking class, at least one wine tasting, and a town visit or in this case, a town stay.  And for our first full day I was up at six am and ready to start my day.  Bev got up a couple of times and went back to bed and finally got up to stay along with Wende at 10:30 am.  About 11:30, Bev was ready to go get a little food so we went down to the Piazza Tasso (the main square) and ate at the Bar Ercolano.  One of her trip desires was to stay in town and walk down the street to eat at a cafe.

We started with orange and grape juice (fermented of course).

Then we had a bruschetta and a sandwich each of which would have been more than enough for both of us and they were both good.

After that we just relaxed and waited for our 3:30 cooking class which was nearby but all uphill so we took a taxi and these shots are while we waited for them to come and get us from their apartment – note the palm trees and oranges and Sorrento is a little north of Pittsburgh, PA.

Our hosts were Laura, the cook, and Frederica, her interpreter, and here they are at the dining room table where we ate.  

I picked this class because the dishes are all lemon based but I forgot to take a lot of pics.  The lemons are about triple the size of the ones we get in the US and these were picked that day.

Interestingly, this apartment is one of three in the old family home and two of them are rented and this one is just used for the cooking classes as Laura lives somewhere else.

Before the cooking started, we had appetizers (antipasto) and white wine.

Wende enjoying hers.

Then for the meal we began by making ravioli using the following recipe – I’d never heard of cooking pasta dough before.  I'll convert the recipe to English units and more servings when I get home.

Ravioli alla caprese (1 person)

In 100 ml of boiling water add a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil. Add 100 g of 00 flour and mix over low heat until it comes off the pan. Bring to work surface and knead vigorously until dough becomes smooth and soft. Let rest 20 minutes wrapped in plastic wrap. Roll out a very thin sheet with rolling pin and form ravioli. Stuff with ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella cheese.

Lemon sauce 🍋

In a blender place 100 g (3.5 oz) Parmesan cheese already grated, 40 g (1.4 oz) pine nuts, 40 g peeled almonds, 100 ml (3.4 oz.) extra virgin olive oil, basil, a pinch of salt, zest and juice of one organic lemon. Blend and use to season ravioli.

After Laura worked the dough hot, she gave us each a portion to knead some more then she put it all back together to rest for 30 minutes before we rolled it all out and turned it into raviolis using the fold it over method - forgot the pic darn it.

While the dough was resting, we made tiramisu which is normally lady fingers dunked in coffee, then mascarpone cheese all topped with cocoa powder.  For ours, we used this recipe:

Lemon Tiramisu🍋

Prepare 250 ml of custard scented with organic lemon peel.

Whip 200 ml cream with 250 g mascarpone and add to the custard, mixing well. Add more lemon peel.

Quickly dip the ladyfingers in a mixture of water and limoncello and alternate two layers of cream with two layers of cookies.

Let stand in the refrigerator for at least two hours before serving.

Next was the ravioli filling of ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella cheeses and the ravioli sauce - recipes above.

Next we made the secondo course of smoked provolone wrapped in a lemon leaf.

Finally we started a batch of limoncello using 90% grain alcohol and lemon peel, just as I do at home.  I believe the main thing I need to do with mine it add more water to weaken it a little.

So, our primo course was the ravioli and I thought it was outstanding (especially the sauce) so hopefully they will send us the promised recipes.

For our secondo course we had the baked wrapped smoked provolone in a lemon leaf.

The dessert (dolce) was our delicious and different tiramisu.

All-in-all a great experience as the food was delicious and our hostesses were knowledgeable and fun to be with.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

5/5/25 event dates