T Stands For Remember, Remember the Fifth of November.

No, not because of Guy Fawkes Day. 5. November is my grandma' s birthday. Grandma would have been 122 years old. I thought this would be the perfect day to try to make her home-made macaroni, Cappellini, little hats. What others call orecchiette, little ears

I followed the pasta recipe found in the cookbook, Cooking with Nonna. I'm making the macaroni pictured in the upper-right corner. Had a cup of tea before I began.

Semolina flour and water are mixed to form a dough. I used my stand mixer according to the recipe to do the initial mixing.

When the dough came together to form a ball, it was time to knead. I did this by hand. The semolina dough is not as smooth or as easy to knead as the bread dough and ravioli dough, I'm used to working.

The dough ball wrapped in plastic wrap to rest. 

It's easier to work the dough in small batches. The cookbook stated to keep the dough under a damp towel. Ma used to keep her ravioli dough in two bowls to prevent the dough from drying out. One bowl to hold the dough, the other inverted as a cover. That's what I'm used to so that's what I did.

A small piece of dough is cut from a rope. Using a serrated knife to pull the bit of dough towards you, causes the dough to roll up. The macaroni could be removed and left to dry at this point. The pasta shape would be called cavatelli. To make the hats, you flip the dough over your thumb and turn the pasta inside out.

See? A little hat.

The cappellini are left to dry on cotton dishcloths. I was worried the macaroni would stick to the cloth so I lightly dusted the cloth with all-purpose flour. Grandma used to dust the macaroni with flour to help dry them out so they could be stored or given away. Since I'll be cooking the macaroni for dinner, I skipped this step. Though I laughed remembering a family story. 

Grandma had come to our house to stay for a week. It was probably a school vacation and since Ma worked, Grandma could babysit the Brother and me. The Brother was probably 11 or 12 years old. I would have been 5 or 6 years old. On her regular macaroni making day, Grandma began her chore. The Brother asked if he could help. She had finished forming the little hats but gave him the job of dusting the macaroni with flour. She went to the other side of the kitchen to do the washing up or left for some reason or other. The Brother decided the process was taking too long, and he could speed it up by dumping the entire 5 lb. bag of flour all over the macaroni. He went off to play with friends.

Grandma wasn't happy when she saw what he had done. She had to take each little hat and carefully dust it off to try to salvage the macaroni and was upset by the extra work and the wasted flour.  When Ma got home from work, Grandma gave her an earful. In her broken English, she told my mother, "He's a niza boy, mut a somonabaitch." 😹

Each week, Grandma made pounds and pounds of cappellini. Enough for my family, my aunt's family, herself, and she made the macaroni as thank you gifts for people who did favors for her. We used to tease her that she could put the Prince Macaroni Company out of business.

Everyone into the pool!

Home-made macaroni cooks quicker than commercial pasta. The macaroni is cooked al dente when they float to the surface of the water. The cappellini took 6 or 7 minutes to cook.

Mmmm. Cappellini smothered in gravy with sausage and meatballs (not pictured). I think I did Grandma proud.

Drop by hosts, Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to find out what the rest of the T Stands For gang is up to. If you want to play, include in your Tuesday post a beverage or container for a beverage. Don't forget to link your blog to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's page.