Cooking With Uncle Mike.

My uncle Mike is an incredible chef. He makes the most amazing Pasta and Italian treats, and likes to do his cooking the old fashion way. No short cuts! He usually cooks up some special treats for the holidays, and this year he invited my cousin and I over to help out. We made Pasticci and Tortinetta. I'm not really a fan of Pasticci, but I love Tortinetta.

We started with the Pasticci, making a simple dough out of flour and egg. My uncle made the chocolate chestnut filling earlier in the day, so all we had to do was prepare the dough and fill it.

They look a lot like pierogies, but pierogies taste much better!

For the Tortinetta we made up another batch of dough, and used the pasta maker to cut it into linguine sized strips. We then had to cut all the strips into tiny little squares. A very grueling task!

After an hour or so of cutting tiny squares, they were ready to fry up!

We had a quick break for some yummy brie pasta, and then it was back to work.

We underestimated the amount we'd end up with, oops! We could've used a much bigger pot.

Just five of the eight trays we made. Delicious, but not for those with tooth troubles!

I hope we make this into a yearly tradition. It was fun to cook up something new!