A rainy Sunday afternoon

What to do on a rainy and blustery afternoon with two six year olds? Spread as much flour and mess around the place as humanly possible of course. Years ago I bought a book on making pasta by Guiliano Hazan, "Classic Pasta Cookbook", which features beautiful pictures of all the varieties of pasta along with illustrated instructions on making the dough and sauces to match each pasta type. The twins love to cook and making pastry is their all time favourite, so roll over Jamie Oliver it's pasta time at our place. It is a brilliant and constructive way to amuse them with the added bonus of them preparing their own dinner. Added motivation for them also; making it appetising enough to eat.

They are a bit wimpy about getting their hands messy in the initial stages but more than happy to measure out the ingredients from the recipe book after collecting them all up. They give me loads of instruction and encouragement along the way, the rolling out initially is a bit tough for them but with the machine, they are pros.

All the tools were out this time around and they rolled, shaped, and constructed for around 3 hours, it was the most peace I have had in days. The tortelloni shaper came out and they made their own filling - goat cheese and HP sauce. Benjamin turned out to be quite a good tortelloni maker, neatly wetting the edges and pinching them in like a pro.

Oliver made an original "HP bowl", which translates into a bowl made of fettucine strips and filled with HP sauce, was completely inedible (yes, we cooked it) but he enjoyed creating it.

We then made 'butterflies', 'garganelli' (tubes) and our own version of 'cavatappi' (corkscrews).

Oliver even created some spring like pieces out of his fettucine pieces.