Help me gift homemade pasta and marina

November 27, 2016 5:23 PM

I am really good at making homemade pasta and marinara sauce but a novice at making it keep for a long while. I want to gift out lots of pasta and sauce this year but (Read: important) not kill everybody. Any tips?
posted by Senor Cardgage to Food & Drink (5 answers total)

When I have given gifts that require refrigeration/freezing, I have:

- given the person a card with an explanation inside and indicated that I will drive by later to drop off the gift
- ditto with the card, and had them in a cooler in the car (or, in freezing weather, just left them in the car) to give to the recipient on their way home.
- if the gift is for the host of the gathering, just surreptitiously added the gift to the present area right before people go to open them, and indicated after they open it that they should return it to the fridge/freezer.
posted by quaking fajita at 5:32 PM on November 27, 2016

Marinara is pretty easy to can! It's a little bit of a process but you'll just need sterilized jars and lemon juice. I can't recall which instructions I've used but it's definitely google-able. You didn't specify what kind of pasta you're making, but if it's not a stuffed pasta like ravioli or tortellini, you can lay it out on pasta drying racks and package it to gift once it's fully dry. (If it's not fully dry, it will mold.) If you're concerned because you're using egg for your pasta, don't worry - boiling it will kill everything.
posted by blackcatcuriouser at 5:59 PM on November 27, 2016 [2 favorites]

If you are going the canning route I strongly suggest you make sure the recipe and method source are reliable. The Ball canning book comes to mind, also some state extension services will have canning advice. I say this because I've googled methods in the past for things like jelly and sometimes the advice I came upon could either be questionable, or not exact and thorough enough to be good advice.
posted by Rufous-headed Towhee heehee at 2:22 AM on November 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

This sounds like a lovely idea but just be aware, if you have any botulism-phobic friends and family like me, they might not eat it. I would not eat any home-canned tomato sauce without knowing your process and that you followed safe canning measures to the letter. Especially if I knew it was your first time canning. If you gave it to to me fresh and I could either use it immediately or freeze it, yes. But canned or jarred...no way.
posted by Aquifer at 8:47 AM on November 28, 2016

last year I gave out linguini as a christmas present. Because I didn't plan far enough in advance, I froze it in little nests instead of drying it out. I was worried it was going to turn out weird when being used, but it separated well in the boiling water for the test batch I kept for myself.

Having given frozen food presents in the past (in Chicago) I often leave the gifts in a cooler in a car until gift giving time, and invest a couple dollars in icepacks to put with each gift to give it more time. Since it's typically cold enough outside, if we're still hanging out after exchanging gifts, We'll put the gifts on the porch to stay froze, or in people's cars.
posted by garlic at 5:54 PM on November 28, 2016