Hello .... is this thing on? (tap,tap) Is anyone out there? (crickets) Hmmm.... oh well.
Okay, I know I have not been at all regular, in any way, shape or form about writing on here. I apologize, and have no explanation/excuse to offer other then my complete and total laziness. Well, maybe one excuse - like the ten tons of studying I have to do just to be able to follow what's going on in Cantonese and not fall behind in class! But it's okay, I can do both. It's not like I have a habit of writing really long rambling posts that take up way too much time or anything. :)
The important thing is I'm back ... from outer space,I just walked in and found you here with that sad look upon your face ... oh, sorry, total Gloria Gaynor moment there. What was I saying? Oh yes, the blog. Henceforth I am going to attempt to write on a more regular basis, besides I've got a lot to write about and no one will listen to me other than YOU! (pretty please?!) Starting with:
HOME MADE PASTA! Come on, don't tell me you've never though about it. I know your secretly harboring a desire to spend hours covered in flour making your own noodles and a slow roasted tomato sauce. You're not? Really? Well I am/have been/do. Actually, if I could live anyplace, do anything - I would live on the Mediterranean coast. I would own a vineyard, with a couple acres of olives for making my own oil. And I would have a huge old world villa, with a courtyard and fountain (like the one from walk in the clouds). It would have a big huge kitchen with a really long solid wood table in the middle and a wood fire oven. I'd be like the Italian version of Donna reed, a pretty house dress, white apron, up early making bread. Oh yeah baby, that's me. Forget this woman's lib crap. lol. But I digress ...
I have honestly though, always been fascinated by pasta - wanted to be able to make my own. Especially when I heard that nothing tasted better. I'm mean, really? Is there that much of a difference? It's just flour, eggs, salt, oil and water. How can it taste any better fresh or dried? This became my mission in life. Though not my main mission, maybe not even my tertiary or whatever comes after tertiary mission - but it was a mission, out there on the back burner somewhere.
Then last year for my anniversary you may remember that my mom bough me my long coveted Kitchen Aid Mixer. I than learned you can get all kinds of attachments for the thing, meat grinders, ice cream makers & ... wait for it ... pasta makers! So I've been talking about going out and buying that attachment ever since. People must have got tired of hearing me talk about it, because for this years anniversary my husbands brothers & wives got the pasta attachments for me. I know! Aren't they nice. So of course, this lead to a dinner invitation for them, this Sunday, for home made pasta.
Then I got to thinking ... what if I suck. What if my pasta turns into some sticky, over boiled clump of yuckyness (word?)? The only thing to do was to have a trial run. Which then got me to thinking - wait a minute, how do you even make homemade pasta? I certainly don't have an old family recipe or an Italian grandmother to show me. Of course the attachment comes with an instruction book and a few recipes - but those kind always seem to suck eggs. So yesterday I took a trip to the book store. Excuse me for a moment while I pause and sigh a sigh of pure bliss about bookstores and coffee shops. *Sigh* Okay, good now. Anyways, a couple hours of scouring so called "Italian" cook books, a momentary distraction by the Ace of Cakes book (which I bought!) and I finally found one that I liked, had an actual home made pasta recipe and seemed like it would do the trick.
Allow me to introduce you to: Maxine Clark's Italian Kitchen - simple steps to great tasting Italian food. Just looking at this book makes me hungry. On p. 78 the section about making basic pasta dough starts. It's actually a lot simpler then I expected, though it is time consuming. After reading it through though, especially about the flours she likes to use (I had previously always though it was just plain old all-purpose flour), it seemed like a trip to the Italian grocery store was in order.
Fortunately the best one in the city (according to online peoples) is on centre street, only a few blocks away from where we live. I had thought about going in before but never had a reason to. Now I did. I needed Italian "00" flour. OMG, I love this place! And I am never allowed inside ever again! I could literally spend every cent I have here and leave a very happy camper. All the dishes, and cool cooking utensils - not to mention the food. Anyways, to make this long rambling post slightly less long, I found the flour - along with a chunk of good parm, a tub of good sheep's milk feta, and a jar of Lucini Tialia Tuscan Marinara with Roasted Garlic Sauce. Which is made with fresh vine-ripe tomatoes, 100% natural ingredients and is handcrafted in small batches according to the label. Thus making it ridiculously expensive. But we figured if we were going to make fresh home made pasta then it should have a really good quality sauce right? Right!
A very empty pocket book and a few hours later, (The dough gets mixed by hand, literally, on the counter - no bowl, then needs to rest a half hour) we started making supper. Making the pasta was one of the funnest things D and I have ever done together. As you run the dough through the machine through thinner and thinner settings it gets longer and longer so you need someone to help. Eventually you do have to cut it into three or four smaller pieces. After you've gotten it the thickness you want you hang it on a broom handle (I made sure to clean mine really well) to dry a little bit then you cut it. Our pasta maker came with cutting attachments for linguine or spaghetti and we had already decided on spaghetti. Feeding it through the cutter was probably the most fun and it was very rewarding to see all those noodles hanging there.
After making the pasta it was easy. A pot of well salted boiling water and five minutes later the pasta was ready. While it was boiling I quickly sauteed a small sliced zucchini with some roasted red pepper slices and then added half the jar of marinara sauce. When pasta was done it went right into the sauce (which is apparently the Italian way to do it - non of this serving pasta and sauce separately and letting people put it on themselves). At this point I added a handful of freshly chopped basil and a bunch of the crumbled sheep's feta. Voila! Supper.
We put some in bowls, grated a little fresh Parmesan on top and .... HOLY HANNA! That is the best pasta in the world, ever! The noodles actually had flavor, and were so silky and light, and properly al dente. And the sauce, OMG - it's $ 10 (large) jars of lucini italia sauce for us from now on. Let's not forget the feta. The stuff you buy in the tubs at superstore should not even have the same name as this stuff. It was amazing. I'm making myself hungry again just thinking about it. And you know what - it actually stayed with me. I love pasta but I am always, no matter how much I eat or how full I am when done, ravenously hungry again a half hour later. It's like I never ate. Not this time. It was filling, but not overly and I didn't have another thing to eat all night. Went to bed a few hours later a very very happy camper.
I can't wait to try to make other kinds - and I think I might make lasagna for Sunday's supper - we'll see. In any regards it was an astounding success. I'm very happy. And thank you, thank you, thank you for the anniversary gift guys!
Okay, I know I have not been at all regular, in any way, shape or form about writing on here. I apologize, and have no explanation/excuse to offer other then my complete and total laziness. Well, maybe one excuse - like the ten tons of studying I have to do just to be able to follow what's going on in Cantonese and not fall behind in class! But it's okay, I can do both. It's not like I have a habit of writing really long rambling posts that take up way too much time or anything. :)
The important thing is I'm back ... from outer space,I just walked in and found you here with that sad look upon your face ... oh, sorry, total Gloria Gaynor moment there. What was I saying? Oh yes, the blog. Henceforth I am going to attempt to write on a more regular basis, besides I've got a lot to write about and no one will listen to me other than YOU! (pretty please?!) Starting with:
HOME MADE PASTA! Come on, don't tell me you've never though about it. I know your secretly harboring a desire to spend hours covered in flour making your own noodles and a slow roasted tomato sauce. You're not? Really? Well I am/have been/do. Actually, if I could live anyplace, do anything - I would live on the Mediterranean coast. I would own a vineyard, with a couple acres of olives for making my own oil. And I would have a huge old world villa, with a courtyard and fountain (like the one from walk in the clouds). It would have a big huge kitchen with a really long solid wood table in the middle and a wood fire oven. I'd be like the Italian version of Donna reed, a pretty house dress, white apron, up early making bread. Oh yeah baby, that's me. Forget this woman's lib crap. lol. But I digress ...
I have honestly though, always been fascinated by pasta - wanted to be able to make my own. Especially when I heard that nothing tasted better. I'm mean, really? Is there that much of a difference? It's just flour, eggs, salt, oil and water. How can it taste any better fresh or dried? This became my mission in life. Though not my main mission, maybe not even my tertiary or whatever comes after tertiary mission - but it was a mission, out there on the back burner somewhere.
Then last year for my anniversary you may remember that my mom bough me my long coveted Kitchen Aid Mixer. I than learned you can get all kinds of attachments for the thing, meat grinders, ice cream makers & ... wait for it ... pasta makers! So I've been talking about going out and buying that attachment ever since. People must have got tired of hearing me talk about it, because for this years anniversary my husbands brothers & wives got the pasta attachments for me. I know! Aren't they nice. So of course, this lead to a dinner invitation for them, this Sunday, for home made pasta.
Then I got to thinking ... what if I suck. What if my pasta turns into some sticky, over boiled clump of yuckyness (word?)? The only thing to do was to have a trial run. Which then got me to thinking - wait a minute, how do you even make homemade pasta? I certainly don't have an old family recipe or an Italian grandmother to show me. Of course the attachment comes with an instruction book and a few recipes - but those kind always seem to suck eggs. So yesterday I took a trip to the book store. Excuse me for a moment while I pause and sigh a sigh of pure bliss about bookstores and coffee shops. *Sigh* Okay, good now. Anyways, a couple hours of scouring so called "Italian" cook books, a momentary distraction by the Ace of Cakes book (which I bought!) and I finally found one that I liked, had an actual home made pasta recipe and seemed like it would do the trick.
Allow me to introduce you to: Maxine Clark's Italian Kitchen - simple steps to great tasting Italian food. Just looking at this book makes me hungry. On p. 78 the section about making basic pasta dough starts. It's actually a lot simpler then I expected, though it is time consuming. After reading it through though, especially about the flours she likes to use (I had previously always though it was just plain old all-purpose flour), it seemed like a trip to the Italian grocery store was in order.
Fortunately the best one in the city (according to online peoples) is on centre street, only a few blocks away from where we live. I had thought about going in before but never had a reason to. Now I did. I needed Italian "00" flour. OMG, I love this place! And I am never allowed inside ever again! I could literally spend every cent I have here and leave a very happy camper. All the dishes, and cool cooking utensils - not to mention the food. Anyways, to make this long rambling post slightly less long, I found the flour - along with a chunk of good parm, a tub of good sheep's milk feta, and a jar of Lucini Tialia Tuscan Marinara with Roasted Garlic Sauce. Which is made with fresh vine-ripe tomatoes, 100% natural ingredients and is handcrafted in small batches according to the label. Thus making it ridiculously expensive. But we figured if we were going to make fresh home made pasta then it should have a really good quality sauce right? Right!
A very empty pocket book and a few hours later, (The dough gets mixed by hand, literally, on the counter - no bowl, then needs to rest a half hour) we started making supper. Making the pasta was one of the funnest things D and I have ever done together. As you run the dough through the machine through thinner and thinner settings it gets longer and longer so you need someone to help. Eventually you do have to cut it into three or four smaller pieces. After you've gotten it the thickness you want you hang it on a broom handle (I made sure to clean mine really well) to dry a little bit then you cut it. Our pasta maker came with cutting attachments for linguine or spaghetti and we had already decided on spaghetti. Feeding it through the cutter was probably the most fun and it was very rewarding to see all those noodles hanging there.
After making the pasta it was easy. A pot of well salted boiling water and five minutes later the pasta was ready. While it was boiling I quickly sauteed a small sliced zucchini with some roasted red pepper slices and then added half the jar of marinara sauce. When pasta was done it went right into the sauce (which is apparently the Italian way to do it - non of this serving pasta and sauce separately and letting people put it on themselves). At this point I added a handful of freshly chopped basil and a bunch of the crumbled sheep's feta. Voila! Supper.
We put some in bowls, grated a little fresh Parmesan on top and .... HOLY HANNA! That is the best pasta in the world, ever! The noodles actually had flavor, and were so silky and light, and properly al dente. And the sauce, OMG - it's $ 10 (large) jars of lucini italia sauce for us from now on. Let's not forget the feta. The stuff you buy in the tubs at superstore should not even have the same name as this stuff. It was amazing. I'm making myself hungry again just thinking about it. And you know what - it actually stayed with me. I love pasta but I am always, no matter how much I eat or how full I am when done, ravenously hungry again a half hour later. It's like I never ate. Not this time. It was filling, but not overly and I didn't have another thing to eat all night. Went to bed a few hours later a very very happy camper.
I can't wait to try to make other kinds - and I think I might make lasagna for Sunday's supper - we'll see. In any regards it was an astounding success. I'm very happy. And thank you, thank you, thank you for the anniversary gift guys!
you know that's cruel right? To have a superb food experience but live in a far away city where you no longer make weekly experiments for us. Not nice, Now I'm hungry too and its 7:30 am. ;)
ReplyDeleteAhhhhHaaaa! So that's why I haven't heard from you lately. When your nose isn't buried in a cantonese book studying, you have it buried in a cook book!! Something niggled at me to check your blog tonight and low and behold your back! Actually there is a family homemade noodle recipe.....but it's for homemade chicken soup noodles, and yes you actually just mix it on a board. I remember watching my grandma make them, only (and I do mean this not as a slight to you my wonderfully talented daughter) she was slightly more Donna Reed like, in that she had no fancy attatchments and had to cut them by hand. And now, I will admit that although I have made them, my cutting skills leave something to be desired, as the noodles resembled short fat worms instead of long thin strands. Your pasta sounds divine! Hey,Damien...Guess who's coming to dinner ?
ReplyDeleteHeeHeeHee