Wednesday, January 31, 2007

A Trip to Italy, in my kitchen.




This week, it has been sunny.

Sunny but cold, so it is still winter. I have been carb-ing it up lately, comfort food style…root veggies, bread and more bread.

And then, there is my new favorite hobby.

Pasta.

I inherited a pasta machine from work, so I brought it home and I went to work on my first homemade pasta. Of course, this doesn’t count the time that I tried to make lasagna noodles completely by hand, sans machine, and they ended up being about an inch thick….which is about an inch too thick. I think this was one of those dinners that T might have smiled and told me that ‘honey, it is delicious’, as he chewed through his lasagna noodles…and he chewed….and he chewed.

So, I went to Italy, in my mind, and I transformed my kitchen into the house of pasta.





I had so much fun, that I made a second batch, with some spinach I have been dying to use up!




Spinach Pasta

2 c flour
5 oz spinach, blanched and squeezed dry
2 eggs
salt
1 teaspoon olive oil

Puree spinach in cuisinart with olive oil and eggs until smooth.
With the flour, mix in the salt. On a flat surface, pour the flour into a mound, and make a well in the center. Pour in the spinach mixture and mix it slowly into the flour, pulling the flour nearest the well, and mixing it in circles with your hand. Incorporate all the flour and knead until the dough is smooth. Wrap in plastic and let rest for 30 minutes. When ready to roll out, dust lightly with flour, if needed, and roll as thinly as possibly before using the pasta machine on the widest setting. Roll it through the machine, until the desired thickness. (I used the 6 lowest setting) When it is sheeted, let dry slightly, then cut through the machine and toss to separate. Dry slightly before cooking.
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3 comments:

Alexa said...

damn you're good!

Sara said...

well, thanks!

amy said...

yum!