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| fresh, tender pappardelle with pork ragu and topped with basil... |
But last weekend, as I was taking bits and pieces of my non-essential kitchen gadgets out of storage, I was inspired by a "What's For Dinner?" post about homemade fettucine by a fellow foodnik who seems to share my unhealthy obsession habit of photographing meals. Hearing about it was one thing, but the visual of those lovely strands of fettucine air drying on the rack, and the knowledge of the light and tender chew of the noodle that would result was enough for me to pull the pasta maker over the fondue set and make us some fresh pasta.
Sometimes, inspiration meets situation, and the results are not only delicious, but wholesome, collaborative, and downright fun as well.
HOMEMADE PASTA
Serves 4
Sometimes, inspiration meets situation, and the results are not only delicious, but wholesome, collaborative, and downright fun as well.
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| ...or arugula and red chili flakes |
HOMEMADE PASTA
Serves 4
Armed with my dusted pasta maker and her simple recipe of
- 1.5 cups of flour,
- my addition of 1/2 teaspoon of kosher salt to add a little depth to the flavor, and
- 2 large eggs, all whipped up in a food processor, with
- just enough water poured in gradually to form a ball (roughly 2 Tablespoons+)
I enlisted both Monsters and Man to make fresh pappardelle (pahppahrDELLeh) to go with the freshly ground pork shoulder ragu (rahGOO) I planned to make. (If I'm going to have to take that food processor apart and clean it, I will find every reasonable use for it before it gets put away. Laziness, after all, is the mother of all efficiency.)
And you know, it's probably a good thing I waited this long to make pasta with my kids. Because the <cough> occasionally Type AAA person I used to be - and by *occasionally*, I mean *whenever in the kitchen or doing anything else creative* - couldn't have risked the havoc that chubby little preschool and kindergarten hands would have wreaked on dinner.
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| Awww... The hands still have a little chub. <3 |
Never having used the pasta maker before, I didn't have a pasta rack on hand to air dry it before cooking, so I used my IKEA laundry rack, which worked perfectly and also floated my efficiency boat big time.
The sauce was a simple ragu of
- olive oil
- tomatoes, both fresh and canned - I usually just use canned crushed tomatoes, but I had three fresh tomatoes that were fixin' to be not so fresh in a minute
- onions
- garlic
- freshly ground pork shoulder (about two pounds from a massive ten pound chunk bought at the Meximart for a pittance)
- salt and pepper
- and a little pork stock.
No herbs added in as I was planning to top the pasta with fresh basil from the garden for the Monsters and fresh, super beefy arugula from the farmers market for me and the Man.
The result was a light, tender, wide ribboned pasta that cooked to perfect doneness within 3 minutes and took to the sauce beautifully without having to be tossed in it. The sauce was rich and simple with the concentrated flavor of pork and tomatoes and nothing else. Topped with a little fresh green for flavor and pretty, it was one of those simple, delicious and simply delicious meals worth every bit of the setup, rolling, drying, cutting and cleaning. So much so the girlchild said that the Man will probably never let me get away with dry pasta ever again, which really means she won't. :)
There was something so truly lovely and idyllic about watching my children help me crank pasta, seeing it drying on the rack as it waved in the ocean breeze, watching the Man cut it carefully, earnestly, and gingerly, and sitting down to dinner with all of them on a Sunday afternoon knowing that we each had a hand in the deliciousness of it all.
Just some flour, eggs, tomatoes, pork and teamwork made for one of those lovely moments in life that I wouldn't mind savoring a million times over.
shinae
P.S. Grazie, L. Nightshade. :)
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| Laundry rack as pasta rack. This kind of thing makes me a little too happy, I think. |
The sauce was a simple ragu of
- olive oil
- tomatoes, both fresh and canned - I usually just use canned crushed tomatoes, but I had three fresh tomatoes that were fixin' to be not so fresh in a minute
- onions
- garlic
- freshly ground pork shoulder (about two pounds from a massive ten pound chunk bought at the Meximart for a pittance)
- salt and pepper
- and a little pork stock.
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| rich, porky... |
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| simple ragu. |
No herbs added in as I was planning to top the pasta with fresh basil from the garden for the Monsters and fresh, super beefy arugula from the farmers market for me and the Man.
The result was a light, tender, wide ribboned pasta that cooked to perfect doneness within 3 minutes and took to the sauce beautifully without having to be tossed in it. The sauce was rich and simple with the concentrated flavor of pork and tomatoes and nothing else. Topped with a little fresh green for flavor and pretty, it was one of those simple, delicious and simply delicious meals worth every bit of the setup, rolling, drying, cutting and cleaning. So much so the girlchild said that the Man will probably never let me get away with dry pasta ever again, which really means she won't. :)
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| pretty pappardelle... |
There was something so truly lovely and idyllic about watching my children help me crank pasta, seeing it drying on the rack as it waved in the ocean breeze, watching the Man cut it carefully, earnestly, and gingerly, and sitting down to dinner with all of them on a Sunday afternoon knowing that we each had a hand in the deliciousness of it all.
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| simply deliziosa |
Just some flour, eggs, tomatoes, pork and teamwork made for one of those lovely moments in life that I wouldn't mind savoring a million times over.
shinae
P.S. Grazie, L. Nightshade. :)
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