Friday, January 8, 2010

Much Messier Cooking Adventures

Not everything I make is as easy as grilled cheese. I got a rolling pin for Christmas!!! Finally - after several instances of using glasses and nalgene bottles for rolling out pastas and doughs. I also got some other pasta making stuff so I can give it a try. It definitely takes longer to make, but I love the taste. For the price of 2 cups of flour and 2 eggs, Zach and I can eat our fill of pasta. When noodles are actually on sale they are pretty cheap, so, aside from getting the joy of DIY (do it yourself), I'm not sure if this is much "cheaper," I do like making this stuff.

Check out this dangerous bad boy: It is an adjustable dough cutter. Pretty cool!
My first day of pasta making (using my pasta drying rack!)
I tried bowties an twisties this day too, and was thrilled when they kept their shape after being cooked!
Lastly, yesterday I tried homemade ravioli. I don't really follow recipes for this kind of thing, but I finely chopped a cooked chicken strip, a slice of cheese, and some spinach with a little butter and garlic powder for the filling. Then I rolled out the dough as THIN as I could get it (despite using all my strength, it still pops right back up! These were like the thickest ravioli's ever). I made squares using my handi-dandy dough slicer and then used a fork to mash the edges together. I figured with this type of thing it is better to cook the ravioli's right away and eat up! (Which we did. Yum.)

I'd still like to figure out how to make the pasta a little thinner...mostly because I am extremely impatient and the thicker pasta takes way longer to cook.

3 comments:

jess said...

All right, quit making the rest of us look bad, TLG. :) I'm so impressed!

Mama Mote said...

What a little homemaker you are! I'm sooo not a cook or chef, whatever you want to label it. I never learned to cook and, sadly, passed that on to my kids. When I had to learn, I hated it. But, for some reason, I'm more in the mood for it and keep looking for fun things to tackle. Could be because my girls are grown and out of the house. :) and :( This and the grilled cheese look simple enough. May try them.

Emily Sternfeld-Dunn said...

you could register for a pasta maker when you get married. ; ) They basically just roll the dough super thin, although it does come with an attachment to cut them into different types of pasta.