Saturday, February 7, 2009

Now that's al dente!

For Christmas, I was the lucky recipient of a set of pasta roller attachments for my Kitchen Aid mixer. Now some of you might say, "so what?," but I say, "WOO HOO!"





Making fresh pasta is very simple and the apparatus (apparati?) are easy to use. Pasta dough, depending on what you want to make, is essentially flour and water. You can use different kinds of flour, add eggs and/or olive oil among other things.





My first several batches were made from semolina flour, water, and eggs. The first part is rolling it out, then get it to the right thickness, then cut it to the size you want (spaghetti or fettucine). I tell ya, there's absolutely nothing like fresh pasta. With the first batches, I made fettuccine with homemade Alfredo sauce (another easy recipe of butter, cream, and Parmesan).

The bad news? Well, I'm currently on a quest to lose 20 lbs in 30 days, so fresh pasta is definitely OUT of the question. However, when carbo-loading is back in order, you know I'll be cranking out sheets of this stuff.

8 comments:

Brandi said...

20 pounds in 30 days!!! MEN! If anyone can do it it would be you guys. : p

So ... all this cooking. Make fried chicken ever? : D

Brandi

Chris said...

You are definitely one up on me when it comes to pasta. I've never even TRIED making it. Hell I don't even have a stand mixer yet.

Remo said...

That is some serious pasta-Fu. Nice work.

Sucks about the weight. A buddy of mine lost 25 lbs in two months by simply eliminating sugar.

He's still ugly as hell but there's less of him.

Ann said...

Great... It's bad enough that I leave Chris's blog wanting to ramsack my kitchen, now it's happening here, too. I can only imagine how good fresh pasta must taste!!! :)

Anonymous said...

Tell everyone what you REALLY do with it??? I guess you failed to mention that you cook in the nude -- at least that's what Rocky tells me.

Anonymous said...

Losing weight the pasta way. Oh, wouldn't that be great. I'm sure WW or someone has a pasta diet, but I'll bet it doesn't work very well. My Dad's "old"(80s +) friends still make their pasta & it is amazing, but ehm, they tend to be very BIG people. ~Mary

Terri said...

I bet it is amazing!

I love to read about men who actually cook...Bravo! Your wife is lucky..

I am too...my husband cooks well :)

But do you clean? haha

Lucky enough my husband does...

Hugs
Terri

Terri said...

Good luck on the weight loss challenge!

I've lost 12 pounds since the first of the year...but you men can drop it in no time flat..I am so jealous :)~

Hugs
Terri