I’m not afraid to admit it. I cried over pasta this weekend. Hormonal much lately?
So, more on that in a minute.
But… my latest and greatest purchase from Bed, Bath and Beyond?
Drumroll please!!!
A Weston Pasta Machine!
Ta da!
I bought myself a pasta machine. And, yes, I am well aware of how ridiculous it is in this day and age it is to actually, physically make your own pasta from scratch. But I just could not die without ever having made it.
Yes, that’s pretty much how I live my life. “If I died without ever doing (fill in the blank), would I be okay with it?” Somehow, in a twisted way, that philosophy has made it into my kitchen. And is pretty much the “why” behind the “what” when I walk in the door with some new piece of kitchen equipment. Which happens more frequently than I’m willing to admit publically.
I just had to show it again...
Isn’t it a thing of beauty?
So I awakened Sunday morning beyond excited to try making pasta. I spent the weeknights researching all different sorts of pasta recipes, tricks and tips, hints from the pros, reading ingredients, learning about semolina flour, and the list goes on. I finally decided on a recipe that uses a blend of semolina and all-purpose flour and added in some olive oil for good measure, as well as the typical eggs and salt. (Please note: hard core pasta people clearly state that real pasta has only three ingredients… flour, salt, and eggs. Whatever. That just seemed too easy.)
But it was still morning and I didn’t really need to start making the pasta until we were about two hours out from eating dinner.
So I consulted several cookbooks and decided to make a marinara sauce because, well, I had some crushed San Marzano tomatoes on hand that were begging to be consumed. (San Marzano makes the best canned tomatoes and can be purchased at Whole Foods. Good luck trying to find them at any ol’ grocery store. Pish-posh.) I used one of Giada’s recipes for marinara, but it’s not even worth posting the link because, well, it sucked. Here I made a huge batch of sauce with the highest of hopes and my taste tester (aka hubby) said, “Hmmm. It’s good! No… Wait… It’s got a funny aftertaste.” I agreed, so into the garbage it went. And being that I hate wasting food, that nearly devastated me.
But I marched on.
And made pesto! (click me for the recipe)
See?
Before blending...
...After blending.
And it was really good. Really, really good. So, into the fridge it went and waited to be used on the pasta that was to be.
Total sidebar here. For those of you who may picture me cooking in the kitchen with a lovely soundtrack of jazz or opera or something else playing in the background, please allow me to shatter that image.
Never in my life have I ever been so sick of a videogame. On principal alone, I just plain hate videogames. I think they make create lazy zombie children. But we have a Wii which, for most games, requires you to physically move around. So, I made an exception when we received a Wii for Christmas two years ago and was actually very excited about it. Until the hubby purchased a certain game recently.
So… I made my sauces on Sunday morning surrounded by the sound of rapid-fire gunshots. Ah, the Cabelas hunting game. How I hate you.
Stupid videogame!
Anywho… Fast forwarding to the pasta.
I made this recipe (click me) and, other than having to add in three additional TBSP of water and two additional TBSP of oil to the dough while kneading it, the whole thing turned out really good.
See?
Gorgeous, golden noodles - I love thee!
Except.
And there’s always an “except” when I’m cooking.
Argh! I should’ve gone thinner on the fettucine. For those of you who don’t know, pasta machines have settings on the rollers which allow you to control the thickness of the dough. On my machine, the thickest dough is rolled on a setting of 7. I eventually worked it down to a level of 4, thinking that would definitely be thin enough for fettucine. After the noodles plumped slightly during cooking, I realized I should’ve used a setting of 2, or maybe even 1. Here I made about two pounds of pasta which was just too thick.
Additionally, we added a little alfredo to the pesto sauce to make it a little more kid-friendly and, well, it was still too garlicky for them.
Cue the tears. (Not the kids. Me.)
After having a bad start with the marinara sauce in the morning, ruining the pesto, and making the noodles too thick, the tears just started to well up. I simpered and sniffled and tried to quietly have my pity party for one. But then Hubby walked into the kitchen and hugged me, told me not to give up, and promised to help me make pasta again next weekend. Same recipe, thinner machine setting, perhaps using jarred sauce to minimize the effort. I licked my wounds, cleaned up the dishes and got over myself.
After literally hours of effort in the kitchen, slaving over sauces and pasta, dinner ended up in the garbage. What can I say? You can’t win ‘em all. I’ll give it another go and will eventually get it right.
Because, Lord help me, I cannot die until I make the perfect fresh pasta.
