Fresh Egg Pasta at Home

1. Measure ingredients (3/4 cup semolina flour, 3/4 cup unbleached all purpose flour, 1 tbs. sea salt)

2. Mix dry ingredients into a pile on your work-top with a well in the center

3. Add 2 eggs to the well in the middle of the dry ingredients.

4. Use a fork to gradually mix flour from the edges of the well into the eggs in the center.  Add a small bit of the dry ingredients as soon as the last dose of flour is absorbed into the egg mixture.

5.  Mix until the eggs and flour come together into a loose clump of dough.  Start to knead the dough ball with your hands.  If your dough  becomes sticky add more flour as needed.

6. Knead by folding the dough into itself and rotating between folds for about 3 to 5 minutes.  After kneading you should have a smooth ball of dough.  It should not stick to your palms and it should feel dense!  You’ll need to put some muscle into kneading, but if the dough ball gets so hard that it cracks as you knead, you’ve added too much flour. To fix cracking dough sprinkle the dough ball with tepid water and keep kneading until the mixture comes together into a smooth ball.

7.  Smooth out the ball of pasta dough and let it rest under a bowl or towel for 30 minutes.

8.  You’re ready to roll!  Follow your pasta roller’s instructions, or roll the pasta by hand.  At this point you can create wide pasta that you hand cut.  You can also create sheets of pasta for ravioli, cannelloni, or lasagna.

9.  Once you’ve created your preferred pasta shape, you can cook immediately in lots of salted water at a rolling boil, or you can allow your pasta to dry.  Let the pasta sit or hang in an area with lots of air flow and then carefully transfer to freezer bags for storage.  Keep in the fridge for up to 24 hours or freeze for up to about a month.

10. Eat it up!  We tossed our pasta with arugula, fresh garlic and extra virgin olive oil.  Delicious!  This pasta is perfect to use in place of store-bought pasta and easy!  Just remember, you barely need to cook the pasta because it’s so fresh.

dinner party: santa fe, new mexico

 

My recent trip to Santa Fe has me thinking about throwing a southwestern themed dinner party.

I could put out some of these blankets for color and theme.

If money was no object I could use some serveware from Nambe, which has an outlet store located in Downtown Santa Fe.

I’d definitely serve some Happy Campers, from Southwestern Brewing Company, because it’s a great tasting beer in a fantastic looking can.

The Santa Fe Farmers Market was the best I’ve ever been to and had plenty of bright zinnias that would make for a perfect centerpiece.

Since it is August I’d be sure to include plenty of Hatch Chile dishes: appetizer, entree, side dish and dessert.

-kimberly

eat your brussels sprouts

So I’ve been really into eating Brussels sprouts probably because I refused to eat them as a child and now realize how tasty they are. I’m also always looking for healthy ways to consume pasta so when I found this dish on epicurious I thought I’d give it a try.  It’s a really simple list of ingredients basically tossed together and served up for 4 people (although I could easily have 2 servings to myself.) Wow, it’s really delicious, I used Romano instead of Parmesan just because I like the stronger smell of it, (I’m a weirdo who smells cheese at the grocery store.) Had to make an extra trip so I could by just the serving of pine nuts I needed rather than a whole jar, but it made the whole thing a lot more cost effective.

I was really not trying to do a St. Patrick’s Day dish but the green in it is certainly enough to make it a plate fitting for St. Patties. I’m not sure it would go well with green beer, but it is definitely an easy, really tasty week night dinner.

– kim