PASTA

Wow It's been almost a year since my last post. And almost 10 years since I put my pasta extruder away in my basement. Well, today we're making some home made pasta using my handy-dandy little pasta extruder. I purchased my extruder in 2006 for my somewhat upscale coffeehouse/ bistro to add some "homemade" pasta dishes to my menu. I have since moved on and the machine has been sitting and feeling unfulfilled in my basement amongst a plethora of pots, pans, chafing dishes and Cambro boxes. So I brought it upstairs and gave it a respectable spot to sit.

What better reason to fire that baby up than to make dinner for friends. Durham Semolina is the preferred flour for pasta making and you're not going to find it in your local supermarket unless you live in a major metropolitan area. So I went online and ordered from Amazon. It came in packages of 2, 2# 4 oz bags. I ordered 2 of them which provided me with 8# and 8 ounces.

I produced one of each of the following recipes.

Before my guests arrived I prepared an antipasto and some chips and dip. The antipasto consisted of some Genoa salami, scallions, blue cheese stuffed olives, pepperoncini, cheese and wine spread, and pickled green tomatoes.

The glass of wine is mine. I'd already worked up a powerful thirst. After this one of my guests was in charge of the camera.

While my guests were munching on the antipasto I busied myself with the pasta.

Mis-en-place, Mis-en-place, Mis-en-place!

Now a machine such as this makes the process look easy and it is pretty much but it's a slow process none the less. The extruder both mixes the measured ingredients and as the name says, it extrudes it as well. The whole process for a 2 pound batch of pasta takes about an hour and fifteen minutes and yields about 18 lunch size portions of regular spaghetti. Fewer of the larger noodles like Fettuccine or Penne.

So, onward and upward. Next up is Spinach Fettuccine.

As you cut the pasta from the die it gets dredged in semolina flour to prevent sticking.

When all was said and done.

So as you may be able to tell the Spaghetti was the one we ate as evidenced by the photo. Served with massive amounts of garlic and diced fresh tomatoes and topped with shaved Parmesan cheese and garlic bread.

Well, that was what I did yesterday January 13. Tonight I'll be making and photographing Fettuccine with Puttanesca sauce. Check back with me tomorrow. Till then, Eat well and live large.