big arms and happy bellies

I have often wondered when my first pasta making experience would be. Well actually, I wondered when I would put my fears aside and my unfortunate need to do everything right the first time, and just roll into that beautiful flow of making pasta. The flow part didn't take to long and the beautiful part was in my mouth after it was cooked. About 3 weeks ago I went off to buy a pasta maker to attach to my mix master, which I was told would be a much easier method than rolling it out with the one's that take perch at the end of your table. On that mission, the one' s that attach to your mix masters were a little out of my price range and frankly just didn't appeal to me. As you follow this blog you might come to realize that I'm quiet a romantic and the image of a small, round, Italian mama pressing a button to roll out the pasta just wasn't coming to me. So, I opted for the more labor intensive one. I love that it has 'cranny' to hold it on to your table, and a big handle to pump through that pasta dough. I guess I was feeling something maternal as the 9 month pregnant lady with mad tattoo's and a glow was demonstrating for me.

So after my hand held pasta maker sat in my car for 2 weeks, always waiting for the perfect moment to do most of everything, I summoned up the courage and welcomed it home. I'm a big believer in preparation is the key to most things and pretty much everything in the kitchen. Though this time, I had no sauce made, no flavors ready, no garlic sliced, nor did I have the freshest of Parmesan. I did have my courage though. I just walked in that door on a rainy Saturday evening, after work, so my adrenalin was still probably rushing, pulled out my flour and eggs and cracked one. With the help of the delightful Mr Jamie Oliver I found this all very comforting. I did prepare my reading of instructions and methods though, which is obviously essential.

I used my paddle and my dough hook, in random orders, trying out what would work the best. In the end I only mixed my flour and eggs enough for them to become a messy ball with bits of crumb like dough around the bottom of the bowl. I than took it out and beat the crap out of it, forming a united ball. Wrapping it very securely in glad wrap, I popped it into the fridge over night, not necessary but my dough making was too late to cook up a pasta feast and my adrenalin was subsiding.

After a night of dreaming of cooking homemade ravioli for hundreds and the wine pouring freely, I made it back to my kitchen to face this new being. After a little contact and care, I formed a nice round, smooth ball and divided it into four. I rolled it out quiet a lot, because no matter how massive my arms were going to get, this ball was not fitting through that crack. Not unlike my first attempt at knitting a scarf, my first attempt at rolling a ball of pasta turned out to look a little like the Eiffel tower. Not to worry, just fold it again and again when it's gone through and roll again. Starting from the widest to the most narrow setting, I just kept on going.

Even though there are the little metal spaghetti and fettucchine attachments, I had envisioned folding the rolled out pasta over and over, than cutting it by hand whatever width I wanted. So I did. More primitive, but than had the task of peeling apart my 4 foot long stands of fettucchine. Joke was on me. The second time I tried it I still did it by hand but this time i cut it in half before i folded. Looking at my dried pasta, waiting for me to give it life, I still wondered at that stage how on earth I could possibly make amazing fresh pasta. All this time of loving food, waking in the morning to be thinking about what I could bake today and cook tonight for dinner, and I've never made homemade pasta? Why, you ask. The answer is simple. Fear. All this time I've been to concerned about maybe making a mistake.

Well to bad for fear, because i dropped those four foot long pasta's into that boiling water and ate like they did hundreds of years ago. Except for the absence of homemade pasta sauce, which I'll dedicate for another time. Tonight we ate our pasta, round one, with some Parmesan I found stashed in the freezer for emergency's like these. Our second helping was of three gloriously large and mishapped ravioli's. The filling? Roasted peppers(capsicums) and goats cheese. They were special little ravioli's and we gave them lots of attention for about two minutes before we devoured them. The third and final helping of pasta that night was going to be some shorter fettacchine, at two feet long, with some of the roasted peppers and leftover pasta sauce from the fridge.

Just moanful.