Adventures in pasta (there’s nothing like home made)

“Cooking is like love: it should be entered into with abandon or not at all.” – Julia Child

“Life is a combination of magic and pasta.” – Federico Fellini

It has been – best guess – four or five years since I last made my own pasta. I talk about it a lot, like I’m some kind of an connoisseur, but then there is “following through.” It turns out the pasta machine never even made it here in the move from Wake Forest.

So I created this amazing meat sauce a couple of weeks ago and determined to resurrect my pasta skills when we hosted friends for dinner… but then the machine I ordered failed to arrive on time and I had to purchase my noodles from the store.

Fast forward to yesterday. I took the sauce out of the freezer, reviewed my recipe and set aside a couple of hours to roll out the dough. It was rough going at first, getting the ratio of flour to egg to water just right, but I eventually had a fairly pliable ball ready that I could roll out and then run through the new machine.

It didn’t necessarily look pretty, but the final result – once plated with the sauce (and sauce is always even better the second time it simmers) – worked well enough for my first time back in the saddle. Aesthetics aside the meal was beyond delicious.

When you make angel hair from scratch, by the way, it takes only ninety-seconds to cook.

I will definitely be doing this again, fairly soon, and once I am comfortable with the process it will be time for another dinner party. I may even try the Lasagna – or at least the fettuccini. – DEREK