I'm not a Cook...

Cooking in general is not something I'm good at, cooking places me in stupid mode most of the time, unless I have very clear precise instructions I can burn anything!

There are however a few things I CAN cook; spaghetti bolognaise (don't we all learn that at high school?) lasagne, devilled sausages, beef stroganoff, apricot chicken, mashed potatoes, banana cake... that's about the extent of my kitchen repertoire. Truly; I have been known to burn water. :blush:

This evening, however, I made pasta. Real pasta; flour and eggs, mixed by hand, fed through the pasta machine pasta! Even more incredible than the fact that I got my kitchen act together enough to make something "new" was that it was edible. It is a given in this house that if I am attempting to cook something new there must be an alternative available (even if it is only beans and toast!)

There is one more stage of incredible; I made an alteration to the recipe, using wholemeal instead of plain flour. 'Twas an evening for miracles I tell you; not just because I made edible food from scratch but because it was in fact so edible that fussy husband and fussy daughter BOTH ate it and liked it. Of course D jnr liked it too; it was food, he was eating it raw as R and I were trying to get him to help turn the pasta machine handle!

Here's what I learnt about making pasta:

1. The recipe makes WAY too much pasta for 2 adults, 1 child and 1 babe. I know it can be refrigerated but flouring the finished product and putting it in an airtight container was not so effective, it has turned into a clump of pasta. I need to experiment further with pasta storage.
2. Every time you make pasta the flour quantity will be slightly different depending on the actual size of your eggs. We always buy free range eggs direct from the farm so they, especially, have quite a size variance in each pack.
3. Once you have the pasta the thickness you want it, it is much easier to cut if you have allowed it to air a little. I used cooling racks and lay the pasta sheets on them to air, those that aired slightly longer cut much more easily than those that didn't.
4. Flouring the aired pasta makes it one further degree easier to cut (ie run through the machine without it getting stuck and with the blades having cut right through.)

This list was inspired by the joy of home made!

Kindest Wishes, AJ