Homemade pasta

Sorry I've been a little MIA lately. I've been going through some changes at work with a new position and all the challenges that learning a new job entails (mini freak out!) It's been good but stressful. I'm being stretched and learning a lot of new things, so when I come home I want nothing more than to flop down on the couch and eat a creamsicle. Which is exactly what I have been doing for the last few nights.

However, since it's probably not the healthiest thing to eat creamsicles every night for dinner, I did manage to drag myself off the couch long enough to try making my own pasta one night. And let me tell you, it's WAY easier than I thought it'd be!

I thought it would be some kind of long, complicated process that involved special tools and ingredients, but when I opened my favorite Better Homes and Gardens cookbook (which is my go-to cooking bible) to find an idea for dinner one night, I saw a recipe for homemade noodles. And with a whole 3 ingredients total, I felt like it would be pretty hard for me to completely screw this one up, so I gave it a go.

Do you like my homemade drying rack? That's totally a clothes hanger dangling above my sink. I may have taken one giant step into ghettoville with this method, but you can't argue with results. Sometimes it's the simplest method works the best. Who needs expensive equipment when you have a plastic hanger that works just as well, right?

I just combined all the ingredients, rolled out the dough, cut it into strips, then let it dry on my ghetto pasta rack overnight. In the morning, I woke to find some lovely dried pasta, minus a few jumpers that broke off and fell into the sink.

I prepared them simply by sauteing some crushed garlic and tomatoes in olive oil, then tossing it with basil, oregano, and parmesan cheese. So tasty! My only problem was that I didn't cut the noodles thin enough so they didn't cook as evenly as I liked.

Oh well, that's what you get when you use a rolling pin and clothes hanger instead of a pasta machine, right?




I also made a second batch of noodles that I chose not to dry, and instead modified THIS recipe for chicken noodle soup from Allrecipes.com and substituted my homemade noodles in place of the egg noodles. It was nothing short of amazing. One of those meals perfect for a cold winter night or a rainy day, you know?

Too bad it's in the 90's here still...which didn't stop me from making a giant pot of soup anyway :) I see many more batches of homemade noodles in my future!