pasta tagged posts

Actually, that should say, we made homemade pasta and we LOVED it. Throughout the years I’ve always watched some TV chefs from various cooking shows  say that homemade pastas are really good. I’ve read the same thought from various cookbooks as well. So I’ve always wanted to try making my own pasta except I didn’t have a pasta maker. I have a Kitchen Aid but I don’t have the pasta maker attachment. I supposed I could’ve used the rolling pin to flatten the dough but using a pasta maker just looks so much fun. Well, that’s all changed now coz my mother-in-law just gave me a stand-in pasta maker. It’s the Atlas Marcato 150 Pasta Maker, plus an extra attatchment for papperdelle (lasagna) maker.

If you’ve noticed I said “WE made…”  The original plan was for my daughter and I to make homemade spaghetti noodles. She got so excited when I was making the dough coz she thought I was making sugar cookies. I told her I was making spaghetti instead. Forget the cookies coz she got even more excited upon hearing her favorite pasta dish of all time, bear in mind that she’s only turning 6 in a few days. This girl could eat spaghetti for breakfast, lunch, snack, or dinner. Kinda like pizza, hah. Then I took the pasta maker out of the box, oh boy was she excited. But then I had to ruin the excitement by explaining that we have to wait for 30 minutes to let the dough rest. So she spent every 5 minutes checking up on me and the kitchen until I finally said we could start making the spaghetti noodles.

Continuing on to the “we” part, it turns out, making homemade pasta is a fun family affair. A messy one that is. Thank goodness Daddy woke up from his nap to help us out.  I needed his help so badly, not just making the pasta but so I could somehow take pictures of the process to write about. I missed a couple of pictures because it was just too hard to do things all at once but hopefully I’ve covered most of the steps.

FYI, when you start making your own homemade pasta, make sure you have A LOT of flour. Not just for making the dough but also during the entire process of shaping the noodles. Flour is your bestfriend.

This chicken and pasta salad would be a nice pasta salad to make use of whatever leftover chicken you’ve got in the fridge. Having said that though, I actually didn’t use leftover chicken here but I just want you to know that you could easily use leftovers. And this is just a different version of the other pasta salads I’ve made before. I just added chicken here and used raspberry vinaigrette instead of Italian dressing. And of course, different pasta.

Summer means a lot of things. One of them is making cold pasta salads. I suppose it’s ok to make them during winter too but it is usually during the Summer that I get to indulge in whipping up different kinds of cold pasta salads. They’d go with any grilled meat entrees, including kebabs, satays, burgers, just to name a couple. Pasta salads prefect to serve as side dishes during the summer parties in the backyard or as lunch for the family on regular days. This Mini Rotelle Cold Pasta Salad W/ Cheese & Sunflower Seeds is basically another version of Pasta & Broccoli Salad W/ Golden Raisins and Sunflower Seeds but without the golden raisins and chopped fresh broccoli. I added chopped eggs instead.

This Salmon & Penne Alfredo was inspired by the seafood with pesto cream penne alfredo from Ragazzi’s Italian Restaurant. The seafood with pesto cream involves basil with walnut pesto blended into penne alfredo sauce with sauteed shrimp and fresh salmon. It’s $14.99 a plate which I’m telling you is sooooo worth it coz it’s soooo good and you get so much of it. I can only eaT half of the plate then save my leftovers for lunch the following day. Delicious creamy pesto with alfredo sauce, and large pieces of shrimp and chunks of salmon. If I could somehow name a kid from this dish, I would.

My own version of course is very much simplified. It doesn’t have the creamy pesto sauce coz I didn’t have the stuff to make it(basil, walnuts) and I also omitted the shrimp coz we just had shrimp last Sunday. It was delicious nonetheless. I just love creating my own version of restaurant dishes that I love even though I don’t create the exact same thing all the time. I just have fun working in my kitchen with a particular dish to copy in mind.

Next time I’ll make it the Ragazzi’s way, but for now, here’s my simplified version.

Here’s something creamy and easy to make beef linguine with black olives pasta dish. I had some leftover Chardonnay from the Nathanson Creek bottle so I figured I’d pour a little bit of it in the sauce too. Generously sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, and serve with cheesy-garlic bread(use shredded mozzarella cheese for a change) on the side for one delicious pasta meal.

For lack of a better chefy-gourmet-ish word, this Baked Spaghetti Alfredo W/ Mushrooms & Capers is what you call the white version of Baked Spaghetti W/ Mushrooms. White, of course comes from the Alfredo sauce and Mozzarella cheese, instead of the usual tomato based spaghetti sauce and shredded cheddar cheese. And to add another twist, I threw in some capers which in my opinion work really well with Alfredo sauce.

Coo...