Aug
11
2010
Michael
I started making home made pasta a while back. It’s very easy and tastes a lot better. And one of the things that I love about it is that it only has to be cooked for about 3 minutes. If you count the time it takes to make it vs the time it takes to cook dry noodles, the whole process is only slightly longer for fresh. Here’s the recipe that I’m using now. Original source unknown:
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 cup semolina flour
- 1 pinch salt
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tablespoons olive oil
- Can be doubled of course for more, but this should easily feed a party of 6 – 8, depending on what it’s served with.
Directions
- Toss it all in the kitchen aid mixer with the batter attachment. Mix on low or medium until well a somewhat crumbly dough forms. If it’s too crumbly spray on a tiny amount of water but not too much. Too wet and add more flour.
- Remove from mixer and knead for a few minutes by hand. Professional recipes call for kneading by hand for about 8 to 10 minutes. This is too hard and I never do it. But you do need gluten to form or it will tear and rip when you run it through the pasta machine. I’ve used the kneading attachment for about 5 minutes or so to get the job started. Then once it will mostly stick together continue kneading by hand for a minute or so.
- End the kneading by forming a ball and then either wrap tightly in plastic or cover with a damp paper towel. So far I’ve always done the towel but next time I’m doing the plastic.
- Allow to rest for 15-30 minutes. In the past I’ve been a bit lazy and impatient about both the kneading and the resting. In the long run it wastes more time if the dough hasn’t had time to set and the moisture to distribute. It will just shred when run through the machine and that is very frustrating. This last time was super easy going through the machine.
- Cut off a chunk and flatten it with the balls of your palms. Then run it through the pasta machine several times starting at 7 and going down to 4 or 3. Then cut as desired.
- It only needs to cook for a few minutes in boiling water, until tender or until it floats.
I’ve tried using only all purpose flour and only semolina. I like the half and half mixture the best.
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Aug
11
2010
Michael
Somewhere between the idea for this site and the execution of it I lost my original purpose, which was to be a repository for my own recipes and my friends and families recipes. It’s not to be a dumping ground for all recipes that anyone has ever made, that’s what the internet is for, but for just the things that we actually make or have made so that when we want to make it again, there is one place to go back to to find it and also whatever notes that we add along the way. On the opposite side of the spectrum, it wasn’t supposed to be a fancy writing project or something that I ‘cared’ what other people thought of. I created this site for me. And honestly it could almost be on a local server with no access to the outside world, except that would defeat part of the purpose… to be useful to my friends and family.
The problem is that once you make it accessible to other people (everyone really), you can’t help but care about what the photos look like and whether or not your “spelling that word right.” The truth is that I don’t care about those things. I’m not a good writer and I know it. Terrible speller. But still I keep finding myself going “how do I make those home-made noodles again?” And I know that I’ll never find that exact chocolate souffle recipe – which was why I created this site.
So my goal is to get back on track here and try to honestly NOT care about the (what I consider) superficial standards that have been holding me back. I’m just going to get my recipes in here so that I can use them. Because now that I’m home all the time I plan on cooking a lot more. -michael
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Jan
14
2010
Les Lyon

If you’ve read the name of this soup, and are still reading, then it’s obvious that you’re more concerned about your taste buds than you are about your weight. This being the case, read on.
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1 comment | tags: cheese, photoblog, Soup
Nov
23
2009
Michael

There’s something special about good pancakes and something not-so-special about not-so-good pancakes. I was raised on Bisquick and that can be good, I guess. But I was also raised on corn syrup instead of maple, and that’s, well, not-so-good. So when I saw Alton Brown’s Good Eat’s episode on flap jacks, I decided to give it a try, and I think the result is good, diner-style pancakes…
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no comments | tags: Alton Brown, buttermilk, foodnetwork.com, michael, pancakes, photoblog