Kitchen Aid Pasta Making: Round 1

Tonight, I added another event on to my "50 things I've done" list: Made my own pasta dinner from scratch... noodles and all!

My Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer has been burning a hole on the counter since my wonderful hubby bought it for me a month ago. I've been dying to use the pasta roller/cutter attachments. We finally made it to the grocery store last night and picked up all of the ingredients, and planned for tonight to be "the night".

Around 8:30, I called Bo, my noodle-making sensei in Houston, for my first ever skype cooking lesson.  She and her boyfriend Kurt had us over for dinner one night and served homemade fettucini noodles with fresh pesto sauce... it was to die for. I have never been so impressed by a home made meal before. The noodles were so light and fresh tasting... I had to try this myself!

She walked me through the steps patiently... giggling as I fumbled my way through my first stand mixer experience. She was a great coach! If you've never ventured on the pasta making journey before, it's a five step process. A very sticky process, might I add. Make the dough in the mixer, knead the dough by hand, let it rest for 30 minutes, run it through the roller, then run it through the noodle press.

While the dough was resting, I made a topping by sautéing olive oil, butter, halved cherry tomatoes, chopped asparagus, butter, fresh oregano, salt, pepper, and lemon juice together on low.

After the dough sat for 30 minutes, I broke it into 4 pieces and got down to business. The rolling and cutting was surprisingly the easiest part- and pretty fun!

Ultra flattering action shot

Two and a half hours later.... we have PASTA!!!

Honest assessment of the finished product- 5 out of 10. The flavor of the noodles was awesome, but they were a little thick and grainy for my taste. I think it was because I used whole wheat flour. Next time I'm going to try regular flour instead and try to roll the pasta thinner. The sauce was great though, and very easy to make.

Tomorrow night I'm doing another "first"- Printmaking! I'm not exactly sure what that is to be quite honest... but it sounded fun and there's sangria involved! Some people from our design team are hosting a workshop tomorrow night after work at our newest office by the White House, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. They are providing us with linoleum, ink, and all of the tools- then we carve the "prints" ourselves. I'll let you know how it turns out!