How to make pasta on a snowy afternoon

I'm not going to lie to you, making pasta fresh takes a little bit more effort than opening up a package of store bought dried pasta. But I can't think of anything more satisfying to make on a snowy day. Except for maybe bread. Or cupcakes, which have been showing up on an awful lot of blogs lately. You can't see it, thank god, but just thinking about them all is making me salivate a little.

To make pasta well you must get out of your sweats. Actually, you should get out of your sweats anyway because they are really unattractive. Notice that I have put on lipstick, done up my eyes, put on jewelry, a headscarf, and an apron. It's important to get in the proper frame of mind. I also recommend that you put on some music. Today my soundtrack was "Smart Symphonies" a CD that is supposed to stimulate your baby's brain development. Whatever. It has great classics from Grieg, Mozart, and Bach on it.

Italian opera or folk music would be inspirational played at high volumes.

See how I'm feelin' the mood? I'm working on my intense fat Italian momma in the kitchen look. (I even have an Italian name, which is fortunate. Though I haven't got a spec of Italian heritage in my family. Before Angelina Jolie came along and messed it all up, The Angelinas in this world were all fat old Italian women, and me. I heard this straight from a guy I went to FIDM with who came from Florence. I called him "Stallone Pantone" for fun. I had a huge crush on him and his impressive nose. He did not have a crush on me.) It's all about the lipstick.

The recipe for fresh pasta that I used is: two cups of flour, three large eggs.

I got my recipe from Jack Bishop's book "The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook". Actually, the first batch I made today was using Jamie Oliver's recipe. But it came out too dry and by the time I realized it, I had already attempted to knead it. I know Jamie is a star chef and all, but I'm sticking with Jack's recipe which works perfectly every time. Plus he probably doesn't have an annoying wife.

You put the two cups of flour in the processor. Then, while you keep the processor running, you add your three large lightly beaten eggs to the flour.* You let the processor run until the dough balls up. Or looks like it really wants to ball up but is just not moving.

The dough will look like a bunch of moist cous-cous balls. (It's a lot less disgusting than I just made it sound.) To make it into a smooth dough you must knead it for a few minutes. It will get pretty stiff. Roll it into a pretty ball. You know, the way Martha or Ina would do it. Then you wrap it up in plastic wrap and let it rest for about thirty minutes.

While the dough is "resting" is a great time to knock back a few. Not that that's what I did today. (I thought it would be better for my image if I pretended that I didn't really want to open a bottle of wine or crack open a beer. Oops. Now you know.) I watched the snow fall and got busy making a batch of spinach pasta, which is a first for me.

When the dough is ready divide it into four pieces.

Flour and then flatten one of the pieces of dough. Then put it through the pasta machine on the first setting. Once it's gone through, fold it in thirds, flour it again, and put it through on the first setting again. Do this whole folding trick a couple more times. It make the dough really smooth. If you fail to flour it enough it can gum up in the roller.

Now you can run it through each setting on the dial once, up to about number five. at this point your sheet of pasta should be thin enough to see some light through it.

Lay the sheet out on a flour sack dish towel. These are the best because they are large and have no lint or loops to get stuck in your sheets of dough. Go through the above steps with all four of your rolls of dough and lay them all out flat. Cover them with another towel and let them dry out for about fifteen minutes. This makes them much easier to cut later on.

This is what happens when you play Michael Bolton** while making pasta. Don't ever do it. This is my first, sad, attempt to make pretty spinach pasta. I spent practically an hour wringing the water out of the spinach, but apparently that wasn't enough. The dough is too sticky to go through the pasta rollers. I tried kneading extra flour into it. A lot of extra flour. It just didn't co-operate. I will deal with it when I get home. I may try rolling it out with a rolling pin. It would be such a waste if I can't use it.

When your sheets have sat for at least fifteen minutes you can cut your pasta. I first used my fettuccine cutter. Then I used my spaghetti cutter which I've never used before today. I like it.

Look how pretty! It doesn't look at all like creepy hair. I can't wait to eat the spaghetti. I sprinkled extra flour on the noodles at this point and attempted to wind them into pretty little nests. I'm not really sure about this part of the whole deal. Drying pasta in nests is something I haven't tried until today.

Hopefully these will cook up well after they've dried. If you are making fresh pasta for the first time it would be idiotic to dry it. I want to learn to dry pasta nests really well so I can use my surplus of fresh eggs and also enjoy home made pasta even when I don't have time to make it fresh. I want nests in lots of pretty shades. I guess I better work on my spinach dough.



*Our hens lay small to large sized eggs, so I use four eggs in this recipe.

**I really need to say that I NEVER listen to Michael Bolton and I think he looks like a tired lizard when his hair is long.