Thursday, July 1, 2010

Pasta at home

I have not been able to find a pasta that I truly like, of course it is easy to buy the boxed pasta and cook when you are in a rush and you have 3 hungry kids, but let me tell you this was super easy and it only takes a couple of extra steps.

Give it a try, and you will see what pasta at home truly should taste like! and on top of that you are able to use all organic ingredients :)


Ingredients for the dough:
500g of white flour
3 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon of olive oil
salt to taste
Water, just a little to incorporate ingredients

Ingredients for the bolognese sauce:

1/2 spanish onion chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
2 fresh carrots, shredded
1 tablespoon of fresh oregano
1/2 tablespoon of dried oregano
3-4 fresh basil leaves
1 tablespoon of sweet crushed peppers, remember I use the sweet kind not the spicy
1 lb of lean ground beef
1 jar of tomatoe sauce
1 fresh chopped tomato
1/2 cup of red wine



FOR THE DOUGH (you may do this by hand or in your mixer, I chose my mixer)

In the bowl of a mixer add flour, eggs, olive oil and salt.

Mix and add a little bit of water to form the dough, until a ball is formed, then place the ball on your working surface that has been dusted with flour to prevent too much sticking.
Work your dough for about 2-3 minutes.

Let your dough rest for 30 minutes at room temperature. Once it's ready roll it out into a rectangle, at this point you can roll it out to about 1/3 inch thick and cut the strings for the spaghetti or use a pasta maker like I will be doing.

Run the dough through the pasta maker and get it as thin as you can, if the length of your pasta is too long cut it in half.

Once you achieve the thickness you want run it through the fettuchini cutter.

Now you can laugh at this next step but this works great! I dry my pasta in hangers :) this way it does not stick together, you can cook the pasta for about 10 minutes now or you can dry it if you are not ready to cook it.

Once its ready cook your pasta for 10 minutes or until al dente in a pot of boiling water.

Now for the sauce.
Drizzle some olive oil in a pot and preheat, get the rest of your ingredients all chopped up and ready.

Add the onions first, cook for a few minutes, then add the remaining of the ingredients.
Cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat. Then add the wine and cook for 5 minutes.

Now add your ground beef, cook for about 5 minutes, add some salt and pepper and the rest of the dry herbs.

Add the tomatoe sauce, mine is home made, I just crushed a whole bunch of tomatoes with some water and added them into my blender with some seasonings, it looks like regular tomato sauce but it tastes much better!


Cook your sauce for 30-45 minutes on medium heat, serve with pasta HOT!!
Enjoy guys!

HUGS
Delfi

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