fresh homemade pasta

I have been intending to make homemade fresh pasta for some time now. Unfortunately, I do not have a pasta machine, which is the main reason I have been putting it off. Today, though, I was thumbing through The Silver Spoon: Pasta, an Italian cookbook given to us as a wedding gift, and decided tonight was the night. The original recipe I was going to use from the book called for two kinds of flour that I don't have, so I abandoned that track and went in search of a simple "how to" online. What I found was a tutorial on a blog that will probably now be one of my absolute favourites, mostly because I adore Italian cooking.

The Italian Dish has a great post about making fresh pasta, along with a short video. The nice thing about making pasta is that it's not quite an exact recipe, which makes it perfect for me. Basically, it's a ratio of flour and eggs, plus a little water if needed. And there is the possibility of adding other flavours, like tomato or spinach. I decided to make the tomato-flavoured pasta because I had leftover tomato paste from the other day.

See, flour and eggs. And a food processor because that was less messy than mixing by hand.

I'm rather proud of my dough.

Look at the ickle noodles!

 

 

 

 

YUM.

As you can probably see from the photos, the noodles aren't uniform and are rather thick. As a result, they had the texture of over-cooked pasta, but they still tasted excellent with the sauteed veggies (green and red bell pepper and shallots) and homemade meatballs. This meal went really well with a glass of red wine.

curry is my favourite

For as long as I can remember, I have loved the taste of curry. At least since I was about seven or eight years old. I seem to recall eating it for the first time as a leftover because we were in a hurry to get to church on Christmas Eve for the children's service. I could be completely wrong about that and have two memories mixed up in my head, but at any rate, curry is my favourite. My mom makes an excellent chicken curry that I have made a few times, but never without her supervision. It's just one of those things I can't separate from my family. One of these days, I will make it here for Nate and me.

Tonight, though, I decided to try another chicken curry recipe I came across in the Taste of Home Cookbook. I don't use this cookbook much, but there are a few gems in it. One of them being the recipe I am about to share with you; it is super easy and can easily be made in 30 minutes if you have all your ingredients right at hand. This recipe calls for canned coconut milk and spinach, two things I thought I might never get Nate to consume. Not that I'm a huge fan of coconut milk either, but I do love spinach.

This curry is kind of incredible. Or at least I thought so. And Nate ate two full plates! With rice! Yeah, I was more than a little excited about that. Like I said, curry is my favourite. I don't know what I would do if he didn't like it, too.

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curry chicken (adapted from the Taste of Home Cookbook) 

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tsp curry powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 small onion, chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 can (14 ounces) coconut milk
2 tbsp tomato paste
3 cups fresh baby spinach
1 cup chopped tomato

Sprinkle chicken with curry, salt, and pepper. In a large skillet, saute chicken and onion in oil until chicken is no longer pink. Stir coconut milk and tomato paste into the chicken mixture; bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes or until thickened. Add spinach and tomato; cook 2-3 minutes longer or until spinach is wilted.
Serve with white rice.

Notes: The original recipe called for canola oil, but since I don't use that, I substituted olive oil. I also didn't really measure my spices, but that's obviously up to you! And I added one extra spice into the sauce; Berbere Seasoning from Penzeys Spices, which is super spicy but with only 1 tsp it added the perfect kick.