Pasta!

Todays post is a little cooking lesson!  

I am going to show you frame by frame one of my favorite Pasta's - Beet!

Sound strange?  Well besides being about one of the prettiest colors you can eat it tastes delicious and the beet powder adds a healthy umph to a this carb load!

I am using White Whole Wheat bread flour  to make pasta today:

The ingredients:  I have to mention this, I usually make my pasta with this that and the other thing and very little measuring.  Now you may be reading this and thinking no this is all wrong, and you may be right technically, but when I am done my Pasta is very good.  

The basic recipe you: flour, egg, salt, olive oil.

1 egg per 1.5 cups of flour 1 TSB olive oil per cup flour .  Then I add the good stuff, spices, dehydrated veg powder ( I use, beet, spinach, pumpkin, carrot and tomato)  and then add water till the dough is just right.   I taste the dough, if a pinch raw does not taste good,  then it will be flat and horrible when cooked.  If I am going to eat all these carbs I want to make sure the taste is worth it!

I know everyone my mothers age just fainted when I said I ate raw dough.  If I told you what all goes into my protein shakes, you would say, so whats a pinch of raw dough, how many parts per million of salmonella and e-coli could be in there anyway??? 

The basic equipment besides my stand mixer:

Pasta roller, cutter, drying rack and cooking pot.

For years I used a hand crank pasta machine and it worked great, but using the kitchen aid attachments I can turn out a big batch in less than 20 minutes ( not counting the dough rest time) and it is really so much easier when you have limited counter space.

Today I am making a shocking red pasta!  I use beet powder in the dough mix, about 2 table spoons three cups of flour.  I add the flour, beet powder, salt, pepper,  1TBS onion powder  2 TBS olive oil

to the mixing bowl. Using the mixing paddle I give it  few seconds then add the eggs one at a time.

Here I adjust the "wetness" of the dough and add water or more flour and keep mixing

It takes about 3 minutes of the mixer on speed 3 to bring the mixture to the dough stage.  you will know when that happens:

At this point, turn the mixer off and removed paddle and add dough hook.

I let my dough "knead" for about 5-6 minutes, when it is ready  it will look like this:

it pulls off the side

 and makes a nice dough ball

I sprinkle with flour and wrap in saran and let rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes -you can let this rest all day if you want to!  

After resting it looks like this!

Now I put my roller attachment on my machine

I pull off a bit of dough and roll in flour and shape a bit

I am going to run this through the roller on the #1 setting.  After it goes through, I fold it in thirds and pass it through again. I do this three times, this action completes the kneading and helps it in the cutting process.  

I look like this for the first setting kneading

Now I run the pasta through each number setting down to 5, once per setting

I hang the pasta dough sheets on the drying rack 

I bring the rack over to the  machine, I attach the cutter and then run the dough sheets through. 

This  is what they look like.

It is very bright in color, but the taste is very mellow and rich.  Unfortunately the longer you cook this the more it looses color.  This is one pasta I only cook a few minutes before we eat.  Most people enjoy seeing their pasta hanging , drying.  I don't have pets here so I feel pretty safe about things not being airborne!

From here I drop this into the boiling water

 cooked and drained:  the cooking takes about 4 minutes!

I served this with a white sauce which included mushrooms, red onions, chicken, parmesan cheese and fresh spinach thrown in just before serving.  and I don't have a picture to show you of the finished plate!  Can you believe that!  My friend Terry arrived and it was time to eat! You'll just have to trust me is was good!  

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you try your hand at pasta making, there are many ways, you tube is a great resource for helping you find which method you like best, and once you start eating fresh pasta, you won't want to go back to buying it in a box!!

Ginny M