52 To Do

Last night was a fun night of pasta making with friends. We had a little Monday night football and spaghetti production. I’ve always wanted to learn how to make my own pasta and it was surprisingly easy to make (spaghetti at least). It was just two simple ingredients to make the pasta dough: semolina and water.

You take 2 1/2 cups of semolina and add 1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup lukewarm water. All purpose flour is good to have on hand for dusting. You start by mixing the dough and water until it is crumbly and then transfer to an un-floured surface to knead the dough for about 9 minutes until is is smooth and elastic. The dough then sits in a dusted glass container for 30 min covered. Now the past fun begins.

Somehow we found ourselves pushed out of the way by our husbands in terms of the spaghetti production. I guess it had the right amount of gadgetry to it. We were using my friend Jess’s KitchenAid attachment which makes it pretty easy. You just take small segments of dough, drop them in and the machine does the rest. You just cut it off when it gets long enough and set it aside on a dusted surface to dry a bit.

It just took about 4 minutes in boiling water with a little oil & salt and it was done. What better accompaniment to homemade spaghetti than homemade meatballs & sauce? Jess made her mom, Deborah’s favorite meatball recipe along with her San Marzano tomato sauce. Between the pasta and the meatballs it was an amazing meal. Homemade pasta really does taste so much fresher.

Making pasta was a lot of fun. I would say the men were even more interested in pasta making than football there for a little while. Some were having more fun than others: