Reporting for Pasta Duty

When did I become a foodie? Remember how I used to be a terrible cook or at least I thought I was a terrible cook? Turns out I’m not anymore and I LOVE cooking!  I love cooking, I love finding new recipes to try, I love watching cooking shows. I’ve jumped on the cooking bandwagon like nobody’s business.

The other day I got a crazy bee in my bonnet that I wanted to try fasting. It was a really stupid idea. I read some article about eating less and living longer and I was wondering IF I could do it. You know, as a challenge now that I’m so healthy with all my crazy intense yoga workouts. You can tell where this is going. I have “Big Fat Fool” written on my forehead.

It turns out I can fast. I can push past the hunger no problem but I don’t like fasting! I lasted all day on coffee and water until 5:30 pm. You know why? Because I missed cooking!  Seriously. I’m pathetic. Maybe if I had had some religious reason for fasting I would have lasted longer.

I found myself migrating to the couch because I had no energy and my brain refused to work on anything creative. Before I knew it I was watching cooking shows and it was driving me crazy. I think I was trying to eat/cook vicariously.  I was lost without something to do at my usual cooking time.

And I had Blue Apron ingredients in my refrigerator calling me because if I didn’t cook them on the right day they would go bad. So I gave in. Actually Payam and I tossed a coin to decide if we should give in (he was fasting with me like a total champ) and of course two out of three gave us the answer we really wanted.

Pathetic.

I’ve got the kids cooking now too. They are the perfect age to learn how to cook. They are willing and capable to handle sharp knives and hot pots without hurting themselves and they are still young enough that they think it’s fun and they don’t roll their eyes at me with attitude about it. Bug made Taco Bowls and Joon made spaghetti (with a side of zucchini and sausage for the grown-ups). I was really proud of them.  Maybe, just maybe my new love of cooking is rubbing off on them.

I’ve been trying to try one new recipe a week. They say that’s a great way to keep your brain growing and improving as you get older. I’m horrible at Sudoko so recipes it is! So far I’ve learned how to make pot stickers, sticky chicken wings, a ton of Blue Apron recipes…AND PASTA!

YES! I made homemade pasta!  Payam bought me a pasta roller attachment to go with my mixer for my birthday and I had to try it out right away or else I knew it would just sit in the cupboard and get dusty. I’m so glad I did too because guess what?! It’s easy! Like easier than baking a pie.

I’m still curious about making it without a mixer and completely by hand. I spend a lot of time on pinterest looking at food photography and I’m very intrigued by the whole mound of flour with eggs in the middle. I do want to try that. But in the meantime, I made my dough in my mixer and it was pretty much perfect.

The pasta dough went through the roller like butter. It was so fun.

However, making raviolis from my beautifully flattened pasta dough was probably not the best choice of first pasta to make.  I had no clue how to center my filling in between the pasta sheets without wasting a ton of space but I sort of managed. They looked like a kindergartener made them and I threw out about half of the dough just because it was contaminated with filling and I didn’t want to run it through the roller again.

I also had the not-so-bright idea to use some fresh corn, that needed to be eaten, in my filling. The extra water content from the corn made the sausage filling lose and kind of weird which made the whole dish a little off. But we smeared some extra spicy, doctored-up marinara on top and those raviolis got eaten up, no problem.

Next I’m going to try fettuccini!