why we work -- journal

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Spring is finally here (this is at the busstop). And of course, posting this guarantees that I will be wearing the black puffy coat next week.

Comments: Post a Comment

Monday, April 16, 2007

Over the weekend I developed an unusual urge to make homemade ravioli. This was a good excuse for an excursion to Sur la Table, so an hour later we were the proud owners of an Atlas Pasta Machine and some ravioli stamps.

The dough is simple enough - 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon olive oil, and 3 eggs. Andy did the kneading, and after an initial outburst of "it's not working" and "you measured something wrong" he wound up with a perfect ball of dough which we let rest under plastic for 30 minutes.

Then we cut the ball in half, and ran each half through the pasta machine 2-3 times on the widest setting, and then a few more times on progressively narrower settings until we had a nice thin sheet of pasta. We were both surprised how well it was turning out, and how nothing had gone obviously wrong (yet). We used pretty much the entire kitchen island as the workspace, and covered both pieces with an eggwash made of 1 egg and 1 tablespoon water (which would act as glue to bond the pasta together after the filling was added).

Because this was just a proof of concept, I really didn't pay too much attention to the filling. One batch was meatloaf meat (ground pork, beef, and veal) cooked with garlic, marsala wine, italian seasonings, and parmesan cheese. The other batch was pureed pumpkin with a pinch of nutmeg and cinnamon. We added little dollops of each, folded the pasta over, and then used the ravioli stamps to cut them out. I put too much filling in, but none exploded.

Then we boiled them for 4 minutes (again, no explosions) and served it with a sauce that consisted of mushrooms, garlic, cream, red wine, and parmesan cheese. We ate it too fast to take a picture of the finished product. Next we'll have to try the spaghetti attachment...

Comments: Post a Comment

Friday, April 13, 2007

A few weeks ago, we were out and about and came across a monorail lighting system that we really liked for the kitchen so we decided that the original track lighting must go. In an ultimate geeky moment, I created a scale model of my vision using Google Sketchup - that's 6'5" Andy there, and my Second Life avatar who is a tad more fashionable than me and certainly not to scale :)

Because of the concrete (13') ceilings, we needed some professional assistance but the finished product looks great. Now we're on a bit of a lighting binge and trying to figure out how to replace all of the track lighting without impacting the travel budget.

Comments: Post a Comment