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30 October 2012

Colorado Dreaming

We made our first visit to Ft. Collins, and had such a good time. Halloween was just around the corner, so we got a sampling of what the little girls had in mind for their trick-or-treating.  Grandma just might have eaten too many caramels before finally managing to make the promised carmel corn.
 
 


 
 
We had a great hike with JF at Horse Tooth Reservoir. Gorgeous! 





Someone showed up for the hike in her slippers...




 


 
LG's school, which is very near their home.

 

15 October 2012

PASTA CARBONARA



 
Can't remember the last time I made homemade pasta. Reminiscing with CA about the pasta carbonara we've enjoyed in France--hot pasta nests served with a raw egg yolk in the center--led me to Inspired Taste's recipe. Delicious.

Not a difficult recipe, but timing is of the essence. You want to make sure the pasta mixture is hot enough to cook each individual plate's raw egg. We used four slices of Nueske's bacon and had some steamed sweet peas as a side dish.

When thinking through this recipe earlier today, I decided only homemade pasta was worthy. We were rather piggish tonight, and managed to eat the whole recipe of linguine.


Basic Pasta Dough

1-1/2 Cups Flour
2 xl  Eggs
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 T. Oil
1 tsp. Water

1. Heap flour and salt into the center of a floured board; make a large indentation in the center of the heap.
2. Crack the eggs into the flour well; add the oil and water.
3. Blend together with pastry scraper (scraping from outside-in on all four sides) until well mixed. Continue blending with fingers until dough comes together.
4. Gently knead until dough smooths a bit; cut into two pieces; cover one-half with plastic wrap and shape the other into a rectangle that is approximately 3" x 5".
5. Feed short end of dough rectangle through pasta rollers at the widest setting (#1 on my machine). Refold dough into same sized rectangle and repeat process until dough is smooth. Then, continue rolling dough through each numbered setting (#2 through #5; skip #6).
6. Repeat process with second half of dough.
7. Let dough strips rest and dry a bit.
8. Cut each length into three pieces and run all six lengths through a pasta cutter--linguine or fettuccine widths.

13 October 2012

A PERFECT FALL DAY

 
 
 

A perfect Autumn day... Maybe not for everyone, but for me a grey, windy, rainy day is the best excuse to find my favorite sweater, a good book, and a comfortable chair. It's too sloppy to wander about aimlessly, and most errands can wait. No guilt. Just permission to enjoy the weather on the inside looking out.