Homemade Pasta and 2/52

I told you yesterday that I had high hopes for dinner last night. Well it all turned out. A little bumpy getting there, but I got there.
I set out to give my first go at homemade pasta. It didn't look complicated, so I thought I could do it. To go along with the pasta I wanted to make the Olive Garden-like bread sticks I tried once before, another go. So I did the dough for those in the bread machine. When they were done, I got them rolled and baked. They were done way ahead of the pasta, but that was my fault. Oh well. If you want the recipe for those wonderful Olive Garden-like bread sticks, I got them from a blog called the Country Cook. Click and it will take you right to the recipe. They are pretty stinkin close if you ask me. They certainly satisfy the craving!
So then came the pasta. I browned up half of a pound of ground sausage to go with our pasta. Once it was done, I went looking for my sauce, so that they could simmer together for a while. Guess what I didn't have! Yeah....pasta sauce. I could have sworn there was one in there. But no...thankfully Ryan hadn't got home yet, so I had him stop and get a jar. Dinner saved!
So I did the dough in the kitchenaid. Seriously love that mixer. It did all of the work. I just poured in the ingredients. Let it rest for a bit and then divided it and went to rolling and cutting.

I had cleared off a section of counter top so that I had enough room to work. I could have used the table, but if I did that I would have had 4 additional and probably grubby hands trying to "help." By dividing the dough, I needed much less space than if I tried to do it in one sheet. I used a pizza cutter to cut the dough. I did try a knife, but that took a little longer. While my cuts weren't completely equal, I did a decent enough job. Half way through the rolling and cutting, I started the pot of water so that it would be boiling when I was done.

This last photo also brings me to the week 2 of 52 part of the post.

Anyway, it was good! I knew Ryan would be less than thrilled, because he really is NOT a pasta person. He tolerates it probably less than once a month from me. I love pasta! Dylan ate a lot of it. So it passed. I was worried that my fresh "linguine" sized noodles would cook into a much larger than normal "fettuchini" noodle, but they didn't! Somewhere between the 2 I'd say. While it was exactly hard, it was time consuming. It took a while to roll and cut all of it. If you'd like the recipe, CLICK HERE and you will be taken to the recipe. Time is about the only special ingredient you would need.

Very proud of myself for trying it and thrilled that it turned out!