They know us so well

Our Christmas was full of wonderful and thoughtful gifts from our families. I'm so excited about incorporating many of these into our lives and will probably tell you about various ones over the course of the next few weeks. (I'm a little late b/c of some poorly planned school-related yuck).

One of the first gifts we tried out was our new pasta machine.

Image from here

 Round 1 was an-almost-epic fail.

Mistake #1: We started on the pasta making (which we were going to eat for dinner) at 7pm. This is usually not a good thing for me.

Image from here

Mistake #2: We did NO reading/researching or otherwise to help us prepare for this. Nope, instead we just dove right in.

And the result of this was a lot of frustration, a lot of pasta on the floor (Gracie was most excited about that), and dinner at 9:30 (which is a bit late for us these days).

The aftermath of Round 1

But I do have to say the pasta was still mighty tasty.

Mixing the pasta with the pancetta. Although a painful process, the final product was yummy!!

 
Round 2 of pasta making was much more successful. The husband was determined to make the second round much more pleasant. He gathered a few tips online and away he went. In no time, he had rolled the sheets out and cut the pasta. A quicker and more positive experience this time around!

The tips that were most helpful to us were to let the pasta rest before cutting it with the machine, use flour at every step, and fold the pasta into squares to get even sheets. You can find more helpful tips at these sites, including how-to's without a pasta machine (just as easy).

  

Michael Ruhlman 

David Lebovitz

The Italian Dish

A Couple of Cooks

With or without a pasta machine, I would highly recommend you try it!