A Fresh Start

Reading my sister's blog and seeing all her friends posting there has motivated me to write a bit more. I was spoiled this Christmas with a breadmaker. I've been wanting one for a while and made do with the food processor and mixer (and the top of the coffee machine for proofing) but this is so much easier! It' s so easy in fact, that we bought our dear friend one for Christmas so that he can tell all the girls he meets that he bakes. What gal wouldn't love a guy who can do that?

With all the snow we got this winter, we got rather snowbound, which isn't a bad thing, until you start to get cabin fever. For me it was a chance to do alot more baking (3 different types of bread in the first couple of days of having the breadmaker) as well as doing other cooking. I decided, since I had bought 36 eggs, that it was a good time to make pasta. I have 2 different pasta machines, one which kneads and rolls out the dough (kinda like the Playdoh machine for making hair) and the second one is just the one that rolls the dough. I decided to use the latter because I thought I would try and make some turkey tortellini/ravioli. There's something very comforting and down to earth about running the dough through the pasta machine. As you turn the dial to get the dough thinner and longer, it's almost sexy in a way. I think I'm chanelling Nigella.

I made the ravioli but as we weren't having it that same night, I decided to store it. Note to self for next time, dust with more flour! By the time I got around to cooking it, the dough had congealed into one big lump and wouldn't separate nicely for love or money. Come to think of it, what would ravioli want with either anyway? So I ended up cooking it for a lot longer than I would've if the pasta was fresh, but the porcini mushroom sauce I made to go with it made it all worthwhile.