This week's Foodie Site Feature highlights a well-maintained and informative blog dedicated to food and cooking, aptly named, The Cooking Blog. It is run by Wendy Cooper of Canada and includes things like recipes, simple, fast and cheap recipes (like this one for Spring Ramen Chicken Soup), restaurant reviews, and even some reipces, tips, tricks, and advice for the kitchen pasta maker :) Check it out! There's lots to keep you in the know and eating well!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Kitchen Pasta Maker Featured Video: Kneading Pasta Dough
Kneading pasta dough is an important step in the process of making homemade pasta. It develops the dough and is integral in achieving the right consistency for the homemade pasta dough to work in your kitchen pasta maker. And so, today's kitchen pasta maker featured video is a quick but useful video to help you learn how to manage this important step.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Ravioli Success! Courtesy of my New Kitchen Pasta Maker
So I did it. I finally put my new kitchen pasta maker to work. And it was a great success!
My youngest son loves ravioli
, so in celebration of his birthday last week I decided to put my ravioli form
to work and make him a batch. This was the first run for any of the kitchen pasta maker equipment I had purchased. It was also the first time ever that I had made either fresh homemade pasta or ravioli. All in all, I'm calling it a success and a great first experience making pasta at home.
Because my kitchen pasta maker (the CucinaPro pasta machine I purchased a few weeks back from Amazon) was new, I made extra dough to begin with to run through and clean out all of the bits left from manufacture. This is recommended for all new machines, and it did actually take quite a bit of cleaning. Not difficult, but definitely something you want to plan for the first run through and leave the time and extra dough for.
When I bought my kitchen pasta maker, I bought a separate form for the ravioli, not a pasta maker ravioli attachment. It was a ravioli maker and press, which I thought for me would be easier to manage than the ravioli attachment
for the hand pasta maker (but who knows - maybe I'm wrong ;) ). Thus, my method was to press the dough down to a thinness appropriate for the ravioli (on my machine I went down to the "7" setting - it goes to 9 but I thought 7 was thin enough), lay the form out right in front of the machine and lay it over the form right from the press. Then it was press the form, fill, and run another layer over the top, and roll to seal and cut over the top of the form with the rolling pin. [I did also end up with a little extra pasta dough, and so ran that through the linguine cutter on my kitchen pasta machine and refrigerated them, then cooked them up quick last night and tossed with some butter, garlic, salt and pepper. In the words of that famous Ray, "Delish!"]
This method worked well. It was a little time-consuming, but then I made a very large batch (probably 3 or 4 times the recipe) and it was my very first time. All told, start to finish, I think I spent about two and a half hours. That sounds like a lot, but keep in mind my learning curve and the fact that the pasta machine was new and so a fair amount of time was spent in set-up and cleaning, etc. I did, however, also think that this would be a great project to do with a friend or two in assembly-line fashion (not necessary, but could be a good time with a bottle of wine :) ); this could especially be helpful if you were planning ahead and making a big batch to freeze and use in the future.
As for the ravioli, it tasted great and was a big hit. The birthday boy ate so much he couldn't even finish his cake! For sure this is something I'll be doing again and again!
My youngest son loves ravioli
, so in celebration of his birthday last week I decided to put my ravioli form to work and make him a batch. This was the first run for any of the kitchen pasta maker equipment I had purchased. It was also the first time ever that I had made either fresh homemade pasta or ravioli. All in all, I'm calling it a success and a great first experience making pasta at home.Because my kitchen pasta maker (the CucinaPro pasta machine I purchased a few weeks back from Amazon) was new, I made extra dough to begin with to run through and clean out all of the bits left from manufacture. This is recommended for all new machines, and it did actually take quite a bit of cleaning. Not difficult, but definitely something you want to plan for the first run through and leave the time and extra dough for.
When I bought my kitchen pasta maker, I bought a separate form for the ravioli, not a pasta maker ravioli attachment. It was a ravioli maker and press
, which I thought for me would be easier to manage than the ravioli attachment for the hand pasta maker (but who knows - maybe I'm wrong ;) ). Thus, my method was to press the dough down to a thinness appropriate for the ravioli (on my machine I went down to the "7" setting - it goes to 9 but I thought 7 was thin enough), lay the form out right in front of the machine and lay it over the form right from the press. Then it was press the form, fill, and run another layer over the top, and roll to seal and cut over the top of the form with the rolling pin. [I did also end up with a little extra pasta dough, and so ran that through the linguine cutter on my kitchen pasta machine and refrigerated them, then cooked them up quick last night and tossed with some butter, garlic, salt and pepper. In the words of that famous Ray, "Delish!"]This method worked well. It was a little time-consuming, but then I made a very large batch (probably 3 or 4 times the recipe) and it was my very first time. All told, start to finish, I think I spent about two and a half hours. That sounds like a lot, but keep in mind my learning curve and the fact that the pasta machine was new and so a fair amount of time was spent in set-up and cleaning, etc. I did, however, also think that this would be a great project to do with a friend or two in assembly-line fashion (not necessary, but could be a good time with a bottle of wine :) ); this could especially be helpful if you were planning ahead and making a big batch to freeze and use in the future.
As for the ravioli, it tasted great and was a big hit. The birthday boy ate so much he couldn't even finish his cake! For sure this is something I'll be doing again and again!
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Kitchen Pasta Maker Video Feature: Kitchenaid Pasta Dough Recipe
I chose this video for our featured kitchen pasta maker video this week because it teaches you how to make dough with your Kitchenaid or stand mixer. Note, it does show you how to use a KitchenAid mixer pasta maker
attachment, but the first part is instruction for making the dough with the stand mixer - without the hand kneading and mess.
I do own a KitchenAid, which I love and use to the level of abuse (but of course it takes it :) ), but I have not yet invested in a KitchenAid mixer pasta maker attachment. I bought instead this hand-crank kitchen pasta maker for the affordability of it, but one day I certainly may invest in the KitchenAid pasta maker. For now, my plan is to use the CucinaPro pasta maker that I did purchase but to mix the dough with my Kitchenaid - something like this:
attachment, but the first part is instruction for making the dough with the stand mixer - without the hand kneading and mess. I do own a KitchenAid, which I love and use to the level of abuse (but of course it takes it :) ), but I have not yet invested in a KitchenAid mixer pasta maker attachment. I bought instead this hand-crank kitchen pasta maker for the affordability of it, but one day I certainly may invest in the KitchenAid pasta maker. For now, my plan is to use the CucinaPro pasta maker that I did purchase but to mix the dough with my Kitchenaid - something like this:
Monday, May 9, 2011
Kitchen Pasta Maker CucinaPro 177 - In the house!
It's here! My new kitchen pasta maker, the CucinaPro 177 CucinaPro Pasta Fresh, arrived last week. Please do not let my lack of instantaneous posting make you think I was not excited or did not appreciate the arrival. The real problem was that I was refinishing the hardwood floors in my kitchen and dining room and pantry; that made it a little difficult to get elbow-deep into making fresh pasta. Soon, though, soon. My floors have cured and we are ready to get things back in order. As soon as my kitchen furniture is restored, I'll be trying out my new kitchen pasta maker, and I'll be bright back here to let you all know what I think and review this kitchen pasta maker!
For the time being, my initial impressions are that the CucinaPro 177 Pasta Fresh Pasta Machine
is sturdy and seemingly well-built. As many people said on the CucinaPro pasta maker reviews on Amazon, I actually was a bit surprised by the weight and construction of this kitchen pasta maker, considering that I bought for only about $30. As we all know, these days 30 buck usually gets you a piece of flimsy plastic, but that is certainly not the case with this pasta maker. Solid, weighty stainless- steel construction has me thinking this kitchen pasta maker will be a stable, handy small appliance for quite some time to come!
For the time being, my initial impressions are that the CucinaPro 177 Pasta Fresh Pasta Machine
is sturdy and seemingly well-built. As many people said on the CucinaPro pasta maker reviews on Amazon, I actually was a bit surprised by the weight and construction of this kitchen pasta maker, considering that I bought for only about $30. As we all know, these days 30 buck usually gets you a piece of flimsy plastic, but that is certainly not the case with this pasta maker. Solid, weighty stainless- steel construction has me thinking this kitchen pasta maker will be a stable, handy small appliance for quite some time to come!
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