Monday night I made the best meal of my life probably. It was a home run, definitely out of the park. I was cooking for my roommate Brittany and her boyfriend Tony, who had made dinner for us nearly a year ago. Polly also was home and was invited to eat with us. It was a beautiful Monday night and we took advantage of it by eating on the deck.
Now I got my pasta maker last Wednesday after I took my pasta making class at Bon Vivant. I was determined to use it. I made the dinner all myself but Bryan helped me work the dough and form the pasta because it really is a two person job and he likes working with dough. Flour, salt and eggs, that’s it, that’s all that goes in basic pasta dough. I incorporated the flour, he kneaded for nearly 10 minutes, I fed the dough through the machine to knead and roll it, he cranked the wheel, I fed it through the machine to cut it into linguine shape, he cranked the wheel. Laid out to dry on a metal rack and voila, pasta is done! That was the easy part, lol.
Then I shooed everyone out of the kitchen with homemade bruschetta to eat and drink their wine on the porch. For the sauce to the pasta I had a vision but no specific recipe. I did use a few helpful ingredients. Into the sauce went:
- A few spoonfuls of Trader Joe’s pesto sauce
- Half a jar of sun-dried tomatoes in oil
- Zest of a lemon
- Half of a lemon juice
- One clove of garlic grated
- A few glugs of EVOO
- A spoonful of crushed red chili flakes
- A head of cooked broccoli that I roughly chopped
- Handful of chopped pistachios
- Quarter cup of good freshly grated Parmesan
The pasta, being fresh, cooked in about five minutes time. It took two batches to cook all of the pasta and once done I scooped it out of the pot and into the pan with the sauce along with some of the pasta water. I had the boys grill some pesto marinated chicken breasts on the grill and then I sliced these and topped the pasta with them and another few tablespoons of that good grated Parmesan. This was fantastic. The noodles were perfect! Slightly thick, slightly chewy, and so, so fresh! Bryan and I did a great job for our first time.
Aside from the pasta I made a killer salad. I attempted at roasting beets and it was a success. I had put the beet in foil in a hot oven for about an hour and a half until soft and then let cool. I sliced the beets and an orange and green onions and tossed these with the awesome red leaf lettuce that I bought at the Ballard Farmers Market and raspberry vinaigrette and then topped that with a fair amount of good goat cheese and a handful of chopped pistachios. So amazing and I love how the beets color the salad!
You know it’s a good meal when your friends are literally fighting over the last bites on the plate. That and when they use the last bit of the bread to even soak up the last bit of juices. And we definitely didn’t have a small amount of pasta that we are talking about. And when you break out and finish the second bottle of wine for the table. And when you leave the dishes to go walk to get Menchies on a fine spring/summer night.
Ahh, yes, I love these kind of nights! I don’t want to leave my house!!!!!
Chelsea
Evolving in the Emerald City 