Meatless Monday - Homemade Pasta!

This weekend I was given a lovely surprise by Ma. After hearing that I had hand grated an insane amount of summer squash and made gallons of pesto using a not-so-hot blender, Ma took things into her own hands and got me a lovely food processor! I had borrowed a processor from a friend during my baby food making days but had never gotten around to actually buying one for myself. Since returning the loaned one, I had avoided recipes that required processing and done my best to convince myself I really didn't need another kitchen gadget.

Good thing Ma has my back.

Sunday night was spent Googling "best uses for a food processor". Google has my back too.

Pasta kept popping up on lists so I decided to check out what the cookbooks had to say. They agreed.

I went with a recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook because it had pictures and a whole lot of extra info on how the eff I was going to do this... and spinach. I like spinach.

I added the flour, salt and eggs and got to processing. It worked! Things looked cornmeal-esq. Next the spinach. Things looked green. I kept it running and poured in the oil and water.

Suddenly, dough! (I later explained this process to my darling husband to which he responded quite confused, "Wait. That's all noodles are!?" It's OK hunny, I was amazed too.)

I pulled it out and got to rolling.

The dough rolled beautifully. Seriously. It was smooth, not sticky and a little springy. I had trouble getting each ball rolled into 12 x 12 squares and getting it super thin but I did my best.

From there I rolled up each sheet for cutting into noodles.

All that was left was to hang the noodles. Hmmmmm.... but where? And on what?

I fashioned a string line in the kitchen and pulled out some hangers. That'll do.

Now, what to do with these fab little green noodles? I didn't want anything too flavorful because I wanted to make sure the noodles could be tasted. (Because I assumed there would be a taste to them, more on that in a bit), I tasked myself to a basic white sauce with the intention of adding some of my now dried herb harvest and garlic.

Creamy herb garlic noodles, yeah that sounds good!

And then I forgot to add the garlic. You know, the most important thing when you're talking creamy herb garlic noodles. Son of a...

So I threw in some peas. That makes sense, right?

No, not a great pic, actually quite nasty looking... but you get the idea. 

The sauce was borderline flavorless. As were the noodles. Which leads me to believe that if HAD done the sauce correctly, this would have been a home run... or at least a triple.

Next time. Next time.

Also next time, I need to try and get the dough a little thinner since the hubs complained the noodles were a bit "chewy" (he's right, they were). Also, I might go ahead and add a bit of herbs directly to the dough, just 'cuz.


So yes, I made my own noodles! And it wasn't that hard! And I think they could be good!



One more thing. Did you know you can make your own butter with a food processor?! AND buttermilk!? Google said so. That might be a little too ridiculous though.

I say that now but wait until we're in the dead of winter, I might get antsy enough to try...