homemade

Flour and Eggs

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I thank my papa for my DIY-determination in the kitchen.  As long as I remember he has  whipped up fresh bread, tofu from homegrown soybeans, cheese and yogurt from the cow in the yard, peanut butter from homegrown peanuts, fresh pressed apple cider, beer with hops he grew, sauerkraut, pickles; the list could go on and on.

One of the kitchen projects I have been long-intrigued by but had yet to tackle was pasta.  Many of you probably know from past posts that I’m not a huge pasta fan, but that’s only partly true.  I would always choose fresh bread over some run-of-the-mill dry boxed spaghetti but homemade pasta is a different story.

When a friend offered to show me how to turn flour and eggs into ribbons of perfectly tender and chewy pasta I was, of course, delighted.  He has made pasta in several restaurants and had a pasta company for a while, selling homemade ravioli to local restaurants.

Don’t forget plenty of salt! Some will be sacrificed to the cooking water…

The dough is kneaded by hand with more flour slowly added.

I was surprised by how quickly everything came together.  You do let the dough rest briefly between kneading but nothing like the rise time for bread.  My friend was once challenged to make and serve fresh pasta in under 30 minutes.  They were eating 27 minutes later.

More flour is gently incorporated as you slowly thin the dough to the desired size.  This is the part that looks the most fun and most challenging to me.

Carbonara!

With Pacific Cod, green beans, and garlic.

The truth is, I still haven’t made pasta.  I (wo)man’d the (iphone) camera* while my friend did all the work.  BUT I’m a visual learner and now I will have a much better understanding of the process when I tackle making pasta all by myself.

*blogger fail! I was seriously missing my camera!

Good eatin’.

Electrified

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Where ever you are, I hope you’ve weathered the storm just fine.

[Friday night a wild storm hit the region with crazy winds, taking down everything from fences to 30 foot trees.]

We were out of town for the weekend and came home to no electricity, thirsty and blown over tomatoes, and lots of small branches in the yard but overall unscathed. We threw a bag of ice in the freezer and found some air conditioning to sleep in, no big deal.

My heart goes out to those on the East coast who haven’t fared the last 72 hours as well.  West Virginia was hit hard, no electricity* for dozens of miles and a threat of water outages.  There were fights breaking out at the few gas stations that were open as people waited in line for hours to fill up.

*my momma hates it when electricity is referred to as power, so that’s for you momma.

The electric at the house is still out, which is ironic because today I am posting lights!

Thanks for the comments, congratulations, and questions about the kitchen!  It is just about done and I will post a few more pics later in the week.

Today is all about our homemade Ball jar pendant.  This project was a typical collaboration between Tate and; I had the inspiration and he followed through on the execution.

Start with an installed pendant light fixture kit from Lowe’s, like this one.

Punch holes in the lid to let out any heat build up** and cut out a hole big enough for the light socket.

Place ring and lid on the upper side of socket.

 

Fasten in place with gasket (included in light kit).

Screw in the light bulb appropriate for the light.

Screw the wide mouth jar onto the ring and voila!

Finished!

These lights caste some interesting shadows on the walls, which at first I wasn’t sure about but now I really enjoy the crystally light play.  We intended these to be a place hold until we found some pendants we love but they may just be permanent.

**I have no idea whether it is a really bad idea to put a light bulb in a jar like this.  There’s not much heat build up at all but I’m just saying…I take no responsibility for the safety of this project, I’m just showing you what we did.